Phantom Fury Xbox Overview | Invision Recreation Group

Phantom Fury is the direct sequel to VoidPoints Ion Fury. This time, Slipgate Ironworks has taken over growth duties for the additional adventures of Shelley “Bombshell” Harrison on this retro-inspired boomer shooter. Shelley “Bombshell” Harrison hasn’t been having a great day. Woken up from a coma with a brand new bionic arm, she’s barely given time to acclimatise to what’s occurring round her earlier than the power she is in, is attacked.

A brand new mission from her previous buddy, has our newly woke up heroine gunning and punching for her life throughout the nice previous post-apocalyptic U.S. of A. With an increasing arsenal, an arm that may be upgraded and an entire boatload of troopers and mutants after her blood, Shelley may need she’d simply stayed asleep.

Now whereas retro-inspired shooters aren’t new to the market, what’s new is creating them on older engines reasonably than our fashionable, shiny behemoths. Wrath: Aeon of Damage was constructed on a modified Quake 1 engine whereas Iron Fury was constructed on the Construct Engine, which powered such classics as Duke Nukem 3D. For those who’re trying to emulate the video games of yore, why not additionally construct them on the expertise of yesterday and current all that edgy geometry and pixelated textures via genuine software program?

To this finish, Phantom Fury excels, showcasing design and visuals that appear like it simply stepped out of 1990. Each the setting and character designs are blocky and edgy whereas textures look pixelated with edgy black traces. The visible design isn’t messy although and there’s simply sufficient element within the environments, and objects to work together with to maintain the world from feeling static.

Personally I like the blocky visible design that comes from working in older BSP and sector-based engines. And Phantom Fury has this down pat. Certain you’ll be able to replicate that in fashionable engines, nevertheless it doesn’t fairly have the identical really feel to it as video games made in older engines.

Phantom Fury’s fight can be par for the period. It’s a fast-paced recreation that retains you in your toes via encounters. Enemies might not be significantly clever, however they’re competent sufficient to place you into the bottom early. After the preliminary opening, the small-scale encounters explode into bigger ones, typically with a number of factions combating one another and also you. Phantom Fury doesn’t need you to face nonetheless. That’s a loss of life sentence. As an alternative, it’s designed to maintain you on the transfer via each encounter, making use of your ever-expanding arsenal.

Shelley’s repertoire of strikes can be par for the course. You may run, dash, slide whereas sprinting and circle strafe with one of the best of them. The arsenal of weapons at your disposal is of the standard selection, however there’s an improve system at play that allows you to mod the weapons. Every weapon has its personal improve, corresponding to incendiary rounds or cryogenic grenades, to combine fight up with.

Shelley’s different ace up the sleeve, so to talk, is her bionic arm. With it, you’ll be able to punch via rubble, grates and enemies with ease. There’s a brief recharge time hooked up to it however one punch gibs absolutely anything. The arm as nicely could be upgraded to be stronger, have a quicker recharge time and throw up a protect, amongst others. It doesn’t drastically alter gameplay however is a good addition in later fire-fights if you’re attempting to weave between covers.

Regardless of these additions, Phantom Fury’s fight can really feel slightly on the flat aspect at occasions. There are some impressed moments, corresponding to a struggle towards a gunship and a enjoyable practice degree, however the recreation’s rudimentary A.I. retains the fight from solely exploding out the best way that I hoped it could.

Not like most Boomer shooters, Phantom Fury is a little more story-focused, with degree design and story beats that take you between areas in a extra complete stream. Don’t count on something ground-breaking in getting you from A to B or character development, however there’s a bit extra to this than the standard aliens blew up my journey bit.

As such, Phantom Fury feels much more like Half-Life and Excellent Darkish than it does, say, DOOM. There’s some Duke Nukem 3D in there as nicely, however the Half-Life essence permeates a lot of the recreation.

Whereas Phantom Fury is a enjoyable journey, it’s additionally slightly on the unremarkable aspect. That’s to not say it isn’t a foul recreation, as a result of it isn’t, however there’s slightly spice lacking from the substances to make it nice and a few bugs that hamper the enjoyable, corresponding to the sport crashing to the dashboard and interacting with environmental objects been finicky.

The visible and degree design is nice and I appreciated the bones of a narrative tying all of it collectively, however Phantom Fury simply misses the mark of greatness with fight that, whereas quick, felt slightly flat.