PC Game Review: Ion Fury

GAME: Ion Fury
RELEASED: 08/15/2019
DEVELOPER: Voidpoint
PUBLISHER: 3D Realms
AVAILABLE ON: PC (Steam, GOG & Boxed)

Before I begin my review, I have to get a bit personal and talk a bit about myself and my life as a gamer. I was born in 1988 and some of my earliest memories come from gaming on PC. And the very first game I remember playing was Duke Nukem by Apogee Software. And those familiar with Apogee should also know that they eventually became 3D Realms and published titles such as Terminal Velocity, Duke Nukem 3D and Shadow Warrior. The last two games used a certain engine called BUILD, developed by Ken Silverman. This engine was also used to make games such as Redneck Rampage, Exumed/Powerslave, TekWar and not to mention the glorious tribute to horror films that is Blood.

Now the build engine didn’t really see much use after 1997. id Software’s Quake engine and Epic’s Unreal engine were both quickly blowing it out of the water and while it continued getting fan support and eventually got ported to Windows and becoming EDuke32, there hasn’t been a Build engine in 20 years…

So that should give an indication of why Ion Fury is so significant. This is a game released in 2019 using the BUILD engine. It is a game sharing so much of its DNA with these classic titles that it could almost be considered a child. Which brings me back to my personal story. These are the kind of games I grew up with being a PC gamer in the 90’s. And sure, some of them didn’t hold up as well today, especially Shadow Warrior with its somewhat problematic stereotyping and male-centric tone, but games like Blood are very much still fun playing today. So when I heard about Ion Fury, back when it was called Ion Maiden until the band Iron Maiden threatened to sue (that actually happened), I was absolutely thrilled.

Sure we’ve seen a resurgence of throwback shooters recently with games such as Dusk and Amid Evil (which you should check out my review of) getting attention for recreating the type of games we saw in the 90’s. But Ion Fury is special in the sense it doesn’t actually use a modern game engine to look old school. By using the BUILD engine, which at this point is old enough to drink hard liquor, the team at Voidpoint have been working with limitations that inherently gives the game a certain old school feel. And there is something unique about BUILD engine games that has been lost in the process of everything becoming true 3D. So let’s take a look at the greatest tribute to 90’s FPS gaming ever, ION FURY.

Much like its inspirations, Ion Fury is chock full of references to other games. And also makes me wish these arcade cabinets were real!

STORY

Ion Fury is actually a prequel of sorts to a previous 3D Realms game titled “Bombshell”. It features Shelly “Bombshell” Harrison who herself is based on a cut character from Duke Nukem Forever, who originally was going to be a sidekick of Duke. After 3D Realms lost the rights to the Duke Nukem franchise to Gearbox, they decided to give Bombshell her own game and further developed the character into a badass with a robot arm. Unfortunately, the game didn’t do so well thanks to a myriad of bugs and the game not being as good as people hoped (check out my review of it for more info on that). But already when Bombshell released, the Deluxe Edition gave people early access to an upcoming “BUILD engine prequel”, which is where development started.

Ion Fury follows Shelly’s exploits as a GDF police chief in Neo DC, tracking down the leader of a cybernetic cult that has risen on the streets, which are flooded with augmented punks that seem eager to die for their new leader. As it turns out, the leader is Professor Jadus Heskel, a scientist hellbent on world domination. It is up to Shelly to track him down and end his reign. Yeah the game is certainly not heavy on story, but much like its fathers, it doesn’t really need one. So let’s move on to talking about the gameplay.

Shelly’s reflection certainly makes it clear you don’t want to piss her off.

GAMEPLAY

Being a 90’s style FPS, Ion Fury plays deliciously old school. The focus is on collecting key cards, throwing switches, blowing shit up and generally causing mayhem. What sets it apart though is its structure. Unlike pretty much any BUILD engine shooter before it, it uses more of a hub structure similar to games like Quake 2 and Half-Life where the game is split into zones and each zone has multiple levels to go through. This makes each zone feel like one large level and helps make the game feel bigger in scope than most BUILD engine shooters. The weapon selection is pretty good too.

