Ion Fury (PC)

Developer:

Voidpoint

|

Release Date:

2019

|

Systems:

PC, Mac

---

This month on Super Adventures, I've only got the one game for you, and it's been reviewed and streamed by everyone else already! In fact it was in Early Access for months, so a whole chapter of it's been around for everyone to play for ages. What I should've done is hang on for a couple of decades until the game's properly retro and write about it then, but I'm impatient.

Ion Fury is the second Duke Nukem spin-off starring Shelly Harrison after 2016's Bombshell, except not really as the character never actually turned up in any of the Duke Nukem games she was intended to appear in. This worked out for 3D Realms though as it means they got to keep her when they sold the rest of the Duke IP to Gearbox a few years back. They can't make Duke Nukem games anymore but they can make all the Bombshell sequels they want. Or a prequel in this case.

Bombshell was a top down shooter, but this is a bit more like Duke Nukem 3D. In fact it's a lot more like it, as it was made using the Build engine that powered the last of the great 2.5D games like Duke 3D, Shadow Warrior and Blood. Why did they go back to such an archaic game engine? Same reason that Baldur's Gate got an expansion made recently in the Infinity engine I guess: because the developer had already updated the engine for new systems and knew people were nostalgic for it (Voidpoint is run by the guy who made the EDuke32 source port). Plus they wanted to.

I'm immune to nostalgia though, as I never really left the 90s (or the 2000s). In fact I played a few levels of Doom II, Quake and Duke 3D while I was waiting for the final version to go live and the download to start, so all it has to do is be better than them and I'll be impressed.

---

Oh I forgot to mention that until last month the game was called Ion Maiden, but the band Iron Maiden felt that taking the 'r' away wasn't enough to distinguish the two brands and they eventually got their way. To be fair the title is a play on 'iron maiden', but I believe the spiky torture device predates the band (even if it wasn't actually created in the Middle Ages).

Ion Fury is a bit of a crap title compared to Ion Maiden, but I suppose it's fitting that the game had to be changed because of a lawsuit. The Bombshell games only exist in the first place because of Gearbox's lawsuit against 3D Realms' Duke Nukem: Mass Destruction, which led to sidekick Shelly "Bombshell" Harrison being promoted to replace Duke, and the game being remade from scratch around her.

Incidentally the Ion Maiden preview levels are still playable in Ion Fury, but they've been given their own section outside of the main campaign. This pretty title image is still there as well, it's just under a different title. Can't believe I didn't notice how it's a homage to Wolfenstein 3D. 

The game has a standard difficulty select screen with some standard issue faces to go with it, which is cool. It doesn't look like this though, I put this together myself to get all the text together in one screenshot (the portraits look less mangled in the actual game).

I don't know what the game's like yet, but the difficulty mode descriptions are A grade, telling me exactly what I need to know without making me feel bad about picking an easier difficulty. In fact it's making me feel like I made the right choice not going with Maximum Fury, because that's a dark future I don't want any part of. I'm surprised they didn't go one step further though and put in an 'Ion Man' mode, where you have to get through the game without dying.

Incidentally once you've chosen your difficulty you're stuck with it, so you're really picking the level of the hard bit you'll struggle to get past later. I always pick normal mode when I'm writing about a game, but I'm sure it'll feel like a highly challenging mode for veterans eventually.

Here's another image that isn't in the game, not like this anyway. First it scrolls down the one on the left, fading to black before you get to see what's at the bottom, then it scrolls up the one on the right. And that's pretty much it, that's all the intro you get.

Also pressing a button skips it, even a screenshot button. So that was a pain.

ZONE 1, LEVEL 1: THE ALL-SEEING EYE

Yeah, this is the Build engine alright, though I don't remember the lighting being as fancy as this back in the day. The Build engine can't do lighting, at all, so a level designer has to cut up the map into sectors and shade each of them manually to create shadows. Or paint the lighting onto the texture like they've done here.

