Shelly Bombshell has had quite the journey in gaming, with some great highs, and plenty of low lows. But in recent memory, she’s had a better streak in gaming than her 90’s counterpart Duke Nukem. ION Fury and the expansion Aftershock were great 90’s 90s-inspired, build-engine games filled with great action, witty one-liners, and all that build-engine pixel goodness. Now in 2024, Shelly is making her comeback in full 3D, in Phantom Fury, which is much more than the trailers let on. It’s a lot of Half-Life, a dash of Quake, and sprinkles of other FPS games resulting in something good … but something that oversteps the mark quite a bit.
What is Phantom Fury? 
We see the return of Shelly “Bombshell” Harrison, as she’s brought into a new world after awakening from a coma. Upon starting the game and Shelly waking up, no time is wasted before we’re thrown into the action. Waking up at the GDF facility when everything has gone to Hell, Shelly is greeted by her old commander and friend, telling her to locate a legendary and highly dangerous artefact known as the Demon Core.
With her objective in mind, Shelly sets forth into a dystopian US, in an epic and bloody road trip filled with carnage, kabooms, and mutants. And what a road trip you’ll be going on, as you traverse various environments, travelling great lengths via helicopter, truck, and train, and end up fighting in high military complexes, sewers, and even take part in a bar fight.
The story itself is by the numbers, with bag guys, super weapons, and a twist/betrayal that comes in towards the end which does not have much rhythm or reason. But rather felt like a call back to a certain other FPS, one of the most successful FPS titles in history I may add. I was expecting a deep, philosophical journey of redemption and punishment, and I admire the developers adding in some gravitas. But it felt a little force, and there is a clear tear between just developing an old-fashioned hero vs bad guys tale, and something a little more complex and confident.
The narrative felt largely empty, and the odd sprinkle of dramatic flare was thrown in. I would have liked to have seen more developers from Shelly, maybe dive into her backstory a lot more, and maybe give us a side of a 90’s action hero we hardly see that often. Also, there’s a random character appearance from a ’90s cult classic shooter, which only serves to please mega fans of the genre … again feeling somewhat hollow.
But the flare and variety of set-pieces and cool environments help the story to be more pleasing somewhat.
Coast to coast, with plenty of booms 
Phantom Fury takes a step forward in terms of presentation, to match a later life Boomer Shooter, late 90’s/early 2000s aesthetics. Matching the likes of Half-Life and Sin, is a great idea, as there needs to be more of these types of Boomer-Shooters personally. Phantom Fury is quite the looker, with some excellent visual presentation, and the multitude of environmental designs is magnificent. Even the smallest details, such as glass breaking, and dynamic liquids (similar to Time Splitters 2 and 3) add a nice sense of world-building and depth.
But the level design is where things feel more advanced over the 90’s style build engine game. Both titles mentioned above have influenced the level design in some meaningful ways, creating a world that is hyper fantasised, yet oddly grounded, believing it could be somewhere real, living and breathing. But where it shines through is the scope of set-pieces and cleaver action moments that make Phantom Fury feel like an evolutionary step forward over the classic Build-Engine formula for the previous two Ion Fury games.
While not every set-piece worked, particularly a helicopter chase which felt quite mind-numbing, plenty of others did. Such as a great moment where you’re using air strikes on a convoy of enemies, taking part in a shootout at a bar, or fighting a hoard of zombie mutants ina ghost town (sound familiar right?).
There is something quite distinctive in the tone and design of Phantom Fury, and personally, it feels a lot like that Duke Nukem Forever game we never got back in 2001. It has all the hallmarks of the trailers, including the excessive, but impressive interaction with the world, a hyper-violent, yet ground nature to combat and level design, and environments which look closer to the real world, like DNF and Sin. There are even elements of Deus Ex, with how you can access PCs, and mess around with the environment via terminals, and even the highlight prompt that is shown on items looks a lot like the one used in Deus Ex.
There’s plenty of shooting, but also driving sections, actual puzzles, and a lot of key hunting in some clever ways that involve intense searching and deduction. And not to forget, plenty of shooting.
The most important aspect of any FPS is of course the shooting, and it can be done in many ways. Comparing Half-Life and DOOM, for example, will show that both games handle shooting very differently. And Phantom Fury again is trying something like a cross-between, which sounds like it wouldn’t work, but it does. While it lacks any tactical brilliance or strategic creativity, it offers you brute force, blood, and lots of ways to kill things. The pacing for combat and encounter designs are often quite good, utilising environments, and weapons and providing a good variety of enemies in several compelling situations.
Be it fighting zombies in an underground lab, a shootout at a bar, or my personal favourite which I’ll get to in a bit.
