REVIEW / Phantom Fury (Steam Deck)

As a callback to the times of the PlayStation 2, developer Slipgate Ironworks and writer 3D Realms have crafted an expertise that can make you mud off your previous console and pull out a few of these previous first-person shooters from again within the day. In Phantom Fury, you tackle the position of Shelly “Bombshell” Harrison who has spent the previous few years in a coma after her combat together with her arch-nemesis, Jadus Heskel. An previous ally of Shelly’s realizes {that a} new risk is rising and forces the powers that be to awaken her. He then brings her on top of things on whats occurred to her and why he did what he did. She awakens to search out out that she now has a brand new bionic arm and a brand new lease on life. Her mission, ought to she select to just accept it, is to find and safe the legendary Demon Core, an elusive and extremely harmful artifact. As she embarks on an intense journey that can take her to many locations throughout the US, she should overcome the demons from her previous earlier than she will be able to guarantee mankind’s future.

The advantage of Phantom Fury is that you just don’t need to mud off your previous consoles to take pleasure in it, you possibly can merely obtain it to your PC or modern-day console and soar proper into the motion. The not so excellent news, nonetheless, is that this recreation looks like one thing from a long time previous and fails to really feel like one thing recent and new. Like these shooters from the previous, gameplay is pretty easy. As you make your means by means of the sport, you might be tasked with dispatching the enemies which might be attempting to cease you from procuring the Demon Core. You get your first weapon by taking out an enemy and utilizing it in opposition to any subsequent threats which will come your means. Rinse and repeat. It’s possible you’ll discover different weapons in crates or on a desk, for instance, however that’s par for the course for video games from this period.

In case you like shooter video games that provide a plethora of weapons to select from, Phantom Fury has you coated there. Over 20 distinctive weapons are on provide so if one weapon doesn’t fit your play model, then there are lots others to select from. From previous stand-bys like Bowling Bombs to armor-piercing shotguns, electrified foam capturing gadgets and deployable drones, there isn’t a scarcity of unusual weapons to make use of in your journey round a number of US areas. The builders tried to create weapons that aren’t simply your commonplace run-of-the-mill pistol or shotgun however weapons that provide a little bit of a twist to these present in different video games of this ilk. Whereas I discovered a few of them to be enjoyable to make use of, most of them fell flat after a couple of makes use of and I simply ended up sticking with the extra easy weapons equivalent to Shelly’s upgradeable bionic arm.

Again within the PS2 days, if the visuals in a recreation weren’t the very best, it was as a result of the expertise simply wasn’t as much as rendering photorealistic imaging simply but. Most individuals realized that reality and accepted that gaming consoles on the time have been simply not highly effective sufficient to render the precise in-game content material in addition to the pre-rendered cut-scenes of the day. Visually, Phantom Fury leaves a lot to be desired which is more durable to just accept with at present’s extra highly effective PCs and consoles. The environments within the recreation are assorted sufficient that you just don’t really feel like you might be caught in the identical place for too lengthy, which is to be anticipated in a recreation that touts the truth that you may be going to totally different locales everywhere in the US. Nonetheless, the drab and dated design stored me feeling just like the builders may have taken somewhat extra time to make it appear like a recreation that was launched in 2024 and never 2004.

Sound results and voice overs in Phantom Fury have been most likely one of many extra constructive points of this recreation. The sounds of gunfire and explosions felt weighty sufficient and every of the weapons sported a novel sound to assist make it fell such as you have been utilizing a severe software in your endeavor to make your means by means of the hordes of enemies. The voice actors additionally did a reasonably respectable job of constructing the totally different characters really feel plausible and like actual folks. As well as, the soundtrack helped to carry the areas to life and did a superb job of setting the tone of the sport. Whereas these parts have been the highlights of the sport, it simply wasn’t sufficient to maintain me invested and I fond myself losing interest with the expertise fairly early on in my play playthrough.

Whereas the builders of Phantom Fury tried to pay homage to an period of gaming that has gone, I simply don’t assume that they did sufficient to actually get fashionable avid gamers to purchase in. Like video games again then, areas give no clues as to what you might be presupposed to do or the place you might be presupposed to go. That was how video games have been made again then, nonetheless the design of video games and the way the builders information the gamer by means of the degrees have advanced because the early 2000s. With so many different nice video games to play nowadays, fashionable avid gamers would solely serve to get annoyed and quit on an expertise like this. In case you take pleasure in an expertise like this, I’d say wait till this one is on sale and provides it a go. Sadly, my feeling is that this recreation will solely be engaging to a small area of interest of avid gamers and to not the final gaming neighborhood as an entire.

This overview is predicated on a retail copy of the sport supplied by the writer.