I'd say something about the plot, but it seems they've forgotten to add one. I mean something flies by the window and blows a chunk out of the wall and Shelly yells that they're lucky she can't fit a grenade launcher in her bag, and that's all I get. I hope she finds a bigger bag later by the way, because as much as I like pistols I appreciate a bit of variety in my arsenal.

Oh there you go I can press a button to bring up the story!

Turns out that cyborg punks have invaded Neo D.C and spilt my drink, which gives me some much needed context to my rampage of revenge. It's fair to say this is not a cinematic, story driven experience.

Oh hang on, we're in Washington DC? I've never played Bombshell, but I know that this is a prequel and I know that the Washington Incident is where she lost her arm, so I'm starting to put 2 and 2 together here.

If you're wondering if the text ended with 'time to get furious' before the title got changed, the answer's no. The text used to be pretty different in the preview version. For example, they specified the date as being 2097 (hey that's the same year as Wipeout 2097), and Shelly used to be a major instead of a corporal.

The window doesn't seem to lead anywhere but I decided to walk over anyway to get a better look at this cyberpunk metropolis. Then I accidentally slipped off into the clouds below and got told to 'press USE to scream'!

That's not how this works mate. I press the buttons and other people scream.

Second time around I left the room through the door instead and ran into four cultists in anoraks with glowing eyes and skulls above their heads.

Actually I put the skulls there, as the gun's secondary fire lets me mark targets for Shelly to automatically kill, Red Dead Redemption style. Though it doesn't slow the game down while I'm doing this, it just slows me down, so holding right mouse button down will impede my ability to dance around bullets. That's fine though, as the primary fire also kills these enemies instantly as the game has HEADSHOTS!

It's a Build Engine game with headshots, and I love both those things! Well, actually most Build engine games are kind of terrible, but this one seems alright so far.

I killed the cultists without much drama (they didn't even throw dynamite at me or yell "maranax infirmux") but I've been held up a moment staring at this ceiling. That's the kind of thing you didn't see in old school Build engine games, though I'm pretty sure designers could've done it if they felt like tilting all those sectors individually by hand.

Hang on is that a Flynn's Arcade sign right next to a Tech Noir one? You think you've got enough references there?

Oh, I guess not.

It wouldn't let me play any of them but I did have a go at a machine over on their right where you have to stop the arrow at the right point to win a submachine gun. Oh also I got a blue access card, which is quaint. Handy though, seeing as someone's locked me in here.

My submachine gun fires incendiary rounds!

Shelly mentions that she never misses, but I'm sure some of those rounds must of have gone wild, the amount I just sprayed in there.

Oh, by the way that's my health on the bottom left, next to Shelly's Doomguy HUD face, and it's currently less than 100. That's because this game does not have regenerating health, at all. It's a shame the game doesn't have more numbers like that on screen in my opinion as it'd be nice to see at a glance how much ammo I have for each gun without pressing the weapon cycle button.

Mirrors and toilets, now I know I'm playing a Build engine game. Especially as it's letting me play with everything, and lift all the toilet seats. Though there's no dialogue for using a mirror! Duke Nukem, Lo Wang and Caleb all had something to say when they saw their reflection but Shelly's got no comment.

Incidentally Shelly's current outfit is pretty different to how she looked back in the 90s, as she's here she's wearing clothes. She started off as a Command & Conquer fan fiction character, but when they decided to put her into Duke Nukem Forever as a counterpart to Duke, they decided to put her in her underwear. She spent the next decade being redesigned over and over along with the rest of the game, gaining and losing garments along the way, until she was dropped entirely.

Speaking of Duke, as I left the club I got a public service announcement by my arch nemesis Dr. Heskel, played by Duke Nukem himself Jon St. John (though you'd never be able to tell). He was informing people to return to their homes or face death, but I don't know who he's talking though to as the only people in this city are cyborg cultists, and they're all working for him. I haven't even seen a single stripper yet.

I found a new toy though, and it seems like a decent enough shotgun. I like the way I don't have to reload it one shell at a time, though I do have to reload it. Trouble is that the pistol's so powerful that I'm having to force myself to put it away and play with these other weapons for a bit to save ammo.

