Ion Fury

Salt gave me this game on Xmas 2023, even though he knows I hate annoying-looking women. It's fun, though. Thanks Salt. :steamsalty:

Ion Fury is a great game that is incredible in both gameplay and how the devs pushed through the engine limitations. I know It's annoying to talk about the engine of the game of all things, and everyone else talks about that, but it feels required to talk about the engine used. The Build Engine, (most known for Duke Nukem 3D) but was also used in many other games like Blood, Shadow Warrior, NAM, Powerslave, WW2 GI, looking at all of these games, they were good graphically for their times, and I love most these games (not you WW2 GI). But I feel different about Ion Fury, because many moments in Ion Fury look graphically awesome and make me gasp at how high quality this is despite the dated engine. I know, this game is pixelated and the style is VERY retro compared to your favorite games (you mouthbreathing Call of Duty critter reading this, just kidding lol) but so many times I have taken a small break from playing the game for a few seconds, and just staring at the skybox. There are so many buildings detailed with names and little references everywhere, lights shooting out into the sky and rotating. Do you see this type of detail in any modern game? Not even in any modern game, ANY game? I love these graphics, and how much detail they put into a game with purposefully dated graphics. The artstyle is awesome, the details are awesome. This is a game. Of course this is a game on Steam and I'm reviewing it, so I'll finally stop wasting your time and actually talk about the MAIN thing. The gameplay is very fast paced, and if you know where you are going (keep this sentence I have said in mind) it has perfect flow, very engaging and is ACTIONey. Every weapon feels powerful and unique. The baton is electric and the alt fire makes it turn into essentially a weak chainsaw. The revolver has unique design (with the massive actual revolver part of the gun holding several bullets, just look at the texture) which the alt fire makes your aim lock on to enemies and do a double shot, which can kill most humanoid enemies. The shotgun is basically an ordinary shotgun, but the alt click lets you load either shotgun shells or grenade shells, which is the least unique weapon in the game (in my opinion) but it's still unique with the mix of a shotgun and grenade launcher. The SMGs have incendiary bullets and the alt fire lets you toggle dual wielding the SMGs. There is the icon of this game, the bowling balls which roll and can get picked up again, but they explode when they touch enemies, and you can alt fire to light it and use it as a more ordinary grenade. The clusterpuck is simple. Just a grenade that explodes into little cluster bombs. The Ion bow is like the rifle equivalent of this game, but as the name says, it's a bow instead and its alt fire loads several shots at once. A bow shotgun is not quite ordinary! And the beautiful chaingun.. it's an ordinary chain gun in a game, and the alt fire spins the barrel without shooting so you don't have to wait for it to spin up when turning a corner or something. The game is great and very unique. But the story is basic (in a good way, which benefits the style). The story is just, "I'm Shelly Bombshell, a GDF unit who is going to hunt down Dr. Heskal, who is taking over the place with his army of bad guys." The reason why the story is basic is because this game tries to emulate other Build Engine games that this was inspired by, like Duke Nukem 3D. This game is an action game that makes fun of repetitive effects in most action media like everything blowing up. Don't play this because of the story lol, this is an action game, and that's what this is supposed to be. Now for the issue in this game, which I can't get mad over because the rest of the game is awesome, and this issue is common among most classic FPS games. Many times you run around maps on your first playthrough stuck. With no idea on where to go or where the key to the door you found, or where the exit is. But this issue is less apparent than in other FPS games, as I have only gotten stuck for a few minutes before finding my way, while in other games I get lost for longer times. This is a little issue, and you can always watch some playthough on Youtube to find out where to go if you get stuck. It's not too much of a problem. The music is awesome, I can't explain it, just listen to some music in it for free on Youtube! Overall, this game is great, with only a few small problems, and so many details put by the developers. So many references and secrets hidden through all of the levels. This game is great! I would give this game a 9/10, great gameplay with a ton of unique weapons and design choices, mapping and levels are beautiful especially for the Build Engine, the story is basic to replicate Duke Nukem 3D, music is great, issue common among most classic FPS games about running around maps not knowing where to go is present. Good game, small errors. Play it if you want and have some money.