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Exceptional
Best Game to Justify the Tamil Heritage
«Blew my mind»
«Just one more turn»
6/10📜
The fact that I like Half-life, and admire the original Ion Fury, didn`t guarantee pleasure from Phantom Fury (a sequel, but from other devs), I received only 12 hours of unbearable boredom, the game simply has nothing to surprise, there’s nothing to show that you haven’t already seen, although the game has some interesting beginnings, as well as excellent work with the Unity engine, only in terms of visual.. You know it`s like sequels to suddenly successful films from major studios, when the publisher decided that you can build an entire franchise on this, “Phantom Fury” feels like such an aimless studio product, although what sky-high profits are they counting on for a specific boomer-shooter, which stood out mainly for its technical work with the “Build engine” of the 1990s and 2D art design?
It’s difficult to classically describe the gameplay of the game, because they were trying to create a reference/copy from literally every more or less recognized shooter, the list of things I thought about could be endless.. so I would spoil your only pleasure, if you suddenly decide play it for yourself (and what kind of epic nostalgic music is constantly playing, you would know, as if you should just flow from every moment of the game - no),
But still corу gameplay is a rather interesting mix, enemies constantly run across, like in Half-life, different types can “lively” fight with each other in arenas (and btw shoot each other in the back - it can be very useful, but I don’t know if it’s intended that way), mechanically in terms of gunplay - this is also, approximately HL, but rather the second part, but at first everything happens in the surroundings of endless sci-fi corridors ala "Black Mesa", but the pace of the character is slower, run by pressing shift not holding, Shelley "Bombshell" higher and heavier, just like in the recent “RoboCop” 2023, so the heads of enemies in our sight are much smaller and seem more frisky, and in hand-to-hand combat we take out any enemy with 1 click with an endless and short recharge of our robotic arm, 2nd ability shield from the same hand,
There is stealth from sniper towers, which explode only by throwing a grenade, here "manhacks" (and not only it) suddenly fly out of the ventilation, and sometimes run into their own trap mines, the turrets must be destroyed by following the wire that leads to the shield, but you can do it head-on, they hung with different types of ammo throughout the whole game, There is object physics, but it’s default, and doesn’t allow you to “play”; you’ll often fly up somewhere due to run boost because of it, and you can also abuse the system by building a mountain of folders and climbing somewhere without solving the necessary puzzle, in HL2 2004 there were no such ill-conceived moments, the only justification for the presence of physics in the PF game is the enemies ability to throwing of objects blocking their path.. there is also a funny moment about the player`s ability to open any trash can or office drawer, as if the prop assets were copied from the engine, but not once out of 100 pieces didn`t have anything inside - that’s the “charm” of template engines, although I’m not against modern colorful effects and dismemberment,
At the same time, the second game that the Phantom Maiden most resembles is Halo, which is logical, in 2001 it received almost 100-point ratings on Metacritic. The Halo is visible in half of the platformer's mountain levels of the game, where they often allow you to drive an SUV from 3rd person, and, of course, turrets can be removed from racks (btw, at the beginning where you don`t have this ability yet there is a cool backtracking moment when we pass through the same turret several times, and there are exactly as many cartridges in the clip as there are enemies), and well, there’s also a reference to the parasitic “Flow”, unlike Half-Life moments, this cannot be called a direct imitation, everything is in the form of mixes, vibes, and your conjectures, but I’m sure that the developers looked at “Halo” (but lacking shield enemies to complete the picture), By the way, despite the fact that the game is mostly linear, the “arena-shooterness” is imparted by the destructions of barriers, which does not allow you to sit in one place, as it could be done in almost any shooter, although the bosses-helicopters (yes, yes, the most ordinary helicops straight from the first hl which are repeated several times) done quite the opposite - standing behind a wall and shooting at a pixel is easy way to win.. damn, and also this bait from a trawler about piloting, this is another mini-game, that is, essentially just a rail shooting scvene - we only control the sight, the rest of the side entertainment is just as basic, I don’t see any point in mentioning it, the plot is the same, there are only 10-second cutscenes with a couple of lines from animated characters for some reason (for what?), and the finger/hand of the main character, which she always points to someone,
Why did they also connect this with the universe of the “Sin” games with such a conversation (well, there’s just a remake from 3D Realms coming, you know), adding another unnecessary pistol to the already overloaded arsenal, in general, weapons in Fanta are more or less fine, have 2 types of shooting, which open in a simple upgrading, but these are far from those awesome designs from Ion Fury - it doesn’t look the same in 3D, our electric baton is now used less often and charges very small shields, not generators, but although another key feature - bowling grenades came in handy here much more often,
You can also endlessly criticize game for technical flaws, I have already assumed that the game is purely a publishing request (considering what serious financial losses 3D Realms is currently experiencing), the game was postponed from 2023, the final location didn`t even have time to be tested, there are lanterns hanging in the air, and invisible walls are in the wrong places, enemies always don’t see you, and if they do, they can freeze trying to shoot through the barrier, or they can fall into ledges, the turret can kill itself by shooting into its own debris, and the helicopter-boss can fly into space from your shotgun shot, in the story cutscene it may be unclear where to go, there is a very unintuitively made weapon-tool-saw, which can help in backtracking and requires searching for batteries and charging stations,