There's something about this level that reminds me of the first level of Jedi Knight, and that's a good thing in my opinion. By the way if you look very very carefully in the background you'll see two more enemies. I tend to hear them before I see them, because they keep saying things like "move out" "fan out". Oh also they keep shooting me, that's another clue to their location. It still usually takes me a while to figure out where the bullets are coming from though.

I'm surprised they didn't find another way to put '420' on that poster, go for the hat trick.

I'm also surprised to see the GDF logo here, because that's a Duke Nukem thing right? I know that Shelly was going to work for the GDF in Duke Nukem Forever, but that's a separate franchise now and the two have no connections, so how is this here?

Oh, it was EDF in Duke Nukem! That's totally different, just like the logo is. Incidentally there's a game called Earth Defence Force and its sequel's called Global Defence Force and yet it's a bloody band that ended up suing the game.

By the way, you can see here that Ion Fury is designed for a higher resolution than Duke Nukem 3D. Ignore the bar at the bottom, that was redrawn for the Megaton Edition, and look at how pixelly the shotgun is. That's because Ion Fury's guns were scaled for 640x480 res and Duke 3D was designed for a tiny 320x240. It's as retro as you remember the games being, but not quite as retro as they actually were.

There's a Half-Life style level transition here, with a half second of loading before I'm able to continue. I can walk right back to the other level if I want to though and everything's just as I left it.

ZONE 1, LEVEL 2: TROUBLE IN PARADISE

I've ended up in a nice big open level with stairs and ladders and assholes in red coats sniping me from the rooftops. I see you up there on the left, you jerk.

The blokes in red cloaks are tougher than the average cultist and fire a spray of shots like a Death Knight in Quake, but the projectiles are just slow enough for me to duck under them when I see them coming. Then they aim the next volley to hit me when I'm crouched so it's perhaps better to just step out of the way. I'm definitely appreciating how the enemies have slow enough reactions that I can pop my head around a corner without it being instantly taken off, and there's plenty of health kits around for when I manage to get hit anyway. Not sure if that's going to change on higher difficulties.

I tried leaping from rooftop to rooftop for a bit but that got me nothing but health, armour, ammo and a yellow keycard. Sounds good but a keycard doesn't help me much if I can't find the door!

The yellow door brought me to this power generator. I soon figured out that I had to use my taser baton to give it a jump start (the clue was the message that came up telling me to do it). This got the lights back on and presumably activated something somewhere. Maybe it's this door I'm looking at.

Yes, it was the door! I wish they'd light up green or something to let me know when they're unlocked.

Behind the door I found a second submachine gun and a bunch of drones flew down to harass me. I'm suddenly even more grateful for my pistol's lock on aim, making even annoying flying enemies bearable!

I carried on into a gloomy maintenance access corridor where I got the blue access card and another message from Haskel. "Sit down little girl, this is your final warning". Hey that one was directed right at me this time! Then the game pulled an Unreal as the door shut and the lights started turning off one section at a time.

Then the spiders with skulls for heads started pouring in. So I guess this technically counts as a monster closet.

Malcolm McDowell that's what Haskel's voice reminds me of! Man, that's been bothering me. These guys are bothering me a bit too, but I remember the rats in Blood and the wasps in Shadow Warrior and honestly they're not even close to that level of annoying, especially when my taser baton takes them out in one hit.

After they were killed Haskel turned the lights back on and let me out, so that's nice of him. It's also a bit weird for a Build engine game as they don't typically have events triggered by enemies being dead. Of course I found that more enemies had wandered into the level when I backtracked through it to the blue keycard door, but that's fine.

In fact I should probably use it as a chance to practice with my bouncing bowling bombs. These things seem to home in on nearby enemies, and if they find nothing nearby they shut down so I can pick them up again. Great for when you're pretty sure there's an enemy around the next corner and want to replace them with an explosion. Plus when enemies blow up, yellow armour shards fly everywhere for me to collect.

