HomeReviewsWRATH: Aeon of Ruin
Wrath: Aeon Of Ruin review: sometimes the old FPS ways can still workThe sleeper has aquakened
The sleeper has aquakened
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/3D Realms/Fulqrum Publishing
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/3D Realms/Fulqrum Publishing
But the story and setting matter as little as they get in the way. You’re here to shoot weird monsters with cool weapons in elaborate, demi-realistic places full of optional secrets, and Aeon: Rage Of Ever absolutely delivers. The standard FPS arsenal is here, with a weak but accurate pistol, chaingun, railgun, and eventually fancy energy weapons reserved for the biggest lads or trivialising a swarm of lessers. There are thematic twists, too, like the “grenade” launcher that fires sticky cysts of evil snot like Unreal’s bio-rifle, and the crystal cannon that turns victims into purple statues. Weapons are a strange case of being functionally standard but feel good and varied enough for the lack of oddball options to matter.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/3D Realms/Fulqrum Publishing
If the shotgun is still the measure of a good FPS, Fury Ruined Colon delivers again. It’s powerful and enough of a workhorse that the couple of levels that starve you of shells only make it shine all the more brightly. The delay between shots is just enough to make for panicky moments when you miss or it’s not done enough damage, and its alternative fire is a long-ish range rocket/flak hybrid launcher that punches way above its apparent weight, but takes skill to time and aim properly. Best of all, right clicking and releasing before it fires make a little chak-chik sound without spending any ammo. Yes thank you I will take some stimming with my stimming.
Skill is really the key here too, as each of the game’s monsters and weapons has distinctive behaviour and patterns that complement your competency. They’re initially frustrating, then an acceptable challenge, then opportunities to experiment with new gun combinations, and finally you’ll integrate their deaths into the rhythm of the wider gunfights you’re in. Ammunition is also exceptionally well balanced, as you’ll always have enough for several viable options, but little enough that you have to rotate regularly and thus learn the ins and outs of every gun and enemy. You’d think the invisible spiders were the annoying enemy, but I retain a deep hatred of the little electric-eyeball-launching robot things who explode on death. You will hear their buzzing, infinite vision attacks early and IT WILL NEVER CEASE.
Power ups (artifacts) in theory feed into all this too, providing a localised shield, melee-denying electricity, or the tantalising black hole grenade. But as a natural hoarder and absent-minded dolt, I almost never used them beyond the sometimes-necessary “heal on kill” one, and the “temporary god mode but afterwards you drop to 1hp” one. The most entertaining one transforms an arena into an amusing reprieve, turning monsters against each other with bimbo gas while you hang out and smoke under the stairs. But these options come into their own more on hard mode, which I shouldprobablyhave moved up to earlier.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/3D Realms/Fulqrum Publishing
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/3D Realms/Fulqrum Publishing
Wrath Colon Aeon Of Ruin could tighten up a few things here and there, and it could have been a bit more outlandish, and it should probably not have led with some of its drabbest levels. But where many of its peers merely ape the loud and obnoxious reputation 90s FPS games had, it’s a solid shooter that remembers how they actually played and why they worked.