The Slipgates hardly expected to create a masterpiece for all time, but they weren’t even given time to come up with a overall creative vision for the game; it turned out to be just another boomer shooter with a couple of good arenas, the buyers of which were angry fans of the diamond original, a game-phenomenon, the repetition of which will most likely be impossible, although the idea itself of technically repeating each eara of the great shooters is not bad, I would like to see the final Ion Fury 2 in the graphics of the Playstation 3 generation, but now, alas.

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//
 То, что мне нравиться первый и второй Half-life, и восхищает оригинальный Ion Fury 2019 года, совершенно не гарантировало мне удовольствие от Phantom Fury (сиквел, но от других разрабов), я получил лишь 12 часов невыносимой скуки, игре просто нечем удивить, нечего показать из того, чего вы уже не видели, хотя интересные зачатки в игре присутствуют, а также тут прекрасная работа с движком Unity по части визуала.. Знаете, как бывают сиквелы внезапно успешных фильмов от крупных студий, когда издатель вдруг решил, что на этом можно построить целую франшизу, "Призрачная ярость" чувствуется вот таким бесцельным студийным продуктом, хотя на какую заоблачную прибыль вы рассчитываете для специфичного жанра бумер-стрелялки, которая выделялась, в основном, именно технической работой с движком "Build engine" 90-ого года и 2D-арт-дизайном?
Сложно классически описать геймплей игры, ибо тут как-будто бы пытались создать отсылку/скопировать буквально от каждого более менее заметного шутера, перечислять на что я подумал можно было бы бесконечно, поэтому зачем.. так я бы заспойлерил бы вам единственное удовольствие, если вы вдруг надумаете поиграть сами (а какая же эпическая ностальгическая музыка играет просто постоянно вы бы знали, будто вы должны прям течь с каждого момента игры - нет!),
Но всё таки кор. геймплей представляет из себя достаточно занятный микс, враги постоянно перебегают, как в Half-life, разные типы могут "живо" сражаться друг с другом на аренках (и кст друг дружке в спину стрелять тож - очень полезно бывает, но хз задумано ли так), механически по ганплею - это тоже, примерно, Халфа, но, скорее вторая, но происходит поначалу всё в антураже бесконечных сай-фай коридоров аля "Блек Мезы", а вот темп персонажа помедленнее, бежать на нажатие шифта, а не удерживание, Шелли "Бомбшелл" выше и тяжеловеснее, прям как в недавнем "Робокопе" 2023 года, поэтому головёшки врагов в нашем прицеле гораздо меньше и кажутся более резвыми, а в рукопашке мы выносим любого врага с 1 нажатия с бесконечной и короткой перезарядкой нашей робо-руки, на 2 способность из руки вылезает щит,
Тут есть стелс от снайперских вышек, которые взрываются только закидыванием гранаты, тут "манхаки" (и не только) резко вылетают из вентиляций, и иногда набегают на свои же trap-мины, турели надо уничтожать, прослеживая за проводом, который ведёт к щитку, но можно и в лобовую, их напихали разных видов на протяжении всей игры,
Тут есть физика предметов, но дефолтная, не позволяющая "играться" как в Халфе, зачастую вы будете куда-то подлетать из-за ран буста, а также вполне можете абузить систему выстраивая гору папок и закарабкиваясь куда-то без решения необходимой головоломки, таких непродуманных моментов в HL2 2004 года уже не было, единственное оправдание наличия физики в Фантоме - это швыряние преграждающих путь врагам предметов в нас.. тут ещё есть забавный момент возможности открытия любого мусорного бака или офисного ящика, будто ассеты пропов скопировали из движка, но ни разу из 100 штук ни разу ничего не положили в них - вот вам и "прелесть" шаблонных движков, хотя против современных красочных эффектов и расчленёнки я не против,