The only two drawbacks to them seem to be a: Shelly doesn't really like to lob them over stuff, and b: they will eventually run out.

Crap! Well at least I've confirmed that Shelly is mortal. I'm only semi-blaming myself for this, because the game confused me. I pulled out my shotgun to kill someone and was surprised when grenades came out instead. Apparently the weapon's secondary fire is to switch between shells and grenades, and when you first pick up the ammo it auto-switches.

It wasn't the first grenade that blew me up though, and it may not have even been the second bouncing back at me. It was all a bit chaotic. All I know is that if my shotgun had actually been a shotgun at that point I totally would've killed that guy.

Fortunately with quicksaves and checkpoints the amount of progress I've lost is approximately absolutely none. Checkpoint saves can be turned off by the way; the game makes it very easy to make things harder on you.

Oh I haven't mentioned the quicksave icon yet.

It's a little pixel PC floppy disk! Did PC games ever save to floppy disk? I've got no idea, though I know Amiga games did. I remember formatting save disks.

Cannon Fodder (Amiga)

By the way Ion Fury is like 90MB big, so you could play it every day for a year and all the loading times combined would still be less than the time it took you to read this sentence.

I carried on to the end of the level and this time it put a message on screen telling me I'm missing 11 secrets, I guess because this is a point of no return. Telling me how many secrets I've missed while I still have a chance to do something about it? That's genius! But I've already ran enough laps of this level, I'm ready to move on… into the air vent sewers. Ew.

ZONE 1, LEVEL 3: FAN SERVICE

Hey look I found a secret! Body armour and a voxel video card.

Turns out it wasn't a 3D accelerator though, it’s a blast accelerator that gives me 30 seconds of infinite bombs! Plus it probably has 4MB of ram or something crazy like that.

So I ran out throwing bombs everywhere like an idiot and got killed. Not that running out is necessarily a bad idea in this, you've just got to be smart about it, and not linger in front of enemies trying to line up the perfect shot. Though you can play cautiously and still end up getting shot when the bloody cultists are hiding. They don't duck behind cover, it's not that kind of game, but they're placed in areas that makes them hard to spot and hit sometimes.

Whoa, is there a skull in that explosion? Must be a special effect from my special homing bombs. I did not expect to find a proper skullplosion in a first person shooter. In fact it's been years since I've seen one in any game.

I like these bombs, they always know where the cultists are hiding. My pistol's secondary fire is also good for spotting them in the dark as well.

What the hell is THAT? It's like some kind of centipede made up of spikes and balls. When I shot it in the middle it split into two, and each of the segments explode into a puddle of acid when I destroy them, this is all wonderful. Man I'm glad I've got bombs.

I blew up the main part, then had a bit of panic as I backed away to get some room and ran straight into a wall. But I escaped and got the other half too. So I continued on and nearly had a heart attack as I walked into a third segment I hadn't realised was there. Bloody centipedes.

This third level's all about the fans. Fans that push you into the air, fans that blow you down tunnels, and fans that suck you in and shred you. With all this platforming I thought I was playing Half-Life for a moment. I like a bit of first person platforming though, it's cool.

You know what else is good that I haven't mentioned yet: the music. They've gone with Deus Ex/Unreal Tournament style tracker modules instead of midis and as a result it sounds a lot more like them than it does like Duke 3D. It sounds a bit like an Amiga game actually, and would've sounded even more like one if the composer hadn't come to their senses and used the limitations of a mid 90s PC sound card not an early 90s Amiga sound chip.

Oh look, a grenade!

This kind of enemy has the same shotgun I do, so sometimes they'll just fire a shell at me and other times they've got grenade ammo and I just have to deal with that. One hit just took me down to no armour and 65 health so it'll probably be best if I don't let them hit me again.

This was me trying to be clever as well. There's two rooms either side of a locked door, each presumably containing a switch I need to get to, and I thought it'd make things easier if I crept into the first room through a pipe and caught the enemies off guard. Instead I found myself stuck in a narrow space while they send explosives my way.

