Ion Fury Review - "Talk sh*t, get shot".

By Sam Coles:

We now return to another instalment of Sam waiting for the games industry to release something noteworthy, anyway while I do that let me tell you about an amazing old school first person shooter called Ion Fury. Original named Ion Maiden until a metal band who I shall not name which is really obvious who it is decided to threaten the devs with legal action, however despite the name change the game is excellent and something that is worth your time.

Ion Fury takes place in a dystopian future where the world has been destroyed, where an evil scientist is trying to take over the world (que Pinky and The Brain reference). You play as Bombshell trying to stop him, and that’s your lot and to be honest it is an old school shooter they were not exactly known for their intelligence with storytelling. The most you would get back in the day were scrolling text screens just in case that you haven’t burned the nearest school down, it’s just a small layer of context to flesh out the gameplay.

Now onto the gameplay, this game uses the Build Engine and if that sounds familiar then that is because it was the same engine that was used to make Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior and Blood. It is your typical shooter of the time where you find secrets for more exotic pick-ups and weapons and key cards to open colour specific doors, it sounds stock standard but the level design has a lot of verticality so you will be ambushed from up, down, right, left and every corner known to man or woman in this game’s case. The level design is fantastic as it encourages you to explore it, with nooks and crannies holding goodies and surprises plus it will make you a bit cautious as enemies could be hiding anywhere.

Now let’s talk about Bombshell’s arsenal, she starts off with a revolver which unlike most shooters it is actually useful for the entirety of the game as it can one shot most enemies with its alternate fire. If you hold down the left trigger (Xbox) she will hold her hand above the hammer, then you can lock onto multiple enemies at once and gun them down like Charles Bronson at the start of Once Upon a Time in the West. It is very effect, and I would argue somewhat over powered for a pistol in an FPS game but let’s talk about the other weapons.

For the sake of time I will be briefer with the other weapons. You gain a shotgun which can also fire grenades and yes that is as amazing as it sounds, a crossbow which is very effect with headshots, an SMG which have fire rounds which can also be duel wielded (Shadow Warrior influence there) and bombs that you can bowl at people or light a timed fuse to throw in a room. All the weapons in the game have their uses; they don’t feel completely situational, because every single one of them are useful throughout the game.

In terms of controls Ion Fury is slick and smooth to play, Bombshell will run at the speed of sound which makes speedruns of levels so satisfying. Enemies are extremely tough, but at the same time can be put down relatively quick with a few shots not counting boss characters. Hit scan enemies do cause annoyance but hey they were a staple in shooters back then, but the small crawling enemies can go back to the hell came from and burn for an eternity. The game can be very difficult, I played this on normal and the game kick seven shades of blue out of me and stuck prong up my backside and repurposed me as a windscreen wiper, what I’m trying to say is that it mopped the floor with me in some segments.

Presentation looks amazing; it has the 2D sprite art of old shooters which look fantastic, with a good use of voxels with pick-ups and certain interactive objects throughout the world. The game runs at 60 frames per second mostly, I did notice it stutter in a few places on my Xbox One which is amazing that an engine this old can give modern hardware a run for its money. Only issues I had that at one point it crashed on me twice in a row, but that has only happened to me once within a week so not a deal breaker.

Overall Ion Fury was an exciting thrill ride of action; it gave just the right amount of challenge which put me through a wide spectrum of emotions from irritated, angry and relieved when I would conquer a level. It gets a huge thumbs up from me and is one of the best old school inspired FPS games I have played!