It makes perfect sense that in this age of feminism and equality, in addition to Duke Nukem, we have a female version of him, Shelly “Bomb” Harrison. But I have to say that Shelly and her new game, Phantom Fury, fall short of Duke. Let me explain why.
Shelley’s story
Shelley appeared a long time ago, and not from the authors’ great love for feminism, but because Gearbox Software forbade 3D Realms studio (what irony!) to use Duke’s image in its new game, which the company made together with Interceptor Entertainment. So in 2016, the action game Bombshell was born. As we wrote at the time, it didn’t win any special laurels, even despite the sparkling charisma of this fighting lady, who tried her best to match the image of Duke in a skirt.
But the next game with Harrison in the lead role – Ion Fury – many people (including us) liked it. It was already a stylish boomer-shooter, not a semi-arcade action in isometrics with horrible color color. That’s why the sequel, called Phantom Fury, was not that much awaited, but many people kept it in their minds and hoped for the best.
However, even here it was not without problems at the development stage. They are connected with the crisis in Embracer Groupe, which among others absorbed 3D Realms. In the legendary company, which gave us Duke Nukem, several times there were cutbacks. As we told you, they could affect the development of Phantom Fury. In the end, the release was postponed for a year, but apparently it didn’t help.
Category B history
However, the game starts promisingly. And they promise us not a boomer-shooter in the spirit of Doom and Quake, but something closer to Half-Life and Red Faction. Many years after the events of Ion Fury, where Shelly Harrison fought with crazy Dr. Heskell and his sect of robotic transhumanists, she comes to her senses in some scientific complex with a new bionic arm. Helping her out of her coma is an old acquaintance Colonel, who soon tasks the girl with retrieving a legendary and dangerous artifact – the Demon Core.
Overall, the story is a familiar one. The key words in it are “dangerous technology,” “nuclear weapons,” and “saving humanity.” The screenwriters, however, try to add intrigue with plot twists like “Trust no one!” and digging into Shelley’s past, but it looks rather predictable.
And it’s unclear whether the game should be criticized for that. On the one hand, it was initially perceived as a semi-parodic ironic shooter in the spirit of B-grade action movies.
On the other hand, there is not much parody and irony. Yes, you can find a couple of funny notes in the computers scattered everywhere. You may come across an enemy who doesn’t jump out at you screaming, but sits and looks sadly at the sky. Plus a couple more ironic details and passhacks like a hall where Phantom Fury’s development was obviously discussed. But that’s pretty much it.
Passport stamp
The authors try to compensate everything with scale and epicness. In addition to scientific complexes and missile bases, there are a lot of spacious locations, where we can drive around in a car, shooting everyone with a machine gun. We can also run through the streets of the neon-lit city – there is also a Ferris wheel, from the top of which we can fire a grenade launcher at crowds of monsters.
It’s as if the developers are trying to placate us with plenty of everything and anything. Not enough cars? Then climb into the construction crane to remove stones from the road in front of the wheelbarrow. Or fly a helicopter and shoot at other choppers. And now even fall – here’s a bathyscaphe, not take off, so swim. And you want the helicopter will be a boss? And you have to fight it on the roof of a rushing train! Yes, all this has been done hundreds of times in other games, but we have an old-school shooter, and stamps are an artistic device for it.
Partly. But when the helicopter fight is repeated for several levels, it’s not funny anymore. And in general, such abundance of references to the stamps of the past would have looked funny and appropriate a few years ago, but now many people are fed up with it – including thanks to the same 3D Realms and its numerous projects on this subject. I want not just speculation on nostalgia, but something more elegant in terms of fantasy, design or style.
Where’s the charisma?
The most frustrating thing is that Shelly Harrison has lost her charisma, too. Yes, she can still play arcade machines, go into toilets and strip clubs, drink from all the shots to make the screen go to hell. But it doesn’t rip off heads in cut-scenes as it was in Bombshell. She doesn’t shrink and crush enemies with her legs like Duke did. And he doesn’t use his new bionic arm – at most he just punches hard. And Shelly’s lines are not as vivid as in Ion Fury – I didn’t even remember much of it.
