Since I hadn't played any better platform games, I loved this back in the day. Coming back to it in 2020, it's still sort of fun, but it's just very evident that it wouldn't make a top 1.000 list of most well designed platform games from a gameplay perspective. It's very, very, very simplistic and the level design is sort of a disorganized mess. Just turn your brain off and vibe to the music while blasting turtles. Then it's actually kind of a good time.
I love old-school first person shooters, so this is right up my alley. Neat visual aesthetic, powerful weapons, powerups, monstrous enemies and often complex level design with lots of secrets. The level design does get a lot better in the first leg of the final episode, so I suspect the levels in episodes one and two were created first - in that order. All bosses in the game are a let down. A proud FPS tradition, really :/ Still, it's buckets of fun and I'm nearly done with my second run all the way through the game. As far as "modern retro shooters" go, my ranking looks something like this: 1) Amid Evil 2) Project Warlock 3) Ion Fury 4) Dusk
Jagged Alliance was a pretty cool game. This "sequel" isn't. Really dull gameplay with frequently annoying control issues. Sometimes, it doesn't make any sense how some enemies can see you, but others can't. It also has ugly, primitive graphics, but still runs my laptop red hot for some reason. The really cool thing about JA 1, 2 and Deadly Games was that you hired mercenaries and managed them as you attempted to solve the varying big, challenging missions. JA Rage consists of a series of small maps that you take on in a linear fashion, with zero wider strategic components. Take down the nearest guard, take down the next one in line, etc. Two characters on the map instead of a full team. 6 to choose from instead of dozens... At least the music didn't suck.
I feel like all discussion of this games merits are pointless as long as it is THIS broken. Playing on a modern PC - which all of you will - the game is simply broken. Hit detection is nearly non-existent. You will waste all of your ammo on 1 to 3 enemies, then run out, because your shots mostly pass right through. I'm not bad at aiming either. You can have a target take up 25% of your screen space and still see most of your shots pass right through. It is a bug that results from the game not being able to handle the fast CPU speeds of modern computers. Everyone says the supposed "fix" is bad, since it will make the game run all choppy and just become unplayable in another way instead. Most of all, I'm baffled that GOG thinks it's ok to keep asking money for this. It wouldn't be worth the download if it was free.
A great example of a game that's only well known for anything else than the gameplay. The gameplay is simplistic and dull. It's pretty rare that you find an action game that makes you feel like you've seen everything after 4 minutes.
Play this on Steam instead. This version is no easier to get working in Win 10, but it's doable. The problem is, that once you've finally made it run full-screen, there's still no music and saves are broken for the expansions... I only bought it to play the expansions, so that's a bummer. DON'T BUY THIS ON GOG
Doesn't look like much, but it's a blast to play. I bought this game way back in the 90's and I've played it almost as much over the years as I've played Duke Nukem 3D and Shadow Warrior. Lots of weapons, fun level design, good feel to the mechanics, interesting and unusual style. It might seem offputting at first, but once you get into this strange sci-fi world, it's got quite an atmosphere. The music/ambience is very effective. It's on my list of 90's FPS favorites, along with Rise of the Triad, Duke 3D, Shadow Warrior, Doom and Doom 2. Doesn't cost a lot, so if you love games like this...
It may seem weird that my biggest gripe with this game is that it's too long. I can finish Doom 1, 2, Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior and several other old shooters without feeling like they dragged on, but Ion Fury stretches things almost to the breaking point. Taken on their own, each level is really well crafted, detailed, cleverly laid out... but by the time the final boss finally died in a massive explosion, I felt like I couldn't possibly stomach playing any games with military installations and nondescript industrial areas again for at least one month. The bits of scenic variety you get is refreshing but too rare and short lived. The, comparatively, more bite sized levels of the 90s shooters that this game clearly takes it's inspirations from felt way more like they had their own personality and stood out more clearly in your mind. In Ion Fury, it's a blur of switches, pipes, ladders, crates and techy looking walls. Still. Rock solid combat, great level design, really good weapon selection (all weapons are useful, none get old to use), fun enemies (although, given the length of the game, it really needed just a few more types) and also really nice, artfully handled graphics. Very recommended. You probably know whether you'd like this sort of game or not before you even try it.
This game makes me a bit sad. The sprite artwork and the soundtrack is really damn good! On top of that, the story has a lot of funny moments that made me laugh out loud. It's childish, but risque and stupid enough to be amusing for an adult anyway. Sadly, all of this good stuff is wasted on a quite mediocre platformer. The problem isn't even the basic mechanics, as the controls and various special moves work quite well. The problem is how trivial and bland the level design is. Basically, most of the hazardous areas you'll be traversing aren't much of a challenge. I suck very badly at platformers, but I still found most parts of this game to be a boring cakewalk. Enemies are kinda pointless, as they deal very little damage and you can easily use any of your many healing items from the safety of your pause menu at any time, so if you die to regular enemies, it'll be just because you forgot to heal. Bosses? Pause, heal and use potions that increase your attack damage -> spam attack -> repeat until you win. Even if you only halfways manage to figure out their attack patterns, the bosses are easy. The layouts of the various areas aren't very interesting either. Sometimes, there might be an interesting use of moving platforms or spikes, but mostly, things feel thrown into the levels with a shovel. It's just not very good level design. There's also some weirdly inconsistent handling of difficulty. One moment, you're falling into pits and losing only 1/4 of a heart (of which you can have many), the next moment, spikes will instantly murder you upon touch. This results in a few moments late in the game being roughly 1000 times harder than anything that's come before, which feels very wrong. Challenge at last! But I'd have preferred a curve that made more sense. You gotta build up to those "I'm a game designer and I hate you" moments! And then there's the boring backtracking where I mostly just use the hat to float over enemies to save time. Disappointing game :/
This is not a score for the game as it was back in the day, but for how worth your money it is on a modern PC. Lots of people can't run this, it seems. Neither could I. In fact, it crashed so violently that I spent minutes trying to get my PC to respond enough to even attempt a reboot, which then had to be forced since Windows couldn't end any processes currently running. Don't waste your money.
