Incline Ion Fury (formerly Ion Maiden) - Build Engine powered FPS by Duke Nukem 3D mappers - now with Aftershock DLC

[The Great Deceiver]

the best theme in the game

 

[markec]

I will pass off the rest as simple disagreement, but this one is nonsense.

You said for Blood "The enemy roster in general is small and not very impressive (regarding gameplay)" which is factually untrue as Blood has the biggest enemy roster and its very creative in their design so what part of my sentence is nonsense?

Wow that's impressive.

You can do better than that. You should have at least mentioned how cultists crawl around on the floor, held their ground in certain locations as well as could jump over obstacles...though Nukem pig cops lied down and Enforcers jumped, Troopers jetpacked or stayed grounded and Captains alternated between jetpacking/grounded/teleporting. Slimers went on the cieling and floor both. Blood's AI isn't bad but it's not as notable as Duke's, when it should be better.

We are not talking about AI or different type of movement. Cultists having an ability to flush you out from cover and one shot you with dynamite is a big deal, just like having enemies that are resistant or even immune to certain weapons. Zombies can take huge amount of bullet damage and are used trough the game as a meat shield for cultists. We are talking about special abilities that enemies have that are used in synergy to greatly influences flow of combat and target prioritization.

Shadow Warrior also probably has it beat. It has less enemy types than both Nukem and Blood, but you don't even notice as they are consistently all fun to fight and quite diverse.

I disagree here, Blood easily beats other two games with its fun design. The Hand that chokes you, fast flying gargoyles that instantly move right into your face, spiders that poison you and blur your vision. In my book Blood has the most fun and diverse enemy design.

Kill the asshole hitscanning cultists that make up the majority of encounters in the game, or annoying as shit Hellhands first. Gargoyles or Hellhounds second. Everything else is either slow or simplistic, and all relatively nonthreatening. (Zombies, Spiders, Rats, Butchers, Phantasms, Gill Beast, Bats, Bone Eels). These pathetic enemies is what lets the "amazing" enemy roster down on top of the constant shitscanning Cultists.

The typical higher difficulty playthrough may look something like this:

Deaths by Cultists: 120
Deaths by everything else: 25

Which might have to do with the fact that cultists are with zombies most common enemy. "Low level" enemies like Zombies or spiders, rats and butchers arent there to kill you but to drain your bullets, your health and distract your from more dangerous ones.

You could say the same thing for Shadow Warrior since the only thing that kills me there is a higher variation of ninja while other enemies are non threat.

As for Duke, the problem with that game is the lack of melee enemies. While the game has some really cool and iconic enemy design in my book a enemy roster needs to be balanced with both melee and range enemies.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Also take note that Ash actually hasn't named any of the enemies from Shadow Warrior. Why is that? Can't remember what they were, like the rest of us?

 

[Wunderbar]

nice, stumbled on a plot-locked invisible wall


You can jump on the concrete barricade, then on the building to the left and you should be able to jump over the fence, right?

Wrong. Because invisible wall over the fence.

Please go the intended way so that a side door in the fence can unlock by itself later on instead.

same reason they're not allowing us to carry double-jump boots and use them wherever we want.

 

[Ash]

I will pass off the rest as simple disagreement, but this one is nonsense.

You said for Blood "The enemy roster in general is small and not very impressive (regarding gameplay)" which is factually untrue as Blood has the biggest enemy roster and its very creative in their design so what part of my sentence is nonsense?

Almost certain it's not bigger than Duke's, but I'm not going to dig for information and do the counts just to prove it.

Pretty sure it's less even if we include bats as an enemy type which pretty much do absolutely nothing, or cultist reskins that have the exact same behaviour as others except use a tommygun instead. Basically color-coding for what weapon a cultist is using.

