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In that respect, yes, though it's nowhere near the open space of Freespace. You're still hugging planet surfaces when you do venture outside.

But yes, go play Descent 2 sometime.

Since I picked it up in the Autumn sale on Steam, I decided to check out Ion Fury.

Yep, it's a Build engine game all right. Since I played through both Shadow Warrior as well as Blood and their expansions earlier this year, as well as finally knocking out the multiplayer stuff in Duke Nukem 3D's pulled Megaton Edition, I figured it would make for an interesting comparison to go over a few aspects.

I'm only a few levels in so far, but already I'm seeing the full reference treatment that all of these games used. The first level has a major secret based on Blade Runner, and the quotes during killing range from Army of Darkness to a weird throwaway quote from Die Hard. This fits the rest of the Big Three of Build's sense of humor and style.

I find it's also important to focus on the available firearms, because while all three of the major Build engine games have the usual FPS workhorses (your "pistol", your shotgun, your rapid-fire weapon, etc.) they all offered up some variety that sometimes helped with the theme.

For instance, Duke's weapons in Duke Nukem 3D involved a lot of tools that would give you a sense of control and dominance: remote controlled pipe bombs, a shrink ray so you could literally step on your enemies and grind them under your heel, and even a pair of rocket launchers to devastate your enemies while giving you a massive erection at how alpha you felt.

By contrast, Caleb's weapons in Blood have both a sadistic and masochistic quality to them: a flare pistol that lights enemies on fire, a bevy of explosives, and even a voodoo doll. You were just as likely to inflict self-harm through his weapons, yet you could always project far more cruelty on your enemies.

And again, Lo Wang in Shadow Warrior offered up a mixture of the mystical and the martial arts along with the ridiculous. Shurikens replaced your basic pistol, you could wield an enemy's head as a weapon, and you had your usual staples, but they were often so over the top as to become impractical. While Shadow Warrior is the weakest of the three in my opinion for a variety of reasons, one of the most prominent (after, you know, racism) was just how bad the weapons felt when compared to the rest of the trio.

So, how do the guns of Ion Fury compare? Well, the first hint is that the game is actually a prequel to the game Bombshell, and that happens to be your nickname. If you immediately thought "I'll get lots of explosives," yes. You're right. Sure, the revolver has some interesting mechanics, and your machine guns shoot flaming bullets, but your shotgun is a repurposed grenade launcher, and once you get the right kind of ammo, it also becomes your grenade launcher. You've also got bowling bombs and exploding discs, and I'm not even to the first boss, so the idea that you're a cop on the edge who likes things to go boom in a cyberpunk world is heavily represented by your choice of guns.

The other interesting quirk: your firearms point to a Neo Western. For instance, your base pistol is not only a revolver, but it has an alternate fire which features a lock on mechanic similar to something found in a recent Red Dead or Call of Juarez game. Shotguns are pretty standard fare for FPS regardless of time period, but your precision weapon is a sort of crossbow, while your bowling bombs have the classic fuse bomb design that hasn't actually been practically used since cannon went out of fashion for more modern artillery around the end of the 19th century. I wonder if the idea of a Western was a source of inspiration for the previous game, Bombshell, that carried over.

Either way...I'm enjoying it so far, despite only being a few levels in.

Heh, just learned Operation: Body Count is on Steam. Nice.

Started working on Powerslave Exhumed last night. This is definitely an interesting game in the context of the evolution of the genre, though I suspect by the end I'll find it not fully rising to its potential.

I have finally gotten around to Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30. It features a tactical approach to WW2 FPS and came out in the midst of their mid-2000s glut, where game developers watched Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers and figured everyone wanted to experience those same battles over and over across dozens of games.

Right now the most interesting highlight is when the game lets you direct armor alongside your squad, giving you mobile cover but also requiring you keep an eye out for anything that can destroy it. Beyond that, the game is more rudimentary: squad actions seem limited to suppression and assault, and I dearly miss the ability to go prone and crawl past positions where I am taking fire.

Having run through Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30, I figured I'd continue delving and am now checking out the sequel, Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood. It's more of the same, with some tweaked enemy AI and levels that are a little more open in how you can approach them. In truth, it feels more like an expansion to me than a sequel.

With all the talk of the updated Doom and Doom II releases recently, it's been pushing me to go back to another classic id Software release: Quake. Quake got the same treatment a few years ago, with achievements, a new expansion, and so forth. While I have beaten all of it, some of those achievements are for Nightmare runs through the base game and all expansions. I admit, I hadn't ever gone through all of Quake on Nightmare, so this was the perfect excuse to put on my big boy pants and prove whether I'm worthy of thinking myself a golden god.

Since that updated released, I have knocked out my Nightmare runs of Scourge of Armagon and Dissolution of Eternity before going to other games. Now I'm back, and it is time to do my run through Dimension of the Past. Let's see what I got, and if it's enough. After that, I still need to do base Quake on Nightmare as well as the latest expansion, Dimension of the Machine.

Also, speaking of Quake, Sprawl was released a year ago. And the devs are celebrating. By putting Sprawl into Quake!

It's Sprawl '96!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzOye97fWz0

I saw that video; aside from the floating weapons throwing me off, the fact that it's Sprawl enemies and the bullet time in regular Q1 levels puts it in the "fun technical achievement, but probably not a fun game" category for me. But now that the base is there, folks can start doing level design for the mechanics and we could see some fun stuff.

Gather round, children, and let ol' Ack tell you a tale.