And the game itself has lost in courage, charisma and hooliganism. Where are the scandalous jokes? Where are the references to various movies and games? Where, after all, are Shelley’s breasts? She was finally hidden under the iron armor, and the girl herself on the artwork was made less sexy and beautiful than even in Ion Fury (I’m not comparing with Bombshell). 3D Realms, did you bend too? And what did you want to hook us with then? A bunch of drawn-out clichés led by a helicopter boss?
Somewhere we lose, somewhere we find
The situation with gameplay is the same as with the script – a lot of stamps, which seemingly shouldn’t be embarrassing in such a game, but still embarrassing, because there is not much besides them.
And first of all, Phantom Fury has a lot of weapons – there are classic things like rocket launchers, shotguns and crossbows, and all kinds of exotic items, including foam cannon and biological weapons. Enemies are also plenty – there are zombaks, drones, cyborgs, killers that turn on invisibility, and even brains. And silicon brains of the enemies themselves are pleasantly surprising at first – they don’t just sit behind the shelters, but competently change positions and attack. However, the further we go in the story, the more straightforward the enemies become.
And the bosses aren’t very satisfying. A helicopter, a huge walking robot, a cyborg uncle – is that all you had enough imagination for? Fights with them almost always follow the same scenario – run from cover to cover, wait for it to be destroyed and go to the next one. Or even sit behind a partition, which can not be destroyed, periodically pop out and release all the shells into the enemy.
The dynamics, thank God, are fine. I don’t agree with those who say it’s lacking here. To be more precise: the authors let us play at our own pace. If you want – sit behind the shelters and take aim at the enemies, especially because at high difficulty level they bite quite painfully. And if you want – turn on Rambo mode and destroy everyone around you. It’s a pity that this dynamics is not accompanied by cool music – the one we have doesn’t cause anything but bewilderment.
With all the abundance of arsenal, many guns sound weak and are almost not used. Neither are the upgrades for collected currency, which open up alternative modes of fire. Plus forced conventions – you can use your hand to launch a cart or even a whole wagon forward, but you can’t knock out a ventilation grate where it wasn’t intended by the authors.
Designer’s error
There are a lot of questions to the level design as well. Yes, there are plenty of them here, and they are quite different. But in open zones we usually do everything quickly – we drive a car, fly by helicopter… But in closed complexes we spend more time, and it gets boring. Yes, at first it is interesting to study notes in computers, to play with the interactivity of objects, but it quickly passes.
And we are left with a rather monotonous design, a lot of repetitive actions (crawling through ventilation shafts, looking for multicolored access cards, turning valves) and obvious problems with orientation on the terrain, inherent in open levels. More than once and not twice I had to make circles and puzzle over where to go next.
Or here’s another example of local design. On one of the levels, we first have to clear the house and the area in front of it, then – to climb the neighboring hill, climb a high tower there, activate something and again go down to the house, where we climb into the basement, and after that a new bunch of enemies arrives on a “helicopter carpet”. And what do you think we should do after that? Well, of course, again climb up the hill to get into another helicopter …
And when I was racing the car and shooting everyone around, I was surprised to find out that it was almost unkillable. At one point I just stopped and watched the enemies fussing and shooting around me. Then I yawned, ran over them and drove on. Well, why would you do that? The picture is completed by bugs, when, for example, enemies or Shelly herself can get stuck in textures or shoot through them.
The first positive impressions of the game (how much there is here, how spacious the levels are!) quickly fade away. And Phantom Fury is quite a competent action game by its specifications – rich arsenal, impressive bestiary, big bosses, dynamic change of gameplay elements… The problem was unfortunate design and a lot of stamps, not supported by the proper level of charisma, irony and hooliganism. And to make such a game today and tell such a story with too serious a face is suicide.
Pros: rich arsenal; impressive bestiary; combination of closed and open levels; dynamic change of gameplay elements; cute graphics.
Cons: predictable and told with a too serious face plot, often unsuccessful design locations, an abundance of stamps, the game and the heroine herself clearly lost in irony and charisma, weak sound design.