"very creative in their design"

I disagree. Phantasm maybe (though it's a piss easy enemy type), Zombies I suppose with their rising from the dead (same of the coolies in Shadow Warrior, which essentially spawn into an entirely different enemy). Gargoyles coming alive from stone is pretty good, often allowing preparation. In actuality, there's a lot of reskinning (cultists x4, spider/spider mother, gargoyle and that other type of gargoyle). A bunch are basic nuisance enemies (bat/spider/rat/bone fish) that don't really do anything. Duke3D is less skin-happy. There's only ONE, and it's the captains which have entirely new behaviour (teleportation).
Again, it's not bad design, sufficient for a FPS, but inferior to Duke and could have been a lot better, and while it probably has more diversity than Shadow Warrior, it's less fun than. Furthermore half or less of the enemies actually pose a threat.

Also take note that Ash actually hasn't named any of the enemies from Shadow Warrior. Why is that? Can't remember what they were, like the rest of us?

Didn't you say it's been 20 years since even playing these games for you? No shit you forgot old man. (also, old).

I replayed all three at the beginning of 2019.

 

[karoliner]

So is the game good or what?

 

[Ash]

Looks like it's somewhere between the Holy Trinity™ and Redneck Rampage.

 

[Jezal_k23]

It's good. I think that making the game a single continuous journey is an inspired choice but some people seem to think the maps are not wacky or creative enough. The maps are always pretty polished and beautiful. Enemy variety could be greater but it's not too bad. That said, if they ever make more content for it, they should add a few more monsters. It has less wacky weapons than the other Build games, but the ones that the game has feel good to me.

Well, I know it's widely superior to most incredibly boring AAA shooters coming out today, although that might be a low bar.

 

[soulburner]

I played over 8 hours so far and managed to enter the area from the preview campaign. My opinions so far:

- it looks gorgeous pretty much all the time. Nice map design, I like backtracking with keys looking for doors and secrets (though I barely find any, but when I do, it's very satisfying)
- the cultists are a bit boring looking but can be dangerous and they are very fun to kill. The enemies encountered so far are quite nice overall
- shooting feels very satisfying, you can "feel" the weapons, something I often miss in fully 3D games. Seems like the instant feedback caused by a small number of frames on sprites might be it
- a few times I laughed when Bombshell said something, so she ain't bad
- performance: on my toaster laptop with Intel HD 4000 graphics the OpenGL mode is totally unplayable, to the point when the frames drop to single digits. Playing software in half my screen resolution (custom added, 960x600) is pretty cool, though. To paraphrase a known youtuber, I can't see shit and I love it. Connecting my cheap eGPU setup I can play at 1920x1200 OpenGL mode but the game stutters a bit when moving around, like it would be streaming stuff from the disk, but it's only ~90 MB in total size and on an SSD, so it has no logical explanation. Hopefully a patch might fix it.
- the music is good, but a bit too repetitive at times

The things I do not like that much:
- ambient sounds. I don't really remember any, but the Duke3D, Shadow Warrior and Blood audio is deeply carved into my mind. The audio here is also... too high quality. I kind of enjoy upsampled 11 or 22 kHz wave files
- enemies spawning after acquiring a key happens too often
- the bowling bombs sometimes fail to find a target even when right beneath the feet of one

Regarding the whole SJW drama I still feel we should all support the developers if we like the game. 3D Realms only helped Voidpoint a little bit, as far as I recall, the game wasn't even funded by them - Voidpoint did it by themselves in their own time. I don't think we should force the "get woke, go broke" shit here and respect the developers for what they did and it's a very, very good game. We can criticize 3D Realms by voicing our opinions online, not burying the developers - simply because that's what the SJWs wanted all along and we sort of fell into their trap.

 

[markec]

Almost certain it's not bigger than Duke's, but I'm not going to dig for information and do the counts just to prove it.

Pretty sure it's less even if we include bats as an enemy type which pretty much do absolutely nothing, or cultist reskins that have the exact same behaviour as others except use a tommygun instead. Basically color-coding for what weapon a cultist is using.

• Assault Captain
• Assault Commander
• Cycloid Sentry
• Enforcer
• Assault Trooper
• Battlelord Sentry
• Firefly Trooper
• Octabrain
• Overlord Sentry
• Pig Cop
• Pig Cop Tank
• Protector Drone
• Protozoid Slimer
• Recon Patrol Vehicle
• Sentry Drone
• Shark
• Turret

Chrysalid Pod
Ackolyte
Axe Zombie
Bat
Bloated Butcher
Bone Eel
Cultist
Fanatic
Fire Pod
Flesh Gargoyle
Stone Gargoyle
Gill Beast
Hand
Hell Hound
Little Caleb
Red Spiders
Green Spiders
Mother Spider
Phantasm
Rat
Zealot


I looked up enemy list for both games, both games have some reusage of assets, a bit more in case of Blood. So we could say they both have similar in size enemy roster. Which is not "small" as you said.