Your melee weapon is the Electrifier, a high powered stun baton that delivers enough juice to power a generator and killing enemies with repeated hits.

You have the Loverboy, a revolver that Shelly can either dumb fire or lock on to enemies and kill in rapid succession, Red Dead Revolver style.

The Disperser is a shotgun that doubles as a grenade launcher (although the grenade launcher is also a separate weapon somehow, it’s a bit confusing).

The Penetrator (snicker) is a SMG that fires incindiary flechettes. It can also be dualwielded by picking up another and is one of the weapons in the game with the highest damage output, especially damage over time with its added fire damage.

The Minigun is a powerful heavy weapon that can be picked up from a dead mech or found in levels as a pickup.

The Bowling Bombs are bowling ball sized bombs that seek out enemies (in theory, I found them often not really doing a good job at this) and blow them up into chunks. They can also be lit in your hand and thrown like regular grenades.

The Ion Bow is a powerful sniper weapon that can either fire single or multiple bolts. It deals incredible damage to enemies on headshots and can also stun them on body shots.

Clusterpucks (pffft) are mines that can either be attached to a surface and used as proximity mines or thrown at enemies or walls to explode on impact.

The Penetrators are probably my favourite weapon in the game as they scratch my itch for dualwielded guns AND fire ammo. Nothing quite beats lighting an enemy on fire and watching him burn to a crisp.

If I were to criticize anything about the game it would probably be the lack of any real power weapon. Having something akin to Duke’s Devastator or some kind of cyberpunk thing like having Shelly get her robot arm during the game would be awesome. The weapons as a whole feel kind of bland and like they’ve been done before.

However, that being said it does feel like focus was put on making sure that every weapon in the game feels not only useful but also as badass as possible. The Electrifier might be one of the most useful melee weapons I’ve ever seen in a game, trumping even the Katana from Shadow Warrior in how often I used it during the game, and its use for turning on generators in the game makes sure it also has an interactive function. Throughout the game I found myself stocked with plenty of ammunition and the game incentivizes using your entire arsenal for different situations and different enemies.

For instance, I found you can insta-kill the spider enemies using the Electrifier, and the Ion Bow’s incredible headshot damage made it l invaluable during the later parts of the game with the flying enemies that shoot rapid fire rockets at you. The grenade launcher also entirely owned the centipede enemy. Thus I found that overall the weapons have been integrated really well into the game and I feel everything syngergizes in a way that makes sense and makes you feel clever for using the right weapon for the right situation. I’m not sure whether a power weapon or exotic weapon would work or even add anything to that ecosystem of strategies. Ion Fury feels like it puts less focus on “let’s make the most OP weapon ever” and more focus on “let’s give the player an arsenal of OP weapons but also give the enemies weaknesses to certain weapons”.

Sure Doom has its BFG 9000 but it also has its fists and pistol that you pretty much never use. Duke Nukem has its Devastator but you almost never found ammo for it which forced you to not use it as much, and let’s be honest, very few players actually used the freezeray and shrinker/expander more than the shotgun and chaingun. What sets Ion Fury apart in that regard is definitely that each weapon feels really good. Blowing up enemies with bowling balls and grenades never gets old and even rewards you with armor shards, so the game as a whole has a very tactical vibe to it.

Ion Fury provides some gorgeous lighting with its use of shadow textures and palette swaps. The artistic talent behind the game brings out some really impressive work with the engine.

The game offers you healing items in the form of medpacks and armor in the form of 3 armor suits. Light (blue, 50 armor), medium (brown, 100 armor) and heavy (red, 200 armor) respectively. Though the cool thing about Ion Fury is that both health and armor can be overcharged. You can consume food and soft drinks you find in the levels to get your health temporarily above 100, and also use armor shards from exploded enemies or in the level to get your armor above your current armor’s maximum level.