Though I have to take a moment to mention how impressed I am with all these curvy tunnels. It's not just curved, it's sloping, and someone had to build all this from individually raised and tilted segments of the floor. They didn't just use a cylinder primitive and rotate it.

Turns out that the grenade guy had a buddy around the corner took off most of the rest of my health. See, I told you they fired a spray of shots like the Death Knights from Quake. The git's left me with 16 hp and I've got to go clean out another room just like this now. I'm not going to quick load just because I got a bad outcome, but I'm not going to quick save like this either so I need to be very careful.

I tried the same approach on the second room on the other side, sneaking in via the vent instead of using the front door, but it worked out even worse as someone had put a big fan in the way. I tried shooting through it, but I was using incendiary rounds and managed to burn myself with them instead.

Alright I've reached the second switch and now I'm ready to... oh hang on, I think I forgot to press the first switch.

Man laptops are fast in the future. Also I was going to show off this security monitor screen but it got a bit broken. Security monitors are helpful because they often show you where you need to be next, or they show all the enemies that just appeared outside.

With both rooms cleared out and both switches flicked I was able to go through the formerly locked door in the middle, after taking a moment to read the sign above it:

And that's the end of the gigantic third level

ZONE 1, LEVEL 4: CULTURAL DIVIDE

This is what you want after a cramped sewer/air vent stage, a big-ass cyberpunk city streets level. It's just a shame the game doesn't seem to have a sniper rifle. You can't even aim down the sights to get a little bit of zoom.

It's funny how I only seem to get one or two enemies on screen at once in these shots. They're everywhere really, I assure you. It's rare I get close enough to get a good look at one like this though. Some games like Doom modelled their enemies as stop motion mannequins and photographed them, games like TekWar used digitised actors, but this has taken the Duke Nukem 3D approach of 3D rendering them and then painting over them afterwards and it works pretty well I reckon.

I love running around and jumping between boxes, Shelly can't vault up onto them like the Doom Slayer, but she's so speedy. But it'd really help if I knew where I was running to. Where the hell's the yellow keycard door on this gigantic sprawling map?

Things like switch, power generators and doors aren't marked, which is a bit annoying. Sometimes the game puts a coloured spotlight in front of the door which does show up on the automap, but if there's one here I can't see it.

Well I've lowered the blue shipping container, though I don't see how that helps me.

Oh, it exploded. I'm not sure why that happened, but ain't no one's got the time to question every explosion in this game. Hang on, is that Tetris? Is this a Tetris joke? Well now it really doesn't make sense, as all the containers exploded instead of just the bottom four rows!

Speaking of getting things, there's a big sign out there saying "Tainer Inn" and I was trying to figure out what it's a reference to. Because everything in this game is a jokey reference. Turns out I was thinking about it too hard (tainer = container).

ZONE 1, LEVEL 5: REFORMATION PLAZA

I was a bit confused by how deserted this level was, at first. Then I got outside and it turned into Serious Sam, with enemies pouring in everywhere. The game doesn't typically do this!

Fortunately I have a new crossbow! I was hoping it was going to turn out to be my sniper rifle, but it's actually more useful than that as the charged secondary fire inflicts a continuous barrage of death into everything in front of it (see above). They're firing rockets at me, so it's only fair.

The weirdest thing about this fight is how alive I still am despite the ridiculous number of enemies around. They never show up in screenshots, but trust me they're there. Turns out that if you stay mobile and keep running rings around the enemies you can actually avoid a lot of the hurt sent your way. It's a healthy alternative to keeping your head down and peeking out from around walls.

Hey I finally got my stats screen! I guess each zone is about five levels long then.

Interestingly it tells you how long you took, but it doesn't give you a time to beat. It'd rather you took it slow and got all the enemies and secrets. I did pretty well with kills, only missing 15 enemies out of 415 (I told you they're everywhere!) Not so great at the secrets though as I only found two of them. In five levels. I would aim for 100%, but I guess I'm not a real player as that sounds like effort.