"very creative in their design"

I disagree. Phantasm maybe (though it's a piss easy enemy type), Zombies I suppose with their rising from the dead (same of the coolies in Shadow Warrior, which essentially spawn into an entirely different enemy). Gargoyles coming alive from stone is pretty good, often allowing preparation. In actuality, there's a lot of reskinning (cultists x4, spider/spider mother, gargoyle and that other type of gargoyle). A bunch are basic nuisance enemies (bat/spider/rat/bone fish) that don't really do anything. Duke3D is less skin-happy. There's only ONE, and it's the captains which have entirely new behaviour (teleportation).
Again, it's not bad design, sufficient for a FPS, but inferior to Duke and could have been a lot better, and while it probably has more diversity than Shadow Warrior, it's less fun than. Furthermore half or less of the enemies actually pose a threat.

Again I disagree, we are talking about creativity in term of gameplay which you said game lacks.

Cultists, one of the most numerous enemy have a decent rage attack combined with strong explosive used to minimize players popamole gameplay and force him to be in constant movement.

There are several types of enemies that have both range and melee attacks.

Some enemies have resistance against certain types of damage, making certain weapons useless against them.

Hand is just great and annoying with its speed, difficulty to spot due its size and its effect at player.

Spiders poison the player which create intoxication effect which stack and can turn player blind.

Phantasms short term invulnerability make take a annoyance while fighting multiple enemies.

Gill Beast is a enemy that very dangerous in water but non threat on land.

Now I personally think that thats quite creative and fun to play against. Especially when fighting multiple type of enemies at once when you need to keep in mind their abilities and resistances.

Again the biggest issue I have with Duke enemy lineup is the complete lack of melee enemies that makes popamole the best and pretty much only tactic in the game. In Blood you will often find yourself in open spaces attacked by multiple types of both range and melee enemies and you need to be constantly on the move.

 

[Farewell into the night]

The only thing I don't like about this game is: when I play too much I'm starting to get dizzy, just the same thing I've had with Minecraft and E.Y.E.: Divine Cybermancy.
I play computer games since 1994 and only those 2 games are making my head hurt (I've fixed Minecraft).

 

[karoliner]

I usually get dizzy and nauseous when the FOV is too small.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

The only thing I don't like about this game is: when I play too much I'm starting to get dizzy, just the same thing I've had with Minecraft and E.Y.E.: Divine Cybermancy.
I play computer games since 1994 and only those 2 games are making my head hurt (I've fixed Minecraft).

I usually get dizzy and nauseous when the FOV is too small.

This. Try increasing the FOV to 105, as that is the setting many players find acceptable. Fiddle with it if that doesn't work.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Didn't you say it's been 20 years since even playing these games for you? No shit you forgot old man. (also, old).

I replayed all three at the beginning of 2019.

You failed reading at school, boy?

I said that I had played all the Build engine games when they were new, which was 20+ years ago, but since then I have replayed Duke3D and Shadow Warrior as short as a couple of years ago... but not Blood. I haven't played that in 20 years. Yet I remember the levels, the jokes and the enemy names from Blood and Duke 3D... but from Shadow Warrior I only remember some of the jokes, the Nuke and annoyance. Especially annoyance.

And so do you it turns out, even though you're vehemently defending the game here. You're just butthurt because Latin-babbling cultists have a more active social life than you do.

 

[Mikeal]

You failed reading at school, boy?

I said that I had played all the Build engine games when they were new, which was 20+ years ago, but since then I have replayed Duke3D and Shadow Warrior as short as a couple of years ago... but not Blood. I haven't played that in 20 years. Yet I remember the levels, the jokes and the enemy names from Blood and Duke 3D... but from Shadow Warrior I only remember some of the jokes, the Nuke and annoyance. Especially annoyance.