The game is also really long, providing around 8-10 hours of gameplay if you stroll through it casually and a lot more if you plan to find all the secrets and easter eggs hidden in it. In fact, finding secrets and exploring the game is highly recommended if you want to survive on any difficulty higher than Normal. Usually stuff like the heavy armor and ammo are hidden in secret areas, so this is not the kind of game you want to rush through, or you’ll find yourself having to scrape by on very little ammunition. Despite its length though I never felt like the game was a chore to get through. Having played it almost continuously for the last few days, I always felt that itch to keep playing and once the game was over I couldn’t help but wish there was even more of it. The pacing is perfect, steadily amping up difficulty until the final battle.

Speaking of the final battle, without spoiling anything it does feel kind of disappointing. Just don’t expect anything too epic. But considering how much of a good time I had with everything leading up to it, and how in character it still feels, I can’t really say it didn’t feel good either.

Shit. Zombies. Shit zombies.

My playthrough for this review was on the Wanton Destruction difficulty which is probably the most fair. The game also has two additional difficulties, being Ultra Viscera and Maximum Fury. Ultra Viscera is the hard difficulty, which the game only recommends for FPS veterans. And Maximum Fury is just insanity and something akin to the Nightmare difficulty from Doom. First Blood is the easiest difficulty and is a good option for those who just want to have fun and explore the game without suffering too many deaths.

The game does capture that visceral and explosive feeling that comes with a BUILD engine shooter though. It’s hard to put my finger on it but the weapons, the sprite work and everything works together to create a very unique style that you don’t see in games afterwards. It has this crunchy feel to it where your weapons feel like they can deal immense damage and everything feels very heightened and high octane like in old school action movies. The game quickly becomes a gore fest where you can kick enemy heads around, much like Blood, and it’s just immensely fun to play. To put it mildly, I had a very difficult time putting this game down and even writing this review I’m just itching to go back and play it all over again on Ultra Viscera difficulty.

I should have expected to find the Dopefish. Did not expect to find him in a screenshot from the original Quake though. I guess that makes this a double cameo.

GRAPHICS & SOUND

If you can’t tell by the screenshots, this is an absolutely gorgeous game. It has a really solid art direction that pushes the BUILD engine to its absolute limits. The amount of detail in the level design is immense and the colour palette is very pleasing to look at. Despite not having any kind of dynamic lighting or even lighting period, the mappers have used palette swaps and textures to create shadows and lighting that looks pretty much like something out of a modern game. I also didn’t encounter any performance issues on my playthrough aside from some slight framerate drops here, but compared to my initial experience with the game, it has been extremely optimized.

The amount of detail is insane too, especially in the gore effects. Enemy heads can be kicked around, blood can splatter onto surfaces, you can leave bloody foot prints and you can even squish enemies in doors like in Duke 3D. This attention to detail almost disappeared entirely when FPS games turned to full 3D engines, and it’s a delight to see it brought back on such a large scale. The game also utilizes voxels to give the game 3D objects for stuff like ammo, weapons, health and items. There are still a fair amount of objects that remain 2D sprites, such as chairs and barrels, but it is impressive to see nonetheless.

The game has a ton of secrets, including a message from developer DavoX who put his daughter’s shark plush in the game.

The music is also definitely worth mentioning. It was done by demoscene artist Jarkko Rotsten, and the entire soundtrack has been done as tracker music. If you don’t know what tracker music is, it’s essentially like MIDI files, except it uses samples that are included in the files themselves and thus have far more diversity in terms of what sounds can be used. They were famously used in games such as Jazz Jackrabbit, Unreal Tournament and Deus Ex to name a few. The soundtrack as a whole gave me some serious 90’s vibes and reminded me a lot of games such as SiN and Unreal. It’s all electronic techno goodness that fits perfectly with the game’s cyberpunk vibes.

