Ion Fury, previously known as Ion Maiden, is an Old-School FPS in the vein of Doom, Wolfenstein and Duke Nukem 3D. You play as Shelly "Bombshell", a policewoman (private security? Something) whose night out drinking is ruined by a mad scientist and his army of cybernetic goons, so you head out into that crazy city to kick some ass with a small army's worth of weapons.
First and foremost, the story is basically nonexistent. You get more from the splash screen than you do for the entire first half of the game that I finished. And hey that's fine, some games don't need a story. There's a few bits here and there of Dr. Bad Guy (not his actual name) monologueing through a screen at Shelly and she has some witty retort to him, but that's about all you get. Shelly herself has comments about things that are going on but they're usually just some hardass/snarky one liners rather than any actual window into who her character is. She's not even a one-dimensional character, just seems to say things just to break up the fights.
Gameplay wise things are thankfully much deeper. There are about 7~8 guns that I unlocked, all of which have some sort of alternate fire mode to play around with. There's a revolver with auto aim, a shot-gun with built in grenade launcher, incediary dual SMGs... a very nice selection of killing tools. Sadly the enemy variety is not quite where it needs to be, the vast majority of enemies are the hooded humanoid goons that just use your own kind of guns against you that you need to maneuver around. There's a few other oddball cybernetic enemies, skulls on spider legs, armored centipedes, that kind of thing, but the bread and butter is the basic humanoid enemies. Their AI is pretty dumb, they are sometimes placed in clever areas to force you to think on your toes in case of a trap, but the actual AI just has them mostly stand there and shoot at you. This is an old school shooter so you are CONSTANTLY flying around the map, so it might be a bit too difficult to judge your shots if you and the enemy are both moving all of the time..
I only completed about half the game and then I stopped. It is a very good game for what it is, the level layouts are very cool and expansive, lots of neat things to look at and potentially shoot, many nooks and crannies to find ammo/health/shields.. but ultimately it wasn't really growing and I just wasn't having too great a time. I've been trying to make sure I don't just "Finish" games because I feel like I Have To for this 52-game challenge, and this is one of the ones I decided to put to bed. All in all a solid retro shooter that while I ultimately have no nostalgia for, I still quite liked.
First and foremost, the story is basically nonexistent. You get more from the splash screen than you do for the entire first half of the game that I finished. And hey that's fine, some games don't need a story. There's a few bits here and there of Dr. Bad Guy (not his actual name) monologueing through a screen at Shelly and she has some witty retort to him, but that's about all you get. Shelly herself has comments about things that are going on but they're usually just some hardass/snarky one liners rather than any actual window into who her character is. She's not even a one-dimensional character, just seems to say things just to break up the fights.
Gameplay wise things are thankfully much deeper. There are about 7~8 guns that I unlocked, all of which have some sort of alternate fire mode to play around with. There's a revolver with auto aim, a shot-gun with built in grenade launcher, incediary dual SMGs... a very nice selection of killing tools. Sadly the enemy variety is not quite where it needs to be, the vast majority of enemies are the hooded humanoid goons that just use your own kind of guns against you that you need to maneuver around. There's a few other oddball cybernetic enemies, skulls on spider legs, armored centipedes, that kind of thing, but the bread and butter is the basic humanoid enemies. Their AI is pretty dumb, they are sometimes placed in clever areas to force you to think on your toes in case of a trap, but the actual AI just has them mostly stand there and shoot at you. This is an old school shooter so you are CONSTANTLY flying around the map, so it might be a bit too difficult to judge your shots if you and the enemy are both moving all of the time..
I only completed about half the game and then I stopped. It is a very good game for what it is, the level layouts are very cool and expansive, lots of neat things to look at and potentially shoot, many nooks and crannies to find ammo/health/shields.. but ultimately it wasn't really growing and I just wasn't having too great a time. I've been trying to make sure I don't just "Finish" games because I feel like I Have To for this 52-game challenge, and this is one of the ones I decided to put to bed. All in all a solid retro shooter that while I ultimately have no nostalgia for, I still quite liked.