Ion Fury Review

I finished Ion Fury twice beforehand, so I already really liked the game, but with the Aftershock expansion recently coming(going to get to that soon) out and the fact that I got a physical copy on PS4 at a con 2 years ago, I decided to beat the game one more time on PS5 and, do I still really like it? Of course I do. I was hesistant towards playing the game at all since I beat it twice and it was all pretty recent too. Playing the game for a 3rd time I still really enjoy it. There are some flaws and they can annoy me at times but when Ion Fury got me into it's groove, it was a game that is impossible for me to stop playing, Ion Fury is the kind of game that can hook me for hours on end. I just a massive soft spot for pick up and play games with very little story getting in the way.

I'll start with what I liked. The music is great, every track just immerses me into the world and makes me bob my head along with the tune, it fits the game and the world so well that it's hard to picture the moment to moment carnage without it. That's a sign of good game music when it complements playing the game so well.

The next positive is the level design, the game runs on the Build Engine, that's no secret but what makes the level design stand out compared to Duke 3D, Blood and Shadow Warrior is how much longer the levels are and how much larger and more expansive the maps and levels are by comparison to those 3 games. Levels in Ion Fury can have multiple buildings that take place in the same location. Where previous Build Engine games might take place in say one boxed area Ion Fury's levels smoothly transition from area to the next on top of just being much bigger in general. For example in Hesekel's House of Horrors, you think all you are exploring is the house, right? No, you to explore a pretty decently large house first which would make for a single level in another Build Engine game get to the go to the backyard to find a key then go inside of the house and then there is an elevator ride where you fight enemies and then that bookends the level. That's just one example of how Ion Fury's levels can feel large and expansive even compared to other games.

Add to that the levels are so much larger and take longer to complete and it every level in the game can feel like one big epic adventure, of keycard hunting, switching pulling, generator activating, and swimming, there is so much that is done in an Ion Fury level and when you do everything without a guide like in this latest playthrough, I am like, "I can't believe I did that".

Another positive is that the guns feel fantastic and all feel good to shoot. My favorite weapons were the chaingun, the uzis, the crossbow, the bowling bombs and the shotgun. The pistol especially it's alt fire is especially useful here its going to especially come in handy since a lot of the weapons in the game can run out of ammo really quickly.

Final positive is that the game manages to mostly hit the right line of being challenging but not overly difficult even on normal difficulty. Ion Fury unlike a lot of games, you have to work to drop health and armor, you need to get headshots on top of that a lot of the enemies can kill you in a couple of hits with enough concentrated fire, despite there being moments in this game where I had lots of health and armor all that would legit get cut into pieces witin seconds, there is hardly any moment of Ion Fury where it felt like I was geniunely invincible or unkillable.

The negatives are that outside of the Pistol, Shotgun, Grenade Launcher, and Crossbow, ammo for all your other guns get drained pretty quickly. The Uzis, the Chaingun and even Bowling Balls can run out of ammo pretty quickly, I often save those guns along with the crossbow on tougher enemies, that is all fine and good but I would at the very least like to use the Uzis more.

The bosses are bad, no suprises there, either they consist of circle strafing or in the final boss' case just circle stafe on higher ground until all the Wendigos are dead and then bombs away up top.

Some of the enemies can be pretty annoying to fight, not all but some, like Bony Whoop with his constant flying and projectile, Deacon with how it fire so many fast projectiles that can rip your health to shreds and the name of the game is to kill him before he fires at all, the Diopede which is a game of spamming bowling balls until it dies, the Mechset which aren't too annoying on there, but appear so many times that I start to get sick of them because they pop up so much just keep strafing around them until they die and Liberators with Grenade Launchers since explosive weapons, is Shell's kryptonite and those guys can randomly ambush you.

Overall, I still really like Ion Fury, and while there are things that can annoy me it's highs generally compenstates for the issues I have with the game.