And so do you it turns out, even though you're vehemently defending the game here. You're just butthurt because Latin-babbling cultists have a more active social life than you do.

Fucking bees.

 

[Fowyr]

You're just butthurt because Latin-babbling cultists have a more active social life than you do.

Latin and Sanskrit babbling!
Infuscomus Lokemundus!

EDIT:

but from Shadow Warrior I only remember some of the jokes, the Nuke and annoyance. Especially annoyance.

I finished it probably ten years ago, but it describes my memories too. Some of the jokes, Nuke, some sort of ninja enemy that throws shurickens and could be killed with katana, chained to wall Lara Croft and shitting anime girl.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

I've been playing "Blood" on the hardest difficulty because it's the only Build Engine game I never played in the 90s (beyond the first few levels on shareware). It's bloody hard. In some cases it's impossible to not get hit by the cultists. You can't dodge, you can't bait, you can't do shit other than maybe try to throw dynamite around the corner at the cultists. It's incredibly cheap, to the point that you end up save scumming until you get the 1 in 10 random fluke event where you can successfully bait a group of 10 cultists to come around the corner when you have 5 health without getting insta-hit. This kind of kills the game's fun, although, I do think that they so load the game with power ups in its secret areas, that if you make a point of finding them all, the difficulty lessens greatly.

Apart from the shit AI, though, the game itself is pretty good. I do find the "sameness" of the art design to be kind of tedious, but the levels themselves really stretch Build to the limit: a moving train, rivers that flow, the pulsating living walls level, and I'm only part way through.

That said, I very much prefer both Duke Nukem 3D and Ion Fury to Blood. Ion Fury is just more fun based on pure combat, and Duke Nukem was way more inventive, varied in gameplay, and had more variety in its level design.

 

[Ash]

Do yourself a favor and console command the difficulty down one level. Even then the cultists are annoying and 3x worse than Doom commandos but it's more reasonable.

 

[newtmonkey]

Extra Crispy (the hardest difficulty) was specifically designed for cooperative play, so it's better to dial down to Well Done or even Lightly Broiled.

 

[lightbane]

1st used map! For what's worth...

 

[gerey]

The more I play Ion Maiden/Fury the more I dislike it.

Maybe it's me just getting on with years, but I find it very difficult to tell the enemies apart from the environment at mid to long range, and even harder to figure out from which direction I'm being shot at. Then again, I recently replayed Doom 1&2, Duke Nukem 3D and Blood and had no problems with telling enemies apart or locating them, even at range.

Another thing I find annoying is how useless most other weapons feel compared to the starting pistol and its alt-fire. Since the maps feature a lot of huge, open areas, and that the enemies are mostly hitscanning or fire very fast projectiles, you're forced to constantly look for cover, and when you do pop out you only have a small window of opportunity to kill the enemies before they take a big chunk of your health, thus making the pistol alt-fire the most optimal tool to deal with nearly every situation. Other than slowly down a little there's no real drawback to using it.

Again, comparing it to older games Ion Maiden is trying to emulate, where enemy design, placement and weapon selection encourages players to switch weapons all the time depending on the situation in Ion Maiden the weapons feel, sound and look chunky, but there's really no reason to use them when you have a one-hit-kill alt-fire for a weapon whose ammunition is plentiful and easy to get a hold of.

 

[Multidirectional]

Extra Crispy (the hardest difficulty) was specifically designed for cooperative play, so it's better to dial down to Well Done or even Lightly Broiled.

Or even better, use the custom difficulty and increase enemy count to highest while leaving rest on medium, maybe even put cultist hitscan accuracy to "low", if playing first time. It will still be far from easy, but a lot less annoying. Going with Extra Crispy for first run is quite ambitious. Even Well Done is a major pain in the ass. And Lightly Broiled is still way harder than Doom 1/2 on Ultra Violence.

 

[Darth Roxor]

You stumble upon a vat with a munster in the making, Shelly remarks:

"This is the worst I've seen yet... This man has no dick!"

(and indeed he doesn't!)



someone better call retardera

 

[Razor]

 

[Infinitron]

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