About how I reached the final room of the Dimension of the Past expansion for Quake on Nightmare. One room, the gate right in front of me, but between me and that sweet victory is a Death Knight, a Vore, and two Shamblers, and the gate wouldn't open until the Shamblers lay dead. Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Surely, Grandpa Ack, you had a lightning gun with full ammo." Nosiree, kiddies, I did not. Nor did I have any rockets that I could pump into them from range, nor any nails to rapid fire into their behinds. What I had was 50 shotgun shells, no armor, and 45 health. And that is not a place you want to be in when you have to take on one Shambler, let alone the whole mess.

"But, Grandpa Ack, what about secrets and items?" Oh no, nothing of the sort. How do you think I got back up to 50 shotgun shells? I bunny hopped into the room with 5! No health kits neither, and nary a Quad Damage in sight. And here I am, in a big room, cowering under a bridge as all kinds of nastiness is running around on top, swarming back and forth. So, what did I do? Well, I'm gonna tell you what I did. You just listen back to ol' Pappy Ack as he explains.

You see, kids, the secret to facing down a group of tough enemies is simple: you get 'em to buddy bash. Certain ones, they ain't so keen on it, unfortunately, like Shamblers don't like fighting other Shamblers. But Death Knights and Shamblers? Oh, they love a good scuffle. And nobody likes Vores, on account o' them being cheap bastards, what with their seeking explosives and all that. So what did I do? I ducked out my head just enough to grin and wave at that Vore so his dumbass let off a purple blast of hate and pain and fury, right into the Shambler next to him. Well, that Shambler didn't take too kindly to that, so he caved the Vore's dumb head in so hard it came out his behind. Death Knights are also not the brightest, so when he tried to get me, he accidentally hit the same Shambler, and that big hombre hit him so hard, they found the head in the last level. Seriously, kiddos, it was like watching a field goal attempt from the 25 yard line...on the other side of the field. And it was good. The other Shambler held up his arms and everything to say so, though he was also doing it to shoot lighting at me.

So's anyway, I'm down to just the two Shamblers, but I'm still pinned under the bridge, and it's open ground between me and a back hall I could use to loop 'em, so I know I've got to create a distraction. So I run out, fire off a potshot of buckshot into one's thick white hide, and duck behind a fountain. And you know what? Stupid feckers fell for it! They started coming down the bridge and around the side to try and kick my ass, and the next thing I'm off like greased lightning into that back alley while they're wondering where I vanished off to and if I had one of them there magic ring thingies. What're they called again?

"Rings of Shadow, Grandpa Ack."

Yep, that's it. A Ring of Shadow. Nope, didn't have one. So now I've got a few less rounds, but one Shambler has taken a beating, so I figure I'll just start kiting them like a good soldier, so I pop him again, trying to make sure I piss him and his buddy off. You see, Shamblers ain't keen to fight each other, like I said, and I don't want one walking up behind me, so I gotta kite them both. I do this by making sure they can see me as I duck in and out of cover, pumping shotgun shell after shotgun shell into a face full of white fur until finally, Kerrsplat! The first Shambler falls. And I take a moment to celebrate, because I'm damned proud. And stupid. And the other Shambler pops me with a quick lightning blast. Pride, kiddies, will get you killed. Not me, but you, definitely.

So as it was, I'm at 3 health, no armor, and 15 whole shotgun shells to my name, and I have a full health Shambler who's seen me just kill his best friend and wants to fry my ass like a Thanksgiving turkey gone horribly wrong, the kind where it gets dumped into the oil too fast and everything ignites in a big inferno, and you gotta spend the holiday explaining to the fire department why your neighborhood is now a torched wasteland that reeks vaguely of canola and delicious gamebird. He's baring down on me, and all I can do is raise my gun and fire. And fire. And fire. And fire every. last. single. one. of my shells into him. That's what I do, kiddies. That's what I do.

So now he's pissed, and all I've got is me trusty axe and my 3 health, and my balls. Did I mention I got balls before, kiddies? No? Well, kiddies, ol' Pawpaw Ack's got balls bigger than Shambler skulls, and there was no way in hell I was quitting now! Not with one measly bloodied Shambler in my way. Not when I got an axe! Why, Ack's Axe, it's pretty much my name right there twice. So I step out of cover, get him to try his static electricity lightning crap, and when he misses, I run up and pop him a good one in the face. And he doesn't know what to think, so he starts flailing, and I duck back and around a corner so he'll try rubbing his fur again to build up a charge, and when he enters the animation, I hide so he misses and then run out and hit him with my axe again.

Twenty minutes, kiddies. For twenty God damn minutes, I kite that son of a bitch, tricking him into trying to light me up, then hitting him and running away before he can properly respond by taking one of his big hands and turning me into beef paste. The pink slime kind, not the good stuff that ends up in the grocery store. And for twenty minutes, he slowly follows me around, taking axe hits, swinging away, not letting me think. It's the dance, kiddies, how you melee anyone, and I've melee'd a lot of suckers in old FPS in my day.

And eventually, after twenty minutes, in which I'm sweating and cursing and letting him have it, the Shambler finally falls. It's like a sweet blessed choir of angels suddenly start singing. The door opens at the end of the level, I've still not got a single bullet to my name, and my character portrait is a bloody wreck of a man. My hands are cramping a little, on account of before the battle I'd also played through the entire rest of the expansion on Nightmare, because ol' man Peepaw Ack ain't a quitter, kiddies, but I'm so tired and sore, I don't want to bunny hop anymore. So I just...walk. Well, autorun, because what damn fool walks in Quake, but you understand what I mean.

I walk through that final gate, and the devs give me a message about how amazing I am, and the credits roll to the sweet sound of gunfire, and I have a fancy new achievement to show off, and everything is hunky dory in ol' Ack Land.

Except I ain't done. I still gotta play base Quake on Nightmare and the final Dimension of the Machine expansion too.

Now one of you kids be a dear and fetch me my Daddy Pants. Ol' Pappy Ack's got some more asses to kick.