 При этом второй игрой, на которую наиболее смахивает Фантомная фурия я бы назвал - Halo, что логично, в 2001 году она получила почти 100-бальные оценки на Метакритике, Хало видится в половине рельефных платформенных горных уровнях игры, где зачастую дают по управлять внедорожником от 3-его лица, и, конечно, турели можно будет снимать со станков (кстати, в начале они не снимаются и есть прикольный бэктрекинговый момент, когда мы несколько раз проходим через одну и ту же турель, в итоге патронов хватает прям ровно до нуля) ,а ну ещё отсылка на паразитный "Поток", в отличии от Халф-Лайфа это нельзя назвать прямой имитацией, всё в виде миксов, вайбов, и ваших домыслов, но я уверен, что разрабы на "Гало" оглядывались (ток врагов-щитовиков не хватило для полной картины),
Кстати, несмотря на то, что игра в большинстве линейная, "арена-шутерности" придаёт разрушение заграждений, не дающее засесть в 1 месте, как можно почти в любом шутере, хотя боссы-вертолёты (да да, самые обычные вертолёты прям из первой хл, которые повторяются несколько раз), именно таким способом - вставания за стеночкой и расстрелом пикселя, легко побеждаются.. блииин, а как же ещё байтил трейлер полётом на вертолёте, в итоге это очередная мини-игра, то есть по сути просто тир - мы управляем только прицелом, остальные побочные развлечения такие же базовые смысла упоминать не вижу, с сюжетом тоже самое, есть только 10-секундные катсцены с парой реплик зачем-то анимированных персонажей (ради чего?), и тыканьем главной героини в кого-то пальцем,
Зачем они ещё 1 таким разговором это связали со вселенной игр "Sin" (а ну там просто ремейк от 3Д Рилсмов на горизонте понимаете), дав к итак перегруженному арсеналу ещё один ненужный пистолет, в целом, оружие в Фанте "сдобно стреляет", имеет по 2 вида стрельбы, которые открываются в простенькой прокачке, но это далеко не те охеренные дизайны из Ion Fury - в 3D уже выглядит не так, наша электрическая дубинка теперь используется реже и заряжает очень маленькие щитки, а не генераторы, но хотя ещё одна ключевая фишка в виде боулинговых гранат тут мне пригождалась гораздо чаще,
Можно долго ругать ещё за технические огрехи, я уже предположил, что игра чисто издательский запрос (учитывая какие серьёзные финансовые убытки 3D Realms сейчас переживает), игру переносили с 2023, и, финальную локацию даже не успели дотестить, там фонари висят в воздухе, и невидимые стены бывают не в тех местах, враги постоянно тебя не видят, а если видят, то могут зависнуть, пытаясь стрелять через заграждение, а могут свалиться в уступы, турель может убить себя в свой же обломок, а босс-вертолёт может улететь в космсос от выстрела дробовика, в сюжетной катсцене может быть непонятно куда идти, есть очень не интуитивно сделанное оружие-инструмент-пила, которая может помочь в бэктрекинге и требует нахождения аккумуляторов и зарядных станций,

Врядли "Слипгейтсы" претендовали прям на шедевр на все времена, но им не дали времени даже придумать общее творческое видение игры, получился просто ещё один бумер-шутер c парой неплохих аренок, покупателями которого стали разгневанные фанаты бриллиантового оригинала, повторить феномен которого, наверное, невозможно, хотя сама идея каждую часть технически повторять великие шутеры того времени неплохая, я бы хотел завершающий Ion Fury 2 в графике поколения Playstation 3, но теперь, увы.

