Greetings and today on LGR we’ve got something truly exciting!
Today we’re talking about the game previously known as Ion Maiden, now titled Ion Fury due
to truly ridiculous legal qualms but whatever.
Ion Fury is a new FPS published by 3D Realms
and developed by Voidpoint, released on August 15, 2019.
And the main source of my excitement for this game
stems from the engine with which it was developed.
Because this, my friends, is a Build Engine game.
In 2019.
That’s right, a brand new FPS built on the same code base
used in over a dozen mid-90s shooters.
Games like Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior, Blood, Redneck Rampage, Nam, Witchaven, William
Shatner’s TekWar, Extreme PaintBrawl -- ahh crap the games are getting worse I should’ve
stopped when I had the chance!
So forget those last couple games, let’s just say it shares the Build Engine with these
three and leave it at that.
So yeah, that makes Ion Fury the first official 3D Realms Build Engine FPS since Shadow Warrior,
and is the first new Build Engine game period since 1999.
There have, of course, been plenty of Build Engine game remasters over the years like
Blood: Fresh Supply, Shadow Warrior Classic Redux, and Duke Nukem 3D: World Tour.
Not to mention countless mods and total conversions that are pretty fantastic in their own right.
But Ion Fury is the first entirely new, full, standalone game built on Build in over two
decades now, so enough with the preamble.
I am beyond psyched, let’s get to it!
[grenade sounds, menu music]
Ion Fury explodes onto the screen with a main menu that fits in perfectly with the menus
of Apogee and 3D Realms throughout the 90s.
It even has a readme option that brings up a classic info screen going over the story
so far, gameplay tips, and a list of development and publishing credits.
Oh and it’s worth noting that we’re looking at footage from the pre-release full version
of the game, provided to me for review by 3D Realms so I could get this review out in
time for launch day.
So some stuff may change in the future, but I’m told this is pretty feature-complete.
Minus a few things like controller support, something in the works to be patched in later,
as you’d expect seeing as multiple console ports are in the works for 2020.
Anyway, starting a new game brings up a few options, with the campaign providing the main
storyline playable on four skill levels, each with appropriately ‘90s names and matching portraits.
There are also an assortment of bonus missions, including the preview campaign, Crisis in
Columbia, a wave survival mode, Queen of the Hill,
and a mode with infinite Bowling Bombs, Bombardier Trial.
But yeah, we’re gonna take a good look at the campaign here
since that’s where you’ll find the real meat.
[music plays, explosions explode]
-You’re lucky I can’t fit a grenade launcher in my bag!
[door opens, enemies call out]
[revolver firing]
[cyborgs dying]
[electrical zapping]
So this is Ion Fury!
And straight away, I’ve gotta say I think this looks positively fantastic.
There’s always been something exceptional to me about the appearance of Build Engine
games, and Ion Fury?
Just pump it into my veins!
Those low-res textures, those flat sprites, them chunky voxels, that colored sector lighting
and those simulated shadows.
Dude! I love it all.
And it looks even more legit if you go into the options, disable OpenGL,
and crank down the resolution.
Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about, I can’t see s***!
Exactly how I like my Build Engine games.
Especially when playing on a nice CRT monitor in 640x480 resolution
with a 100Hz refresh rate.
I’m not gonna make you sit through a whole review
with the graphics cranked down that far, but yeah.
Just wanted to drive home the point that Ion Fury’s graphics options are admirably on-point,
to where it genuinely looks like a lost 3D Realms game from 1997.
And don’t get me wrong, I also thoroughly enjoy the current trend of retro shooters
mimicking the look of the 90s!
Games like Dusk and Amid Evil are wonderful games that both look and play like something
straight outta ‘97, despite using modern engines like Unity and Unreal.
But it really is another thing entirely to have a new game in an old engine like this,
albeit an updated source port in this case.
Ion Fury’s binary is built from the EDuke32 code and has a bunch of stuff tweaked to make
it work as you see here, thanks in no small part to the talents of EDuke32 developer Richard
Gobeille working as Ion Fury’s director and one of the programmers.
But make no mistake: this is a Build Engine title complete with a large group file containing
CON scripts, *.ART tilesets, definition files, and maps that will all be familiar
to anyone who’s dabbled in Build Engine modding, with each individual level file opening
just fine in Mapster32.
Granted, my review copy didn’t load the textures, but I’m told EDuke32’s next
patch will support Ion Fury maps, no problem.
Speaking of maps there are seven chapters or zones to complete, with two to five maps
each, totaling around 30 individual levels in the main campaign.
This is a lot larger than the preview campaign that was already available,
it took me about 9 hours to get through everything!
As for the narrative, you play Corporal Shelly “Bombshell” Harrison, explosives expert
and leader of the GDF Domestic Task Force,
based in the “near future” American city of Neo DC.
