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You're doing the Lord's work, my friend.

So I spent a little time with Ion Fury today. I'm quite impressed so far. It's a cyberpunk dystopia aesthetic that actually manages to do its own thing with the Build Engine, so it doesn't just feel like "Duke Nukem, but X" like the other two Build Engine games of note. Level design is top notch; they're big, have interesting gizmos, and they aren't afraid to wind back on themselves. Enemies feel pretty balanced so far, though you do have to pay attention to a few of them which have very high damage outputs. They are also the ones with slow firing and moving shots, so we aren't in a Blood situation where you don't get a chance to avoid the big damage.

I'm about two hours into it myself and seriously impressed.

To be frank, I always fall off of Shadow Warrior a few levels in because the level design is so annoying (figuring out what dinky under the desk switch I need to find and crap). And Blood has never clicked with me at all yet either. Both are full of crazy hitscanning as well.

I love Duke3D, but the levels can be a mixed bag a times.

So... nostalgia aside, Ion Fury might be even better than the Build classics. I'm really loving the aesthetic and tracker music choice so far. It's almost like, if Deus Ex had a Dark Forces era prequel that was more action heavy.

With all the ongoing love for retro FPS, I'm now playing Hedon, the first commercially released game built originally as a mod in GZDOOM. That has led to some consternation, but the game is solid...even if it feels awkward because the creator definitely started this whole world after having a thing for muscular, curvy orc lady drawings. Yeah, good gunplay, awesome level design, some interesting features like a melee-only mode that incorporates a completely different array of weapons, yet I still somehow feel dirty for playing it.

Ack wrote:With all the ongoing love for retro FPS, I'm now playing Hedon, the first commercially released game built originally as a mod in GZDOOM. That has led to some consternation, but the game is solid...even if it feels awkward because the creator definitely started this whole world after having a thing for muscular, curvy orc lady drawings. Yeah, good gunplay, awesome level design, some interesting features like a melee-only mode that incorporates a completely different array of weapons, yet I still somehow feel dirty for playing it.

I'm definitely interested in hearing more thoughts on this game. I saw its release but wasn't sure if it was going to turn out well or not.

I'm fairly close to the end, so hopefully I'll be able to post deeper thoughts soon, but for now I have this to say:

Fantastic level design and puzzles, including some very large locations to explore
In depth world and history built up through lore found throughout the game
Solid gunplay with some secondary options, though somewhat limited because half of the weapon list is only available in the Bearzerker melee mode
The art style is...rough

Rough as in "calling the role 'artist' is charitable"? Or rough as in "I have learned too much about this artist's proclivities"?

MrPopo wrote:Rough as in "calling the role 'artist' is charitable"? Or rough as in "I have learned too much about this artist's proclivities"?

Rough as in I feel like I'm playing through somebody's DeviantArt fetish.

So the latter.

Pretty much. I beat it last night too, so expect my thoughts later today.

In the meantime, I have started playing the obscure 1997 FPS Last Rites, featuring killer robots and a zombie apocalypse. I believe this was Europe-only, namely Germany, where it got censored due to strict content standards there. It does some interesting stuff with a squad of AI that help you in some levels. Also, it is a very dark, low resolution game, so it can be tough to look at.