Shelly “Bombshell” Harrison is back with her robotic arm and famous three-barreled revolver Phantom ragea new FPS boomer shooter adventure set after the events of 2021 Ion Rage and its extension.
Where retro shooters Ion Rage was directly inspired by Duke Nukem 3D and it is 2.5D Doom-similar images, Phantom rage advances in video game history and pays homage to FPS games of the late 90s and early 2000s Sin, Half-Life 2, Serious Sam, And Nobody lives forever. This means the game is fully 3D and includes larger levels, physics, vehicle sections and even RPG-like upgrades. And all of that mostly works, although some bugs and design decisions mess things up.
Set after the events of Ion Rage—Don’t worry, you don’t have to play this game to understand what’s happening here—Phantom rage The film begins with the main character, Shelly, waking up from her coma. She quickly grabs a weapon and fights her way out of an underground facility. She then sets out on a mission to save the entire world from madmen intent on obtaining a very powerful weapon. You know, standard video game stuff. While Phantom rage‘s narrative is mostly bland, which is fine because that kind of “Retro boomer shooter“are best when people shoot and don’t talk.
Luckily, the fight is mostly over Phantom rage is very good, the weapons feel heavy, loud and dangerous. Even the starting pistol you’re given is a solid workhorse that can take out enemies quickly if you land headshots. Later weapons, like Shelly’s legendary Loverboy Revolver, are even better, offering alternate fire modes and upgrades that change how each weapon is used.
When I previously played an early demo of phantom rage, I was disappointed with how spongy bullets felt on enemies and how the shooting didn’t feel snappy or punchy enough. I’m happy to report that these issues are mostly resolved, although I still feel like a few larger enemies you encounter occasionally take a little too much damage to drop. Still, I had a lot of fun walking around 90% of the time Phantom rageKill soldiers, robots and zombies alike in the retro-inspired levels.
Play pinball and break in televisions Phantom rage
These retro shooter combat sections are often punctuated by puzzles, mini-games, and exploration. You may have to search a run-down bar to find your way forward, or use a crane to move some crates and create a path to the next area. This can be annoying at times, especially when the crane breaks down, but I really appreciate it “Phantom Fury”The world can be interacted with and changed. Nothing feels static.
Almost any object – from random bottles, boxes, stacks of paper to televisions – can be grabbed, turned off, smashed or pushed around. If you are someone who loves playing around with every interactable object Duke Nukem 3D, You will definitely get lost Phantom rage Levels containing working arcade machines, pinball tables, computer terminals, crane games, toilets, light switches and projectors. Exploring the game is a pleasure even when you’re not shooting or solving puzzles. That helps too Phantom rage and its 15+ levels contain some wonderfully retro aesthetics.
not how Ion Rage, Phantom Rage is more inspired by early 2000s PC shooters and the PS1/N64 aesthetic. So instead of crude 2.5D buildings and sprites, the world is made up of pixelated textures and low-poly but fully 3D models, geometry and villains.
This is the best way to describe it “Phantom Fury”The visual appearance is that everything looks like how you remember games from 2001 – it’s the game your mind conjures up before you actually fire up your favorite 3D shooter and realize it was much uglier, than you remember. This visual style works well and more importantly, it looks cohesive. Everything from menus to characters to weapons to level details feels like a unified vision. And this simplified low-poly style helps you easily see what’s happening, even in large sections of combat.
Performance issues and annoying bugs
Unfortunately, I experienced performance issues while playing Phantom rage. Tweaking the visual settings helped curb some of the frame rate drops I experienced, but I couldn’t do that complete smooth things out. I also had one too many bugs, including missing graphical elements, UI issues, enemies getting stuck in walls, and other mildly annoying issues that could usually be fixed with a reload or restart. None of these problems occurred Phantom rage unplayable, but they ruined my time with it.
On the other hand, the performance issues and bugs reminded me of trying to play old school shooters on my crappy Walmart PC back in the day, which I think added to the retro shooter vibe.
Phantom rage is a worthy sequel Ion Rage, although the opening levels are a bit dull and it suffers from more bugs and performance issues. The larger maps, intense gunfights, vehicle sections, puzzles, interactive environments, and fun retro 3D levels more than make up for the occasional FPS drop or odd UI bug. And hopefully a future patch can address and resolve these issues Phantom rage even better.
Phantom rage will be released on PC on April 23rd. It will be released on consoles in the future.
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