After another crappy day at work, you’re about to get wasted at a local bar when the
place is attacked by a bunch of cracked-out cyborg punks carrying out the plans of Diet
Coke Doctor Proton, Professor Jadus Heskel,
voiced by the one and only Jon St. John of Duke Nukem fame.
-This is a public service announcement!
-Return to your homes or face death.
-We’re taking over this town!
And if all this sounds familiar, well, here’s the thing.
Back in 2016 I covered another 3D Realms-published game: Bombshell.
Which was a top-down twin-stick action RPG thing and ah.
Considering I described it as “a game with no soul that made me sad,” you can safely
say I wasn’t a huge fan.
And Ion Fury is indeed a direct prequel to Bombshell, so that’s something.
Thankfully though, Ion Fury is so friggin’ fantastic that whatever came before can be
completely ignored if you so desire.
Besides, this is all new material anyway.
And what glorious material it is, ahh.
If you have even a slight fondness for the aforementioned Build Engine games, or other
shooters like Quake, Half-Life, Sin, Turok, and Unreal?
Then I can all but guarantee you’ll enjoying sinkin’ your teeth into this!
For me, Ion Fury conjured up the same internal giddiness I felt playing those classic FPS
titles for the first time in the 90s, a kind of gaming fulfillment that arrives with diminishing
frequency the older I get.
Admittedly, a lotta that is induced by the game engine itself, but it’s more than that.
What really sealed the deal is the craftsmanship that went into the level design, merged with
its thoughtfully-balanced sense of speed and skill at which you can eliminate your foes.
And of course, the way in which they diabolically return the favor.
[sounds of combat]
[screams of death]
[chilled out tracker music plays]
Also that music, oh man.
The soundtrack here went in a different yet appropriate direction than I expected, and I love it.
Instead of going with MIDI files or CD-quality audio, it’s all XM FastTracker 2 music composed
by Jarkko Rotstén, a Finnish composer who’s been making tracker tunes since the early 90s.
[techno music plays]
-Nothing that laying down another beating can't solve!
But yeah, allow me to gush over these levels for a bit now because this kinda map design
is an endangered species and deserves to be cherished.
Ion Fury is chock full of captivating places to explore, ranging from subway stations to
office buildings, wide open city streets to cramped old mansions.
I’ve always enjoyed shooters featuring normal-ish environments like this, instead of endless
grimy industrial corridors and military bases.
Granted, it’s got those too, because of course it does.
Much of the game involves exploring Professor Heskel’s weird tech facilities, complete
with color-coded key cards and logic and dexterity-based environmental puzzles.
But personally, my favorite levels are the ones that take place
in a well-realized, relatable location.
Like, when I came across this shopping mall with its stores, food court, escalators,
and water features and stuff?
Yeah, this is my own retro heaven.
[mall muzak plays peacefully]
-Yum yum yum!
-Yum yum yum! [muzak continues]
Can someone please make an FPS that takes place entirely in an old shopping mall?
If nothing else, now I wanna make my own levels recreating old retail chains, cuz dude, playing
through this got me all kinds of inspired.
However, I know from experience that inspiration is only the beginning.
Creating detailed, complex levels in Build that are actually engaging to play, as well
as being visually cohesive and challenging enough without getting too frustrating?
That is the real task.
Again though, props to the level designers.
They’ve conceived an exceptional variety of maps, many of them utterly massive, and
each with a sense of progression that feels less disjointed than you might expect for the engine.
A single map takes anywhere from five to twenty-five minutes to complete, with the end of a level
leading straight into the next, sometimes as seamlessly as walking through a hallway.
And yep, you can travel back and forth between maps in certain spots, so backtracking is
not only a possibility but something that’s encouraged.
It even lets you know how many secrets you’ve missed at the end of a given area, which is
nice cuz good grief there are a ton of secrets.
I found dozens on my first playthrough, but apparently that was only 31% according to
the end-game stats screen.
Each level is bursting at the seams with hidden ares, or Dick’s Secret Stashes as they’re
called, which I can only assume is a Duke Nukem reference.
And why not, Duke’s DNA is scattered all over the place throughout the entire campaign.
3D Realms unfortunately doesn’t own the rights to the IP anymore, but that hasn’t
stopped them from including amusing Nukem-esque easter eggs on practically every level.
Not to mention the slew of jokey objects that exist solely to elicit an immature chuckle.
On top of the references to old school 3D Realms and Apogee games, Hollywood movies,
TV shows, modern day memes, and pop culture at large.
Everything from Dopefish to Twin Peaks, from Portal to Smashing Pumpkins,
from Maniac Mansion to Breaking Bad.
Even the computer screens mimic real world operating environments and applications, like
Amiga Guru Meditation errors, Linux bootsplashes,
and even id Software’s De-Ice program for DOS.