The sound design is also top notch. All the weapon noises are perfect, the headshot sounds are crunchy and the gibbing noises are just perfectly wet sounding. Everything comes together to create an aural soundscape that feels right at home in a BUILD engine game with lots of nods to Quake, Duke Nukem and Blood to name a few. The voice acting is also fun, with Shelly providing one-liners that feel in line with the BUILD tradition of pop culture references. Jon St. Jon also does a great job portraying Heskel, with just enough of his humor injected into it to make him a bit fun to listen to as well. So yeah, I don’t think I have anything bad to say about the sound or voice acting.

Any game with a reference to the Black Lodge from Twin Peaks is good in my book.

SUMMARY

All in all, I would consider Ion Fury the best BUILD engine game ever made, and honestly one of the best FPS’s I’ve played period. With its incredibly satisfying armory, enormous world, charming main character and kickass soundtrack I am seriously at a loss of finding anything bad to say about it. If anything lacks it would be some of the cringy and sexist parts from games like Shadow Warrior and Duke Nukem 3D, but I honestly do not miss that at all. It’s extremely addictive though and I had problems putting it down, but to me, that’s when you know you’re playing something truly special.
What is obvious to me is that Ion Fury is crafted with a ton of love and passion and you can tell when a game is made not because a company wants to make a profit, but when they want to make something that they think is fun. Because when a developer has fun making a game, that translates into the playing experience. It hails back to an era when games were honestly more fun because teams were smaller and game engines like the BUILD engine allowed for more fun details and fun gameplay.

If you for some reason haven’t played Ion Fury and ANY of this looks fun to you, I HIGHLY recommend picking the game up on Steam and DRM-free on GOG for the incredibly fair price of $24.99. You can even buy a physical big box edition for $60 that comes with a whole bunch of goodies if you are so inclined. So what are you waiting for? GET FURIOUS!

SCORE

STORY: 8/10
GAMEPLAY: 9/10
GRAPHICS: 10/10
SOUND: 10/10

FINAL SCORE: 9/10

 Originally posted at https://www.vgr.com/ion-fury-pc-game-review

PC Game Review: Amid Evil

GAME: Amid Evil
RELEASED: 06/20/2019
DEVELOPER: Indefatigable
PUBLISHER: New Blood Interactive
AVAILABLE ON: PC (Steam & GOG)

New Blood Interactive shouldn’t be a stranger to PC gamers by now. Their game Dusk has already garnered attention for its 90’s Quake throwback visual style and similarity to old school first person shooters such as Quake, Blood and Redneck Rampage. It didn’t take long for a similar project to follow. Amid Evil is the brainchild of developer Indefatigable who are based in New Zealand. And where Dusk is a love letter to aforementioned titles, Amid Evil’s inspiration comes from similar but still different sources. Amid Evil is a love letter to games such as Heretic and Hexen, and also Quake to a large extent. So while I’m on such a boomercore kick with my previous review of Hedon, today I’m going to be taking a look at Amid Evil and let’s find out if the game is a worthy tribute to the old legends.

Amid Evil’s weapon selection includes a wand that shoots spikes, allowing you to pin enemies to scenery.

STORY

Amid Evil, much like most 90’s shooters, is rather light on story content. Essentially some kind of evil has invaded several realms and it is up to a chosen warrior to cleanse these realms of evil, seek out its source and destroy it. It really is the most straightforward story you can think of, but the game doesn’t really need much more. There are no lengthy cutscenes in sight, no text crawls, and very little in terms of dialogue. It’s just you, your weapons, your enemies and the gameplay. So let’s discuss it, shall we?

Most of the lore in the game can be read on walls. Or hidden messages from Dave Oshry.

GAMEPLAY

Amid Evil, despite its fantasy inspirations plays very much like a fantasy version of Quake. No RPG mechanics in sight, just pure action with the occasional puzzle. Puzzles are typically solved by shoving your body into buttons until a sequence is complete, so don’t expect your brain to get any massive exercise. What Amid Evil mostly focuses on is pure combat. The main gameplay consists of traversing levels, going from room to room and cleaning out the badguys.

