Is a boomer shooter developed by Voidpoint and published in 2019 by 3D Realms. Yes. That 3D Realms. Albeit under many new management changes, but still that one. They even use the classic 1990s logo on the splash screen.
Now the thing with Ion Fury is that while other boomer shooters like Doom Eternal, Amid Evil, Prodeus, Dusk, and Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun all use modern engines and sensibilities but an either deliberately retro aesthetic and/or level design, Ion Fury uses the Build engine from Duke Nukem 3D. As a result, whereas its fellow boomer shooters all ape the hallmarks of the 1990s FPS, Ion Fury is a 1990s FPS. Just one that happened to come out in 2019. In fact, you can actually pop open its assets and fiddle with them using Duke3D modding tools without having to rework them first or anything. Although I'm not entirely sure it will run on a 1990s PC because the specific version of Build they use was updated for modern systems and requires DirectX 11, which graphics cards from back in the day do not support. However if you get your current year PC and plug it into a CRT monitor from the 1990s, it does looks absolutely deadly. So, being a Build engine game we're talking sprite based enemies and lots of them, voxels, realistic but slightly too large environments, super low polygon counts, and grainy textures. Also lots of interactivities and things to fiddle with in the environment, and big, labyrinthine levels with plenty of secrets.
And it is GLORIOUS.
The plot, such as it is, is this. In The Future, in the city of Neo DC, is an officer with the Global Defence Force called Shelly "Bombshell" Harrison. That's you that is. She's relaxing at her favourite club, the Illuminaughty, only for the evil Dr Jadus Heskel (voiced by Jon St John who was the voice of Duke in Duke3D) and his army of transhumanist cultists to announce on every visible TV screen that "we're takin' over this town!" And in doing so, spill her drink. Well, this can't be tolerated, so she straps on her three-barreled revolver, known as the Loverboy, and her electrified nightstick, and goes to find him and demand an explanation.
Ahh, who cares. Since when do boomer shooters need a plot. Doom was literally "murdering demons with a shotgun" and Duke3D was "goddamn aliens blew up my ride" and Quake was... well, I don't know what Quake's plot was. Ranger vs. Lovecraftian abominations because reasons. Ion Fury is no different. There's roughly 30 levels split across seven episodes of three to five levels each. One thing of note, and which makes it a bit more like the original Unreal, is that the levels are all designed to be totally contiguous, which gives a sense of going on a single journey across and under the city. The levels are very nicely designed especially in the first half of the game but get a bit samey towards the end (with the exception of Power Up! which is set in a nuclear power plant, and Heskel's House of Horrors which is set in Jadus Heskel's mansion). I particularly liked the third episode, Institutionalised, which is set as going up through a single building, starting at the bottom with the ground floor and reception of Heskel's cybernetic implant clinic, then going up into a second level set in a cubicle farm, then a third level in a laboratory / skunkworks building, and the final level is on the roof in Heskel's Bond Villain like office with a bossfight against Heskel flying a gunship and then ending with the private lift down all the way into the basement seeing the ruins of the previous levels in the episode. There are other quite high concept levels as well. Cultural Divide in the first episode involves a sort of Chinatown like area but set on precarious bridges astride a bottomless pit with a sense of being an upper layer of a huge cyberpunk city. Grand Slam, the super secret level, is in the stadium of the local baseball team the Washington 4Skins (yes, it's that sort of a game). And there's another level where you have to battle your way through the carriages of an underground train as well.
But of course, being a boomer shooter, it will live or die with its weapons, and here they are. Each weapon has a standard and alternative fire.
- Electrifryer. It's a nightstick with an electric charge. This is like the fist in Doom, predominantly an emergency weapon, but certain enemies are stunned by the charge effect or even one-shotted. It can also be used to activate generators and unpowered equipment by hitting it.
- Loverboy. A revolver, but with three barrels because rule of cool. Like I said, it's that sort of game. Alternative fire has Shelly "mark" a number of targets then attempt to headshot them. Best against drones and as a counter-sniper type gun.
- Disperser. A shotgun but with a revolver barrel that holds 6 cartridges. Very satisfying to blast middle tier enemies with and has a high chance of dismembering lesser enemies. Alternative fire switches between shotgun cartridges and grenades so it's also a grenade launcher.
- Penetrator. A submachine gun that fires incendiary ammunition. Has no alt fire per se, but if you find a second one of these the alt-fire switches between single and dual-wielding it. Yes, the reason you can dual-wield this is solely for a joke about double penetration. It's that sort of game.
- Minigun. "Are you on your knees yet?" Hold right to spin it up, then hold left to fire. Every classic FPS needs one. Its ammo is powerful enough to dismember some enemies.