And naturally, there are copious one-liners spouted at random or triggered by an event.
-Fire in the hole, assholes!
-Dōmo arigatō, Mr. Roboto.
-This is my boomstick!
-I spray, you pray.
-You gotta keep ‘em separated.
-Oh my god, the quarterback is toast!
All of this is just the expected icing on the cake though.
The true heart of Ion Fury beats to the drum of its first-person combat.
Unlike Bombshell before it, there are no robotic arm powers or upgrades here.
Instead, there’s a rather basic FPS weapons loadout, with the most interesting part of
each one being its alternate firing mode.
You got a nightstick called the Electrifryer that doles out melee combos and electrified shocks.
The Loverboy triple-barreled revolver shoots as quickly as you can pull the trigger and
can also lock onto things for quick headshots.
Penetrator SMGs can be dual wielded and fire incendiary rounds
that set dudes on fire because it’s awesome.
The Disperser shotgun shoots the usual scattershot and also doubles as a grenade launcher by
clicking over into the alt-fire mode.
Bowling Bombs make a return from Bombshell and work like homing grenades,
exploding only on enemy contact.
Cluster Pucks are powerful explosives that detonate when touching a solid surface.
The Ion Bow works like a rail gun, shooting single high energy bolts, or charged up in
horizontal groups, or as a rapid-fire attack launching dozens of rounds.
And of course there’s a chaingun, with alt-fire spinning the barrels.
Ion Fury also keeps it simple on the inventory items, with only a portable medkit and a radar
for revealing enemies for a few seconds.
There’s also items that activate on pickup, like jump boots,
damage multipliers, and briefly infinite bowling bombs.
For the most part though, yeah, it’s pretty typical FPS fare.
Nothing wildly imaginative in terms of weaponry or power-ups,
and that’s a bit of a missed opportunity.
At least, compared to the memorably creative loadouts from the likes of Duke 3D and Blood.
Still, at least the enemies keep you on your toes, with new types of robotic minions being
introduced all the way through the campaign.
For the first quarter of the game you’re mostly fighting the same robed cultists and
soldier grunts over and over, and these small but deadly head things that can be tough to
get a bead on in both their flying and crawling forms.
But eventually it starts throwing increasingly powerful enemies your way that are far more
difficult to dispatch, and I thoroughly enjoyed the way
these guys were laid out through the story.
Every time I heard a new creature sound off in the distance, or came across a weird-looking
lab with experiments lying around, I knew things were about to grow more complicated.
I won’t spoil the way these creatures are introduced or the boss battles or anything,
but lemme just say I thought these occasional scripted moments were wonderful.
Every new enemy intro brought to mind certain iconic moments from Quake II, Half-Life, and
Unreal in a way that had me grinning like an idiot without fail.
And yeah, augh. That about sums up Ion Fury for me.
This is a game that makes me smile, makes me laugh, makes me feel like that kid I once
was in the 90s with an Acer Aspire desktop running Windows 95 and with an insatiable
appetite for first-person experiences.
Quite simply folks, my expectations were exceeded to a degree that honestly threw me for a loop.
I figured it would be a short but sweet shareware-type experience when I first heard about the project
in 2015, just a neat little nostalgic throwback to kill a couple hours of time.
But my initial skepticism has been destroyed by the final product here, because instead
we’ve got a full-blown FPS that’s twice as long as Duke Nukem 3D Atomic Edition
and multiple times more advanced on a technical level.
Though sure, there’s still room for a little improvement.
Despite some deeply satisfying weaponry and the ability to pull off headshots, it doesn’t
feature the kinds of crazy unique weaponry found in Blood or the absurd action hero protagonist
attitude of Duke Nukem.
I also wish it had cooperative multiplayer.
I mean, they announced it’s getting some kind of multiplayer later on, but playing
through this with a co-op buddy would be great.
And they could call it something dumb like,
'2 Girls 1 Co-op' or whatever, it’s an ideal opportunity!
Even only as the solo experience it is now: Voidpoint and 3D Realms have delivered
a fresh Build Engine title that shines bright in a world of samey first person shooters,
and is a game that’ll sit proudly on my shelf next to the classics.
[BOOM]
Oh and yeah, there’s a physical big box release on the way too
with all sorts of fun stuff inside!
That version of the game costs $60, but just Ion Fury itself launches
at $24.99 on Steam and GOG, a fair price in my book.
So if you’re in the mood for a shooter that injects a cocktail of late 90s PC gaming serum
straight into your bloodstream, do yourself the favor of checkin’ out Ion Fury.
It’s the good stuff.
[acid sizzling, game over screams]
[Ion Fury soundtrack plays]
And if you enjoyed this review on LGR, then awesome.
Feel free to check out my other retro FPS coverage,
or stick around, there’s new videos here every week.
And as always, thank you very much for watching!