However what makes Amid Evil stand out is the weapon selection. Since you’re not using guns, the arsenal is rather unique to say the least. You start out with a badass axe but quickly acquire more exotic weapons. Such as a staff that shoots magic bubbles, a sword that shoots green energy, a trident that fires electricity, a claw that fires minituarized planets (yeah really), a wand that shoots spikes and a weird purple crystal thing called the Aeternum that is essentially the game’s BFG-9000 and fires orbs that kill everything in vicinity.

Amid Evil features some of the coolest level design I’ve ever seen that evokes nostalgia in a way you don’t see much nowadays, often resembling 90’s fantasy media with checkerboard patterns abound.

And that’s not all. Enemies upon being killed will drop souls. The size of the soul depends on the power of the enemies you kill, ranging from small souls to large souls and even legendary souls (although the legendary ones never drop from enemies and instead show up as normal pickups, of which I am grateful). These souls fill up your soul meter and when it fills up, you can unleash what’s called a Soul Mode.

In this mode your weapons function very differently and often more powerfully than they would normally. Essentially it functions as a limited time alt fire. Your axe turns into a boat propeller, the bubble wand shoots out even more lethal bubbles, the sword shoots out even more powerful projectiles, the trident fires a continous stream of electricity, the planet claw’s planets create huge nova-like explosions, the spike wand shoots spikes much faster and the Aeternum now creates small black holes that sucks in everything nearby (even you if you’re not careful).

All of these weapons also use different types of mana. Blue mana is used for the bubble wand and trident, green mana for the sword and spike wand, orange mana is used exclusively for the planet claw, and purple mana is used exclusively for the Aeternum. It would also seem these different types of mana represent different elements though I’m not sure about it. Basically they just function as different ammo sources and making sure you usually have a fallback weapon if you run out of mana for any of them. Another cool mechanic is that you can overkill enemies. And overkilling enemies with some weapons can cause chain reactions that take out nearby enemies, such as with the electric trident.

The game’s cheat codes include different retro colour palettes. You can even play through the game in an 80’s style CGA palette if you so please.

The game’s true strength lies in its level design. Each realm you visit has its own distinct theme and style that runs through everything in it. Both in terms of its level design, visual style and enemy selection. The fact each episode feels so unique makes the game insanely fun to play through, given you’re never sure what to expect around the corner.

And some of the later episodes really threw me for a loop with some seriously awesome level designs that evoked dream-like imagery such as floating islands in a void, ethereal places and just realms where things are completely abstract. It evoked a similar feeling I got when playing Quake where things didn’t make sense in any realistic way, but felt realistic for the realm you were in. In an era where games strive for realism, it is refreshing to play a game that more tries to make something you either haven’t seen before or don’t see too often.

Amid Evil definitely features some remarkable levels, often involving castles and dungeons similar to Quake.

The game’s difficulty overall feels really fair and not only rewards skill but also at times demands it. Especially in the final episode where health pickups are extremely rare or hidden and you have to rely on your skills to survive. But it is forgiveable to increase the difficulty near the end of the game where the player should and most likely will be very familiar with the game mechanics. I like that none of the enemies use hitscan weapons, so pretty much every projectile coming towards you can be dodged which feels more rewarding for skilled players.

The enemies seem a little on the simple side. Some of them force the player to think differently but for the most part it’s just a matter of shooting them until they die. But the designs are pretty cool at least, with each episode having their own enemies to fight with unique designs and themes.

Picking a favourite realm is really difficult with Amid Evil as all of them are so distinct and pay homage to different sources. This industrial realm in particular gives me some delicious Quake vibes.

GRAPHICS & SOUND

The game’s graphics is definitely the strongest point of Amid Evil. With such diverse episodes there is a huge array of influences at display. The game is downright beautiful at times with dark and colourful lighting. It manages to look both retro in its use of baked shadows and simple colored lighting but also somehow more beautiful than a lot of photorealistic games released today. Its retro style evokes very dream-like and abstract imagery at times that most modern games don’t bother with. It’s a very strange kind of nostalgia where it reminds you of something you’ve never seen before.