- Bowling Bomb. It's a bowling ball, but with a fuse and which can lock on to enemies before detonation. Normal fire has it self-ignite when thrown. Alt-fire has Shelly light the fuse and cook it off a bit with a Zippo lighter.
- Ion Bow. Repeater crossbow with energy bolts. By holding alt-fire you can load multiple bolts at once and cast them in a wide spray. Or just hold alt-fire for about 10 seconds and it will splurt your entire ammo supply in one go. Incredibly powerful.
- Clusterpuck. An exploding discus that shatters into cluster munitions. Alternate fire lets you stick them to walls as a landmine. When Shelly first finds one of these she will say "go puck yourself." That sort of game, boys and girls.
Enemies in the game include various types of transhuman cultist who are mostly cannon fodder (though the ones with grenade launchers can seriously hurt you as can the ones with the Ion Bow), and Heskel's various cybernetic horrors which are the more serious threats. The Mechsect is a small spider with a human head stapled to it which is more an annoyance than a real danger, as are the human head powered drones. But then there's the Wendigo, which is a ten foot tall armoured monstrosity that leaps at you in the manner of the Fiend in Quake and can shrug off explosions, the Diopede which is a mechanical centipede that, if you hit it in the midsection, splits and becomes two smaller centipedes, the Brutalizer which is a tanklike robot with an astonishing array of armaments, the Deacon, a sort of half-man with an exposed spine, a jetpack strapped to it and rapid-fire rocket launchers, and the Skinjob, an eight foot tall skinless humanoid that can levitate up and over barriers, pelt you with homing energy blasts, and dies explosively in blue flame. Bosses include the Warbot, a twenty foot tall bipedal mecha with a tank cannon and a minigun which you fight in a park and which is perfectly capable of destroying things you take cover behind, the Mega Brutalizer Twins which are a paid of upgraded Brutalizers fought on an endless freight elevator, the Gunship as stated above which pelts you with rapid fire rockets and also has cultists rope down onto the roof to flush you out of any cover, and the final boss, Heskel's Bitchin' Terror Dome which is kind of like the Icon of Sin in Doom II only you have to drop bombs down its top rather than fire rockets horizontally into it. Throughout the game you are also taunted by Heskel from television and video screens saying various things and basically being a moustache twirling villain. Also Shelly makes pithy and snarky observations herself about the places she finds herself a la Duke. And in the background is the soundtrack, which befitting its cybered up, parody noir setting, is throbbing synthwave and ambient music which fits the cool blue and steely aesthetic of the game as compared to the mostly urban decay of Duke3D.
Like its spiritual predecessors it has an abundance of shout outs and references to classic action cinema and suchlike, as well as parody ads for slightly off the wall things like the Fat Earth Society, a music channel called WTF ("We were good when coke was cheap"), a fast food chain called Caco Bell whose mascot is a cacodemon, and a perfume that smells of bacon. Most of the environments are very destructible and interactable, with lightswitches that can turn off and on, moveable props and chairs which can be clambered on to reveal secrets, and that sort of thing.
There is an expansion called Aftershocks which is mostly more of the same, although it also includes a number of new enemies including the Protector robots from the film Chopping Mall (in a level set in a shopping mall no less), and new weapons such as the poison grenades for the Disperser (mooks that are armed with these are possibly the most bullshit enemy in a shooter since the chaingun guy in Doom II). You also get to ride a hoverbike armed with homing drunk missiles, and it is glorious in every way.
There's also a sequel called Phantom Fury in which Shelly reprises her role although now with a cybernetic arm and more modern graphics in which she's tasked to retrieve an artefact called the Demon Core from someone. I've not played it. Reviews seem to be not as good. Bugs and less inspired design are commonly cited. I believe it was published by a different team to Ion Fury also.
I personally recommend it. It's a throwback to a time when the first person shooter was less po-faced and more, well, fun. It has the same sort of sense of humour and being a love letter to classic action films as does Duke3D and Blood and Shadow Warrior. The only thing I can really fault it on is lack of multiplayer, though given the sense of humour in the game, they could have, as LGR memorably put it, called it "2 Girls 1 Co-op." Now, if only someone would move to trying to bring back the other big 1990s game genre that you don't really see any more. We've had loads of boomer shooters. Where's the equivalent for real time strategy, hm?
What's that? 3D Realms are also publishing a game in the near future called Tempest Rising, that's set in the same universe as Ion Fury and Phantom Fury, and which has modern graphics but the gameplay of classic Command & Conquer, and which has FUCKING FRANK KLEPACKI appearing on the soundtrack?
My unit is ready.
(IN24/12)