Phantom Fury seeks to provide Half-Life and Duke Nukem-style action. Unfortunately, though, this Bombshell is a dreadful, often dull, disappointment.
Phantom Fury
Platform: PC
Developer: Slipgate Ironworks
Publisher: 3D Realms
Release date: April 23rd, 2024
Price: $24.99
Digital availability: Steam
The classic first-person shooter, also known as the “boomer shooter,” can offer a great deal of simple enjoyment. Typically, the genre gives players a plethora of ridiculous weaponry and an abundance of enemy material that can be reduced to pulpy nonsense. And while that idea does occasionally show up in Phantom Fury by Slipgate Ironworks, it’s usually buried under a mountain of unsatisfactory design choices. I kept thinking of better boomer shooters during the campaign.
For better or worse, Danish-based developers go light on the storytelling. The game’s introduction reveals protagonist Shelly “Bombshell” Harrison waking from a coma, unsure of where she is. A commanding officer explains that the Global Defense Force has been infiltrated, and she needs to get to the Demon Core before the bad guys do. And that’s all very reasonable. We all want to get to the shooting, too.
Artificially Encumbered and Mildly Terrifying
Phantom Fury doesn’t do much with the main character, but there is also not a lot of exposition either. Although she uses trademark weaponry like the triple-barreled Loverboy revolver and bowling bombs to help define her image, she is not as comically crude as genre colleagues Duke Nukem or Lo Wang. However, after Ion Fury in 2019 and Bombshell in 2016, this is her third appearance. Harrison’s main characteristic is her airy confidence, as evidenced by her cheesy one-liners like “Almost broke a sweat.” It’s obvious that the writers didn’t because Bombshell makes lifeless jokes.
However, Fury is not overly concerned by the absence of personality. The game’s pace, which erratically alternates between taking out adversaries and going on to the next part of a stage, is among its most annoying features. While not horrifying, combat is also not particularly interesting. Firefights are messy rather than methodical, with adversaries scuttling around or charging straight towards you with unusable environmental cover.
Cool Guns, but Only Passable Firefights
Yes, Phantom Fury’s armament includes some weapons that have interesting alt-fire settings. Fortunately, pistol ammo is widely available, so going with a burst-shot is obvious. In the meantime, your shotgun’s muzzle flash can stun adversaries and save lives. However, opponents are frequently too strong, so part of the power from your weapons and reliable tazing nightstick is diminished. Currently, among the many bugs you’ll run into, your alt-fire mode doesn’t always function with certain of your weapons. Yes, the game has caused annoyance on multiple occasions. Phantom Fury, that is.
However, shootouts only account for a small portion of your total playing time. Unfortunately, Fury is obsessed with traditional environmental puzzles that require a password or colored key to get to the next area. To solve the former, you have to sift through paperwork on the different computers strewn all over the place, which is about as much pleasure as reading a terms and conditions agreement.
Bombshells, Idleness, and Operational Toilets
Indeed, there is some expositional detail, but there is also a lot of reading of messages displayed on fictitious monochrome monitors. It’s only somewhat better when Phantom Fury has you looking for an object to unlock a locked gate. When you look for objects that blend into the background a bit too nicely, you’ll frequently see how bad the game’s visual highlighting is. In one case, androids tumble into holes that resemble incinerators. Fury anticipates that players will enter a similarly coded hole shortly after.
Fortunately, not many of the challenges will put your cognitive skills to the test—especially if you grew up during the early 21st-century action game craze. Most of the labor is hectic and unsatisfying. Giving the main character a strong, robotic arm feels out of place in Fury’s simplistic escape rooms. Simple puzzles aren’t the only thing that harks back to the FPS of the late 1990s. Strangely, the game is packed full of interactive items, like mortar shells, sinks, faucets, and toilets.
You can also pick objects up and toss them around. But other than a few puzzles that can be stacked to build an improvised stairway, the feature seems unused. In 2024, playing with environmental objects may have been an interesting first-person shooter hobby, but it has become stale. And that’s Phantom Fury’s main impression. Everything in the game has been done before by much more intriguing games that have been around for a good ten years.
Phantom Fury was played on a PC using a review code that the publisher sent over.
Review Overview
Gameplay – 35%
Controls – 50%
Aesthetics – 60%
Content – 60%
Accessibility – 60%
Value – 30%
49%
DISAPPOINTING
Summary : Phantom Fury has some inventive weaponry, much like any good first-person shooter. With the exception of mediocre firefights, the entire game is a chore consisting of poor design choices. The majority of Fury is either boring or laborious, ranging from searches for colored gate keys to password searches on fictitious emails.