The soundtrack and sound design is done by Andrew Hulshult who I feel once again has outdone himself. Rather than sticking to his (somewhat boring) rock and metal style he’s gone for a more synth heavy ambient soundtrack that is stunningly beautiful at times. It definitely fits the otherworldly and magical levels of the game in the same way Nine Inch Nails’ soundtrack for Quake fit that game perfectly. I was really impressed by the work done on the sound here and would easily recommend picking up the game soundtrack alone.

The game’s final realm provides some of the most alien and beautifully assymetrical level design I’ve seen, relying heavily on geometrical shapes and shapes that make you feel really uncomfortable and unsafe.

SUMMARY

In a market of shooters that focus so heavily on story and realism, it is extremely refreshing to play a shooter that harkens back to when games were games and movies were movies. If I were to say anything negative about Amid Evil I don’t know what it would be other than I wish it had a multiplayer mode and that there was more of it. Which in my opinion aren’t really bad things and don’t really detract from the fun of it.

What Amid Evil lacks in story and depth, it more than makes up for with its stunningly diverse level designs, extremely fun combat and immersive atmosphere. This is the kind of game you can get lost in for hours upon hours before you realize how much time you’ve spent playing it. If you’re a fan of old school shooters, heck shooters in general you should definitely pick this up. You can get it on Steam and GOG.

SCORE

STORY: 8/10
GAMEPLAY: 9/10
GRAPHICS: 10/10
SOUND: 10/10

FINAL SCORE: 9/10

PC Game Review: Hedon

GAME: Hedon
RELEASED: 05/16/2019
DEVELOPER: Zan
PUBLISHER: Zan
AVAILABLE ON: PC (Steam)

The term “boomercore” is being thrown around a lot lately to describe this new trend of making new games that either mimic 90’s shooters or straight up use 90’s shooter game engines. With games like Dusk, Amid Evil, Overload and the upcoming Ion Fury to just mention a few, it’s clear that we’re in a pretty good period right now if you’re into old school shooters. And one of the less talked about ones is Hedon, a shooter that’s made entirely in the most classic of game engines; The Doom engine. Having played through the campaign in its entirety, I do still feel it deserves a review. So let’s talk about Hedon.

Hedon starts off rather slow exploring a large cave.

STORY

In Hedon you play as Zan, a female Orc warrior who wakes up in a cave system. After exploring a bit, you find out that an invasion has taken place and your entire village has been wiped out. It’s the classic Doom story though Hedon takes more of a fantasy take on it. Unlike Doom however, Hedon focuses a lot more on its story with several levels dedicated almost entirely to the story.

One thing I love is how the story is always told in first person, much like games like Half-Life. And also similarly to Unreal and System Shock, most of the story is told through in-game journals and diaries you come across. I can’t really discuss the story in too much detail without spoiling much. All I can say is that it’s really well done.

The universe and characters in the game feel unusually developed and deep compared to most Doom mods I’ve played, which really helps make the game stand on its own. There is a ton of lore in this game in the various journals you come across. And you really feel there is a lot more than you see going on, and that you’re often too late to witness what’s really going on. The game feeds you information at a perfect pace and often leaves you open to put the pieces together yourself.

Zan could be described as… thicc.

GAMEPLAY

Hedon is technically a mod for Doom. Specifically for GZDoom, a popular source port. But considering it uses no assets at all from the original game and even adds a lot of new content, I would consider it more being its own game using the Doom engine, in a similar vein to games like Heretic, Hexen and Strife.

Like in Doom you have a health meter indicated by Zan’s face getting progressively bloodier as you take damage. You also have armor that functions identically to the one in Doom. Though in Hedon they’re called armor crystals (probably to justify the fact that everyone’s clothing is rather skimpy).
That’s where most of the similarities end however. The weapon selection is probably the most interesting part of the game. For melee you have your fists which is essentially your desperation weapon and you pretty much never use them since you get an axe shortly into the game. You then pick up the Spike Gun, which functions as your basic assault rifle. It feels similar to the nail gun from Quake in that it fires spikes at your enemies. Its alt fire allows you to aim down the sights and fire short bursts at your enemies.

