Phantom Fury

Phantom Fury is lacking in some places, the overall presentation and gameplay feel right about home. With its high-quality delivery of gameplay, you can see that the developers have thought of every single detail while creating a better sequel.

Phantom Fury is quite easily one of the most refined boomer shooters in the market today. It combines classic action movie tropes and 90s shooter gameplay with more modern visual technology and level design, making for a fun rampage across America.

Phantom Fury feels like stepping back in time to the late 90s in an explosion of pixilated carnage that only occasionally stumbles due to its unwavering reliance on old-school sensibilities.

Phantom Fury is a fun experience from start to finish, with a great roster of weapons and plenty of exciting levels to blast your way through. It does have some noticeable flaws such as technical issues and a subpar finale, but the gunplay won't leave you unsatisfied.

Taking place after the events of Ion Fury: Aftershock, Phantom Fury finds Shelly "Bombshell" Harrison fighting for mankind in this enjoyable first-person shooter combined with a road adventure. It's just a shame that Shelly isn't as spunky as we remember her to be, and the pacing can be all over the place at times.

Phantom Fury has the makings of a great game, though is held back by technical and level design issues. But, it is playable on the Steam Deck with some compromises.

Out of the many, many, maaaaany retro-styled shooters (yep, still refusing to call them “boomer shooters”) released over the past few years, Ion Fury was one of the best of them all. 3D Realms’ attempt at rebooting the Duke Nukem franchise with the same engine and an even less sympathetic protagonist, it had great level design, challenging gameplay, and it perfectly managed to blend classic engine technology with modern sensibilities. How would the company follow up? How do you make a s...

However, if you like to march through corridors, blow through your enemies, and maybe get a few one-liners in along the way? Phantom Fury is going to be a good time. It’s a legacy throwback that has done its homework, and while it didn’t delight me it also never made me want to throw the dang thing in the garbage. It’s some good lightweight fun. Let’s just hope that this time around the title avoids becoming the main character of controversy, hmm?

Phantom Fury simply doesn't feel like it's ready yet, with too many bugs and nowhere near enough polish to become the game that it could be. Too many encounters are designed to only be beatable once you memorize enemy placement and a giant-mech boss shouldn't be an easier, more enjoyable encounter than a handful of guys in a hallway. Bugs are also abound, with enemies zipping between cover points while stuck in the kneeling position, music that you can almost hear playing in the background despite the volume being maxed out, or getting trapped in an elevator when its doors won't open. "Reset t...

But regardless of what caused the project to get derailed, it still means that Phantom Fury is a disappointing result. It’s a mash of ‘00s FPS cliches without reprieve. I spent most of its runtime wishing it was over. Or, at least, wishing it was what it promised to be. Its overall blandness has done the impossible and made me appreciate Duke Nukem Forever just a little bit more.

Phantom Fury is an unapologetic boomer-shooter that can definitely talk the talk, but fails to walk the same walk that its inspirations did some 25 years ago. Countless technical problems, obscure level design, and a sad excuse for a story unfortunately make what could have been a good game a middling one.