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2, developer Slipgate Ironworks and writer 3D Realms have crafted an expertise that may make you mud off your outdated console and pull out a few of these outdated first-person shooters from again within the day. In Phantom Fury, you tackle the position of Shelly “Bombshell” Harrison who has spent the previous couple of years in a coma after her battle together with her arch-nemesis, Jadus Heskel. An outdated ally of Shelly’s realizes {that a} new menace is rising and forces the powers that be to awaken her.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 seek 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 may 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The advantage of Phantom Fury is that you simply don’t should mud off your outdated consoles to get pleasure from it, you possibly can merely obtain it to your PC or modern-day console and leap proper into the motion. The not so excellent news, nevertheless, is that this recreation appears like one thing from a long time previous and fails to really feel like one thing contemporary and new. Like these shooters from the previous, gameplay is pretty easy. As you make your method by the sport, you’re 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 method. Rinse and repeat. Chances are 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.

For those who like shooter video games that provide a plethora of weapons to select from, Phantom Fury has you lined 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 From outdated stand-bys like Bowling Bombs to armor-piercing shotguns, electrified foam capturing gadgets and deployable drones, there isn’t any scarcity of unusual weapons to make use of in your journey round a number of US places. 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 just a few makes use of and I simply ended up sticking with the extra easy weapons reminiscent of Shelly’s upgradeable bionic arm.

Again within the PS2 days, if the visuals in a recreation weren’t one of the best, it was as a result of the expertise simply wasn’t as much as rendering photorealistic imaging simply but. Most individuals realized that truth and accepted that gaming consoles on the time had 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 as we speak’s extra highly effective PCs and consoles. The environments within the recreation are various sufficient that you simply don’t really feel like you’re caught in the identical place for too lengthy, which is to be anticipated in a recreation that touts the truth that you’ll be going to completely different locales all around the US. Nevertheless, the drab and dated design stored me feeling just like the builders may have taken just a little extra time to make it appear to be a recreation that was launched in 2024 and never 2004.

Sound results and voice overs in Phantom Fury had been most likely one of many extra optimistic facets of this recreation. The sounds of gunfire and explosions felt weighty sufficient and every of the weapons sported a singular sound to assist make it fell such as you had been utilizing a critical device in your endeavor to make your method by the hordes of enemies. The voice actors additionally did a reasonably first rate job of creating the completely different characters really feel plausible and like actual folks. As well as, the soundtrack helped to deliver the areas to life and did job of setting the tone of the sport. Whereas these parts had been the highlights of the sport, it simply wasn’t sufficient to maintain me invested and I fond myself becoming bored 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 trendy players to purchase in. Like video games again then, areas give no clues as to what you’re speculated to do or the place you’re speculated to go. That was how video games had been made again then, nevertheless the design of video games and the way the builders information the gamer by the degrees have developed because the early 2000s. With so many different nice video games to play as of late, trendy players would solely serve to get annoyed and quit on an expertise like this. For those who get pleasure from an expertise like this, I might say wait till this one is on sale and provides it a go. Sadly, my feeling is that this recreation will solely be enticing to a small area of interest of players and to not the overall gaming neighborhood as a complete.

This evaluate is predicated on a retail copy of the sport offered by the writer.