I've played for 1 hour 38 minutes so I think I'm ready to call it a day on this one. It's a nice game but I can't keep playing it or else this post is going to get ridiculously long. Well, ridiculously longer.

ZONE 2, LEVEL 2: ALPHABET SOUP

Okay I'm just going to finish the second zone and the I'll turn it off.

This level comes with a shooting gallery you can reset, so I've been wasting all my ammo on it trying to get a run where I didn't waste 20 seconds looking for the last target. I managed 41 seconds in the end. I've got no one to compare that to, but experience tells me it's not going to be too far above the average.

By the way, I'm still using the pistol because enemies generally still go down in one or two shots to the head, and it's awesome. But I feel like the game's missing out a bit on the gimmick weapons, as everything's fairly sensible. It's got a decent arsenal that you are required to carry around all at once, but the secondary fire mode can't make up for the fact that there's nothing like a freeze ray, or a shrink ray, or a decapitated monster head that shoots fireballs. Though homing bombs are kind of weird I suppose.

ZONE 2, LEVEL 3: DEFENCE FARCE

Hey I recognise this stage from the preview chapter, complete with the Amiga 'Guru Meditation' error message on the screens! The original early access levels are still available to play separately, but they've been sneaking little pieces of them into the main campaign here and there.

I'm still fascinated by that lighting effect, which is weird because I know exactly how it's done. They went to the effort of making a special texture for it with the lighting painted on. It's just so unusual for a Build engine game and it looks great.

Hang on, there's a red cultist back there and I can hear him charging up his crossbow to send another spray of bolts my way. This sounds like a job for the pistol!

ZONE 2, LEVEL 5: NUKAGE NIGHTMARE

I knew I'd run into something I hate in the game if I just kept playing it long enough. Three hours in and I've found it.

Circle strafing is working against this boss, it's just not working well enough and there's not an abundance of ammo and health around so I always lose the battle of attrition. Especially with all the other things around that are shooting at me. I am really regretting not being more careful with my medkits, because they'd be a real help right now. I've tried to get out of the habit of holding onto all my cool stuff in games just in case I need it and now I'm starting to see why it became a habit.

I never get frustrated when Shelly dies in this, I just immediately quick load and try something else, but this has instantly kicked the motivation out of me. Some people like boss fights, but I'd rather have the arena battle from the first zone back. Or better yet, a regular level.

I ended up watching a video on YouTube which showed me the skip battle button: the secondary fire on the crossbow. This gun just cuts through the mech in a couple of shots, it's amazing!

ZONE 3, LEVEL 2: CORPORATE CHAOS

I haven't had one good shot of the skyline yet and that's a unforgivable considering how impressive it is for a Build engine game. Those are actual 3D buildings out there, they're not just painted on, it's amazing.

It's unusual to come across a broken window like this, because despite all my best efforts I can't break the glass in this game myself. So I think I'll celebrate this rare find by kicking this voxel chair out of the building. Because you can push objects now in this. In fact I pushed a chair up to a vent to climb inside and found myself leaping from tiny ledge to tiny ledge outside of the building.

It was all going well until I remembered that I can't break glass, so there was no way to get back in on the other side.

I eventually realised that the panel behind me opened up and I was able to get my reward: a single shard of armour, and a message saying "FREE SHARD". Thanks for that, I'll treasure it. Just as soon as I jump all the way back (I ain't loading a save, I worked for this 1 point of armour).

By the way, glass might be invulnerable but shooting open vents and blowing open walls to find alternate paths is very much a thing I've been doing in this game. Lots of shortcuts to let you catch enemies off guard or get hidden treasures. Like disposable radar devices that give you a temporary radar showing where they're all waiting.

ZONE 3, LEVEL 4: EXECUTIVE DISORDER

I've reached the end of zone four so now it's time for another boss fight, yay!

This time I've got to fire my minigun at its rear end, over and over again. It didn't take me long to get the routine down of clearing out the enemies, rushing to the minigun ammo crate, grabbing what I could, then racing to the shelter of the vent to quick save, but it's not getting any more fun. Especially it seems that I have to keep tapping the button on the box like 15-20 times to load up on bullets.

