Just finished Ion Fury's campaign after about 15 hours. Overall I enjoyed it - a bit long-winded but good level design and weapon design carried the game. I played on Wanton Carnage and on a Steam deck.
The levels start in a cyberpunk city that feels close to Duke 3D for me. These were my favorite levels in the game. They are challenging with sparse resources. Enemy variety is pretty limited at this point, but the core gun dudes go a long way. I did have to lookup the exit to one level online, but most were doable without help. The level design shifts into more corridor based play later which I enjoyed less though I wouldn't say I really disliked any of the levels.
Except the bosses - I really didn't like the bosses in this game. I wonder up cheating for them. The first one in particular because it throws you in without a resource refresh which was quite brutal as I hadn't prepared well (there were also some tricks you can employ to make this boss easier which I hadn't learned yet). The others were mostly just kind of annoying not moving fast enough for me. Not a real win, but I don't care - I cheated in these games as a kid too. The fun for me was the level crawl.
The difficulty curve of this game is odd. Aside from bosses, it's hardest early in the game. I found the end of the game way easier because it throws tons of resources at you whereas early you are very much starved. The early game is almost closer to being a tactical game.
Secrets. This game has the hardest secrets of any game I think I've played. I would end an act with like 2 out of 26 which is nutty to me.
The enemy cast is okay overall. There are quite a few enemy particularly on the last leg of the game, and I do think some of the basic enemies are good even though repetitive. The Build engine AI was always kind of good at making enemies feel randomly more intelligent (or stupid) and it shows here too.
I have to call out the spiders in this game however - oh my god these fuckers are so annoying and it feels like you have to kill them every 5 seconds. The maps are just littered with them, and they do quite a lot of damage.
Speaking of the deck - this game's controls were outright pissing me off until I changed the auto-aim and bob-correction in the menus. In particular the aim would center if you started to move making those aforementioned spiders especially infuriating.
The highlight of the game for me was for sure the guns. They are all very well designed with no duds. I usually have a gun that I don't like in a game, but that wasn't the case here. The basic revolver has an especially useful lock-target feature which was critical for dealing with many kinds of enemies. I didn't know even guns had an alt fire until halfway through the first act.
All in all I liked Ion Fury. It was a bit longer than I would have liked with more filler than I would have liked, but it had good moments. I could see myself going back to play particular levels on the hardest difficulty and will eventually play Aftershock. It's a little more traditional than I expected from the trailer footage and all, but I think it does that older style well. Just shy of my favorite shooters.
I was anticipating this games release for a while and was curious what was holding up the release? Then articles came out that Iron Maiden sued them for the original games name Ion Maiden…really liked this game but haven’t gotten far in it, think I was playing it on switch and it was quite hard.
Ion Fury is probably my favorite modern retro FPS. The art style is gorgeous and the guns are so satisfying. Agree that some of the levels go on too long, and the spiders can be annoying. Can’t imagine playing with anything other than mouse and keyboard for them alone. Aftershock is even better as it trims the fat and adds a lot more variety to the encounters. The level design is fantastic too. Ion Fury is probably my third favorite Build Engine game, behind Blood and Duke 3D, and just slightly over Shadow Warrior (though SW’s music owns all).
I think the same about Ion Fury, especially with the updated gamepad controls from the Aftershock patch. It plays so much better than the original console release. I'm glad to hear Aftershock is good, I haven't gotten around to playing it yet.
Yeah, the city levels were easily the best part for me, the weapons carried the whole experience, but those spiders were pure pain. Solid game overall, just dragged a bit toward the end.
I didn't mind the spiders. I bound L1 to crouch and L2 to jump. You crouch really low so you can't really miss by shooting the ground in front or behind them. That or homing grenades.