The Fragfire Gun is a combination shotgun and flamethrower that fires piping hot shells at your enemies or with the alt fire shoots out flames of death at them that can ignite an entire group in seconds. It’s a very powerful weapon and ammo for it is thankfully not in short supply.
The fourth weapon is the Crushbow, which fires explosive arrows at your enemies, similar to the dynamite launching crossbow from Redneck Rampage. The alt fire fires weaker but faster bolts that have a smaller explosion radius. It’s very useful against groups of enemies and larges ones as well as the damage is pretty substantial.

The fifth weapon, the Potion Launcher is also the most utility based one. Its first ammo type are Toxic Grenades which create clouds of toxic gas upon impact. These can also be ignited though to create massive explosions. So combining them with the Crushbow or using them against fire based enemies can prove to be quite effective. The second ammo type are Acid Grenades that cover their target in corrosive acid upon detonation. Extremely useful against hordes of enemies and even some tougher armored enemies. The alt fire makes your grenades bounce around, which can be tactically useful in some situations but I never used it.

The aftermath of battles tend to look pretty spectacular with the game’s gore effects.

The final weapon is the Crylance, which uses the power crystals you find scattered around in the game as its ammo source. It is easily the most powerful weapon in the game and can deal massive damage to most enemies. Its alt fire fires off a large projectile that explodes upon impact and sends out numerous smaller ones.

There are also some additional weapons that are only available on the Bearzerk difficulty, a special difficulty mode that removes access to the game’s usual weaponry and instead gives you a unique set of weapons to play with.

The Hatchet and Shield gives you a less powerful version of the Axe, but it does give you some defensive option with the shield, which can soak up damage for you. The Fire Hammer creates explosions when used against enemies and can also be thrown to be used as a makeshift grenade. The Force Pike can be used as a powerful spear and can also be used to pull enemies towards the player. The final weapon is the Great Axe which deals massive melee damage to enemies. Its alt fire allows you to spin around in a 360 degree circle with it, dealing damage to everything around you.

Using the Crushbow against a group of Cultists.

In addition to the weapons you also have some helpful items at your disposal. Unlike the original Doom where items would be used upon pickup, Hedon is more similar to games like Duke Nukem 3D in that your items are stored in your inventory and can be used at any point. All of the items are temporary buffs and none of them are reusable.

The Vial of Healing restores your health by 10 HP up to a maximum of 100. It’s very useful during combat when access to health potions are limited. The Fixer Goggles functions as the game’s aid in low light conditions and not only illuminates the area around you in a neat “night vision” mode but also highlights enemies. They are particularly useful against some of the late game enemies which are pure black and blend in very well with the darkness around them. My only criticism with these is that they have a limited supply. And given how much of the game is covered in darkness, I often found myself running out of juice when exploring or getting stuck in a level, which lead me to having to fumble through a lot of the darkness.

The Time Shard is an artifact that allows you to freeze time around you. It’s useful for escaping out of bad situations but I found it most of the time to be pretty useless. It doesn’t really offer that much tactical advantage I found, but some players might find it more useful. The Potion of Stoneskin is probably the one I found the most useful. It gives the player massively increased damage resistance and also removes the pain flashes from the screen when taking damage.

The Elemental Ring provides you with massively increased protection against elemental and magic damage. It’s very useful in combination with the Potion of Stoneskin for providing damage protection. The Potion of Might increases your Axe and Fists damage 4 times (basically a melee equivalent of Quad Damage) but ranged damage is reduced by 50%. This makes the Potion very useful for when you want to do insane melee damage. Combined with the protection potions, it turns you into an Orc sized grinder.

The Amulet of Shadows is your invisibility power. Although it doesn’t technically turn you invisible, only makes you much harder to see. It also makes you much faster, making it handy for crossing large gaps. The Potion of Haste, unlike what its name suggests, doesn’t actually make you run faster. But it does increase your firing rate as well as your reload speed temporarily, making it very useful during combat. In combination with weapons like the Crylance it’s a really useful buff.