Plus I keep getting Shelly killed because I'm so distracted loading up my minigun that I let an enemy or a missile sneak up on me. I'm caught in a cycle of frustration, where the more I fuck up, the more careless I get, and the more I fuck up. I've got eight medkits saved up but I don't want to use them, because what if the next boss is worse???

I suppose there's nothing wrong with it really, and it's actually pretty clever for a Build engine boss, seeing as it's probably made from bits of the ceiling pulled down. I just got used to playing the game I wanted to play, and these boss fights always trap me into someone else's idea of fun.


CONCLUSION

---

I was going to say something like "Ion Fury shows what the Build engine can do with its technical limitations removed," but that's not true really, as it's still plenty limited. I mean it's still using 256 colour palettes!

I could say "Ion Fury shows what an old school game engine can do after twenty years of game design evolution," but that's not really true either. Sure I can imagine the level designers have had a bit more practice than the ones who made Duke Nukem 3D back in the day, but the only bits of modern game design creeping in are things like the headshots, the reload button and the (optional) checkpoint saves.

So what I'll say is: Ion Fury is really bloody good... if you're into this kind of thing. I don't think you need to be nostalgic to enjoy it, but if you hate 90s shooters it's not going to be the one to convert you to the joys of circle strafing and scouring every inch of level for health kits and secrets. Personally though, I've been going through the list of things that piss me off in shooters, and I'm struggling to tick anything off here. I haven't come across hitscan enemies, escort missions, forced stealth missions, timers or suicidal exploding drones. It hasn't killed me off for not following the script, or for popping my head up from cover. It hasn't even had a turret sequence, and all the cutscenes come pre-skipped!

Though I didn't like the 'fire 17 million shots on target to win' boss fights. I know the classic Build engine games did it, but I didn't like it then either! And it would've been really helpful of them to mark where I needed to go next on the map. My brain loves to line up crosshairs with badguys but it's really bad at remembering where all the locked doors are, and I spent ages roaming the levels looking for the generator or broken window or vent that I'd missed. The security monitor and coloured spotlights do help a bit, but it's easier to find the secrets than it is the exit in this game sometimes, and the secrets are bloody hard to find.

Also, no multiplayer! It's the lack of co-op I'm mostly bothered by right now, after seeing a Steam notification that my friend had started the game too. It'd be nice to get together with someone and completely trivialise the game's difficulty with overwhelming force. Though to be honest it hasn't been a huge challenge for me on normal difficulty so far. Death can come quickly in normal mode Shadow Warrior and it will come quickly in Blood, but in this I could usually last a while before making a dumb decision and getting punished for it. Not that it's punishing in the slightest if you're using quick saves, but that's always your choice.

I suppose I could also complain about how I was often left wondering who the hell was shooting me, but overall I thought the enemies and maps were pretty decent. Sure the enemies lack the distinctive silhouette of pig cops and lizard gunners, and the levels aren't exactly a trip from a cinema to a prison to a submarine, but there's also less bullshit and I'll take that trade off.

I've got so much fondness for Duke Nukem 3D that I'm struggling to say this is better than it, even with that second terrible episode fresh in my mind, but I can say that this is a much better successor than Duke Nukem Forever. And I like Duke Nukem Forever... kind of. Did they really need to go all the way back to the Build engine to recapture the old school gameplay? Nah, Doom 2016 has a lot of similarities with its speedy bouncy fluid shooting, and there are shooters like Prey 2017 that put exploration above scripted storytelling. But the Build engine's very much up to the task and the game's got a distinctive look that sets it apart, thanks to the artists working within authentic limitations to come up with something great instead of making something that looks ass and calling it 'retro'.

Plus it's got a really good pistol, and headshots, and I love my pistol headshots. So this is an easy recommend.

---

This was a one-off special, and Super Adventures is going to disappear again until October, so hopefully I'll see you then. Actually I hope I'll see you now as well, so if you leave me a comment in the box below it'll be appreciated.