You’ll have everything from Shelly’s classic arsenal, including the Loverboy revolver, and those cool grenades that seek out enemies. But there’s a whole bunch of new weapons, some of which are utterly devastating and cool, with a classic shotgun being the favourite go-to. Shelly has an ability where her new mechanical arm can land devastating blows, blasting enemies into bloody chunks which is an absolute lifesaver at times when you run out of ammo.
But the weapons in general handle very well, with even the starting pistol feeling impactful and able to do a good job as a last resort. And all these weapons have upgrades and add-ons which do spice up combat in some fun, and memorable ways. Like how the rolling grenade turns into a cluster bomb, and the SMG fires incendiary rounds to light up enemies. All great stuff!
While the weapon roaster is solid, the enemy line-up I’m mixed on. You have grunts, heavy enemies, and mutants, which are all fun to fight against and have decent and deadly AI. It’s the smaller, annoying flying enemies and those charge and explode on impact. My main issue is that these guys are used way too often, and it can be a drag in the early sections. Normally combat pushes a lot of enemies onto you, which is typically fine, but throwing in these annoying little buggers just drained my patience.
But I like how Phantom Fury overcomes this annoyance with some good-level design and set pieces. Early on you have a section where you explore a bunker, and there’s a heavily armed auto-turret waiting to greet you. It becomes a game of hiding behind what cover you can find until you can find its power box and switch it off.
And they included a freaking train level, which is so much fun. Any FPS fan loves train levels (some of the best being Gears of War, Goldeneye and Blood), and Phantom Fury knew what to do here. Train level aside, there are other excellent levels to play utilising environmental problem solving, thorough exploration, and generally well-thought-out combat encounters to keep you entertained … mostly. But we’ll get to that soon.
What a Bombshell! 
I get the feeling that Phantom Fury wants to be the be-all and end-all of Boomer Shooter FPS games, and I appreciate the effort. There is something unique about the tone, pacing, level design, and action which feels like a much more thoughtful game, that’s not just running and gunning. Like a lost title from the early 2000s, which has only come back to life.
However …
There are a lot of elements which feel out of place, or poorly thought out. Resulting in plenty of moments throughout the campaign where the pacing slows down to a crawl, and simply was boring. This is particularly felt the physics-based puzzles, where you have to use a crane to move heavy objects just could have been removed and resulted in better pacing and quality of life. And painfully more so in the more convoluted key-hunting sections, where you don’t get a map, and have to navigate a massively complex area, with an overwhelming number of respawning enemies.
The last third of the game feels quite rushed, ironically feeling very akin to a lot of later 90s Boomer Shooters, which usually had bodged endgames and later levels. But the last levels of Phantom Fury can be painfully tedious, as you fight the same mini-bosses over and over again, complete dull and long-winded objectives, and everything ends abruptly without much resolution. Part setup for a sequel, part not giving a full toss to resolve things probably.
It wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the bugs. I hope that in the future, people can see improvements with Phantom Fury by then. But at this time, there are some major bugs here. Either taking away weapon upgrades or causing boss battles never to end. There is a lot of clunk, and jank when driving, and moments where the physics s*** the bed.
But the game's third act lets the whole campaign down, where it just goes on, never seeming to end, and just repeating anything and everything, including the same mini-boss multiple times, just to wrap things up. It can be dire, and so unsatisfying, as the first parts of the game, while with some problems, had a lot of promise. If you screw up in the end, it doesn’t matter how good everything before it was. And the things which didn’t work, or were bad were problematic.
It's a shame as there is something here with Phantom Fury, but with bad driving sections, direly dull physics puzzles, the bugs, and the whole third act being an absolute chore to get through, it does bring down the overall experience.
Overall?Phantom Fury has a lot of great ideas, and a sense of grandeur aiming for a new level of depth for the Boomer-Shooter genre. The fact it’s quite literally the incarnation of that old Duke Nukem Forever version from 2001, and mixing in elements from some of the staples of the FPS genre is highly impressive. The thoughtful level design, the intense and fun action, and some downright awesome set-pieces and weaponry are highlights for Phantom Fury.
But when it comes to the downsides of Phantom Fury … they are indeed quite major ones. The bugs, tedious physics-based puzzles, annoying enemies, and the entire third act being an utter chore to get through bring down the entire game overall.
So Phantom Fury is a mixed bag and one which could have been amazing! And whether we’ll get another Shelly Bombshell game I’m not entirely sure, but I do hope the developers manage to push some fixes as soon as possible, maybe even reinventing certain parts to heighten the experience. I would say Phantom Fury is worth checking out, but be cautious of the glaring faults.
++ Looks and sounds awesome.
+ Great variety in level design, weapons, and combat encounters.
+ Fun set pieces and weapons.
+ Epic Train level!
-- Annoying bugs, some of which are game-breaking.
-- The third act is a tedious slog.
-- A lot of dull sep-pieces and puzzles.
A reviewer code of Phantom Fury, was kindly provided by the publisher for this review.