😊 Поддержка подпиской: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/37365104
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Exceptional
Blew my mind
«Blew my mind»
Exceptional
:)
«Blew my mind»
another trash game from meme
«Waste of time»
«Boooring»
Yeah, I wanted a shooter set in the «Harry Potter» universe, but not like this.

Despite some commendable moments, the game failed to fully meet expectations.

The game included missions that did not follow the plot of the books or movies. This decision might have been an attempt to diversify gameplay and add additional elements, but ultimately it led to a loss of atmosphere. Moreover, these missions couldn't be skipped. They had to be completed in order to continue advancing through the plot.

One of the strangest changes was turning the game into a shooter. Previous «Harry Potter» games focused on puzzles, exploring the world, spells, and arcade elements. However, in «Deathly Hallows – Part 1», the developers decided to add more action, including shooting with magical wands.

The game is quite contradictory. It tried to introduce some new ideas but couldn't strike a balance between them and maintaining the series' characteristic style. Ultimately, this game became a kind of experiment that wasn't very successful.
«Buggy as hell»
«Game over at last!»
genial
«Blew my mind»
Exceptional
This has set the precedent what video games can achieve as an art form.
A bit too short.
lessons on how to do a 3d metroidvania
Dino Crisis FPS...
Boy oh boy would I have been pissed paying full price for this game. Starting with the good, this game has lots of color. I also really like the FPS magic thing. As a big Hexen fan, I always enjoyed the Wizard shooting lightning or the Cleric's fire gloves. While this game doesn't have that much variety of magic, it is still a fresh perspective.

 Now the bad. Pretty much everything about the game. The story and it's dialogue are terrible. Mostly a handful of made up words and McGuffins, some of it sounds like AI wrote it. On top of that the VO is all over the place in terms of quality. Some it's fine and then some sounds like they recorded on a 20 year old mic in a closet.

 The gameplay doesn't fare much better. The game wants a certain finesse and accuracy that it just doesn't have with its weapons. The movement can be clunky, the platforming even more so. I found the disrupt ability didn't work have the time. There is also not much balance to the progression of the game and your build. On top of all that you just get killed far too easily even with the shield. It really seemed like the game thought it was something else than what you were playing. The final thing is that this game is just too fucking long. It's so bland and boring and it takes almost 16 hours to beat. I cannot overstate how much this game overstayed its welcome.
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«Buggy as hell»
«Waste of time»
This is one of the better Lovecraftian games I've played in recent years. The art style and the Resident Evil like gameplay and structure really worked. It's not too long and the multiple endings gives plenty of replay value. I was surprised how well they were able to keep things just vague enough to allow for different endings.
«Can’t stop playing»
Unfortunately I waited too long to try to finish this game. It is rather odd too as I started getting back into playing just a month before they brought the servers down. Just another reason online biased games are a gamble. Overall I think it was a decent game but I was never big into the online components. Driving was solid though.
I powered through this solo and I'd like to say that it would be better with friends but I honestly don't think it would be. The game is so bland to it's core and there is little to ever raise it up to be interesting. The one thing it gets right is the art design and it's dedication to the source material.
«Boooring»
«Game over at last!»
I will admit that early on I just about quit playing this game because of how intense and oppressive the atmosphere was. After a bit of getting used to and seeing the AI for the Beast wasn't some god level thing sensing my every move I was able to proceed and very much enjoyed my experience. I love all the games in the franchise but some, mainly Dark Descent, do not let up on their dread. There are so many good mechanics and tools available to you in Bunker that it just makes for a really good and varied experience.
«Constantly dying and enjoy it»
I gave this game a fair shake. I love the look and the charm. Not having combat was also very nice but when it came to doing quests and fulfilling orders I just couldn't stand the systems. I felt like I was back playing Ark where you have to have a ton of resources to just swap to another resource and then rinse and repeat. Just ruined the game for me personally. Plus the fast travel is buried in the main questline.
«Disappointment of the year»
«Boooring»
This was very relaxed and enjoyable game to play. I platinumed this while listening to the second Expanse audiobook and it's just the perfect balance of interaction and relaxation. It's fun to race around water and fertilizing your crops while mowing and getting plots ready. Love how realistic the cat behavior is. Very easy to platinum as well.
«Can’t stop playing»
«Sit back and relax»