The Choker of the Beast are items that not only makes your enemies run away in fear (unless they are immune to the fear effect) but also reflects any damage they dish out. The Sentry Gun are helpful allies that you can carry around and place anywhere in the world where they will dutifully attack any hostile in their near vicinity. They do unfortunately have a limited range however.

The Scroll of Wizard’s eye is a useful item which functions like the automap in Doom, filling out the entire map for you, including secret areas. Easter egg areas are however not filled out by this item. The item also charts monsters, items and projectiles. There’s also the Bag of Holding which is only obtainable in a single level and gives the player a permanent inventory upgrade, similar to the backpack from Doom. I never picked this up in my game and I did fine but it is a useful item still.

The level designs are easily some of the best I’ve seen in a Doom engine game.

Most of the gameplay feels similar to Doom where you’ll mostly be searching for keys to unlock locked doors and progress through the game. Although Hedon will sometimes mix things up by tasking you with finding certain spells or completing puzzles in order to progress through the game. All items in your inventory can be examined by pressing the Enter key with the item selected. This can give important clues for Quest items which can only be used in specific circumstances, such as in the first level where you need a pickaxe to get through a crack in a wall.

Combat is a lot more tactical than Doom however with a bigger reliance on elemental damage as well as various weapons and items working together. Finding the right weapons and items to use in the right situations can be key to survival. I also found the general difficulty to be really high as enemies can deal a lot of damage to you. Particularly some of the stronger ones.

But with the items and weapons at your disposal there is also a lot of possibility for yourself to not only deal a lot of damage but also become almost invincible so the game feels very fair and rewards skill and quick tactical thinking over mindless shooting. It is very easy to play Hedon like you’d play Doom but it isn’t as fun or rewarding. It’s easier to approach it like a FPS hack’n’slash rather and use the buffs at your disposal as the game really is built around them.

What I like the most about the game is the varying pace. Some levels are more focused on exploration and building atmosphere. And I found the pacing to be perfect in that regard. In one level you’re going from battle to battle while in the next you’re simply exploring an ominous facility and avoiding organic trip mines. The use of black slime and tentacles really gives the game a very Lovecraftian vibe, even more so than Quake. And you truly feel like you’re up against a realm that’s beyond understanding.

The game features a rich universe with multiple characters and feels unusually deep for a Doom engine game.

GRAPHICS & SOUND

Graphically, Hedon looks amazing for a Doom engine game. It looks unmistakably retro, but with some very nice lighting effects and the sprite artwork is undeniably well done. Of course it feels a little male oriented with the amount of scantily clad women in the game. In particular the boss feels like she’s straight up wearing dominatrix gear. But it never really bothered me that much. I mean it is a fantasy game and if I had a body like Zan’s and a crystal that gave me armor without needing any physical armor, you’d bet I would show some skin.

The sound is really good though, with a lot of satisfying crunch to the sound effects and with some excellent music. A lot of it is composed by Alexander Brandon who might sound familiar to those who grew up with games like Jazz Jackrabbit, Unreal and Deus Ex. He really brings his own sound to a lot of the music in the game and it’s really good stuff. The soundtrack is also really diverse, ranging from creepy ambience to melodic breakbeat tunes and even some heavy metal. I really hope a soundtrack album is or will be available at some point. Cause it’s one of the best soundtracks I’ve heard in a while.

The levels really give a sense of this underground fantasy world in Hedon, where crystals are used as light sources.

SUMMARY

All in all, Hedon is an amazing retro FPS that I highly recommend if you’re a fan of old school shooters. Its difficulty might turn some people off and its confusing level design can sometimes be a bit of a chore to get through, but this is a really rich experience that feels highly rewarding to those who are willing to get good at it. You can grab it now on Steam for about $10.

SCORE

STORY: 8/10
GAMEPLAY: 7/10
GRAPHICS: 8/10
SOUND: 9/10

FINAL SCORE: 8/10