Space Marine

I have never been exposed to the world of Warhammer and Warhammer 40K before, apart from seeing the tabletop game being played or knowing about Dawn of War. Yet, I always found the world appealing , more so than many other dystopia worlds, mainly due to the fact that the lore borrows and steals from all corners of mythology, religion, symbolism and so forth. Roman insignia, Greek mythology, the inquisition, it's all there to form a strange mix of future warfare and ancient mysticism. Yet, how much can I give Kudos for Games Workshop to create such a world ? Not much I suppose, so despite the visceral and grim setting, the game does not earn any marbles on this account.

The way the world is brought to life however is great. The level design of this game is amazing and while the layouts are just rail-shooter corridors, the architecture and world looks breathtakingly good and you find yourself in imposing cathedrals and dark tunnels. Unfortunately, many of the games most impressive levels/stages have you just running through them and I wonder why so many areas of this game are just empty and eye candy ?

Talking of battle, it is the core of the W40K game experience, mindless and brutal slashing and firing your weapon, I say mindless but you will have to make the odd decision as you can only carry four weapons. Yet, I completed the game in six hours and did not really put an awful lot of thought into it, this is by no means a game where you have to adapt your strategy before rushing into combat, a quick finger will do. But the visuals make combat more satisfying than it should be, orcs and chaos troops fly through the air in the best 'Havok' fashion and it is a delight to observe.

The controls needs 30 minutes to get used to as this game is not a FPS per se but uses an over-the-shoulder kind of 3rd person look and as such, you should make good use of the aim button.

As I said before, the graphics make this game more enjoyable than the gameplay makes it in the first place, but that comes from someone who can run this on max settings, if you cannot run the game with all the bling, there is much less enjoyment to be found here.

People complain about the lack of story and yes, there is not much of a story but not less story than in other recent shooters such as Dead Island, Borderlands or Left 4 Dead. There is bad guys and you will have to track them down, at least the game delivers a nice cliffhanger, but the lack of story is not that bad. It is a missed opportunity of course, considering how rich the world of W40K is (with hundreds of novels and RPG books out there) but they are probably saving the meat of the universe for the upcoming MMORPG.

The game only took me six hours to finish I did not enjoy it enough to play through it a second time so that is not a lot of bang for the buck, but if you are into achievements or multiplayer, there is still something left to do after you finished the game.

I enjoyed the game for what it is, a mind-numbing gore-fest of orc-slaying that is over before you can say 'Waaaagh', but I would not go back to it anytime soon.

Space Marine is one of those games that, despite being no more than an average product when you stop to think about it.. Well you won't stop to think, because it's too damn fun. The textures aren't amazing, the story is nothing new in the W40K camp, the campaign is a bit short (8 hours)..But in the end it doesn't really matter because i find myself coming back to it and playing more and more.

- It's bloody fun, and by bloody i mean "lots of blood" bloody. In the campaign, you control Titus, a Space Marine captain who arrives on a planet to answer a distress call from the Imperial Guard, who are being attacked by Orks (led by a Ork Warboss that many players are empathizing with; he's probably the coolest character in the game, shame he doesn't show up many times). Your job is to help the Imperial Guard regain control of their bases and drive away the Orks, and to help you, there are two additional squad mates, also Space Marines. They'll throw in the occasional banter to split the pace between carnage and small cutscenes that advance the story.

- During the course of the game, you can pick up several ranged and melee weapons, from chainswords to stalker bolters (basically snipers), huge power hammers, a revenge launcher (one of my favs; you shoot a blue mine that attaches itself to a surface or flesh and detonates when you aim at it and press reload. There's loads of fun to have with it if you're creative). There are also upgrades to pick up, most of them improve your Fury skill (a power that fills up the more enemies you kill until you can use it and unleash more powerful attacks).

- There's no regenerating health in the SP. The only way to regain health is to perform an execution; they can only be performed on stunned enemies. You have to time it well and carefully because while you do it you are exposed to damage; time doesn't stop around you and enemies keep shooting at you, so don't think you can just keep spamming executions and expect to live long! The shields do regenerate though, when you're not being hit.
In the MP, both shields and health regenerate, but health regenerates quite slowly.

- The campaign takes roughly 8 hours to finish but it's worth playing through twice, because it's so much fun. There are also servo skulls (audio logs) that you can collect to know more about the background story and get an achievement.

As for the online:

- There are two modes; Seize the ground and Annihilation. The first is objective based, where you have to keep hold of certain areas (capture and defend) while winning points from captures, until the time finished or a team reaches 1000 points. Annihilation is your regular team deathmatch

- There are only 5 maps for now. I haven't gotten tired of any yet, and knowing Relic's track record i think we can expect that more will be added, possibly free even.

- Speaking of free, in 1 month the game will receive FREE DLC, called Exterminatus. It's you plus 3 buddies online fighting against oncoming waves of enemies, a sort of "Last Stand". Sounds like quite the fun. It'll have its own leaderboards too.

- In MP the level cap is 41, and until there you'll unlock more weapons, armor and perks. There 1.8 billion combinations to customize your soldier in terms of armor (aesthetics)... That's right, there's a lot of detail you can put into the look of your Space marine (or Chaos Space Marine, the other faction). You'll spend hours on it alone

- The biggest problem with the online is that it uses P2P instead of dedicated servers. I've had good matches and mostly lag free, but there's the odd match where things don't go well. There are also people having more laggy matches so it might depend on where you live... I doubt there'll be any lag in exterminatus though, plus you can even play that with 3 of your RL friends

Conclusion: it's not perfect, not did it set out to be. But it's what it's supposed to be; a very fun romp in the W40K universe with a lot of potential for future DLC. Not that this particular year so great gaming-wise but this is one of the best of the year SO FAR.

I had high hopes for this game. I have followed the `hammer for over 20 years and so we share some history together. Many games have come and gone. Hex based strategy, RTS and now a shooter. Not been into the shooters lately so I had mixed feelings on this one, still its 40k and I love the world.
5 minutes into the game I was hooked. Great visuals and for once getting it working from DVD and then authenticate to steam worked smoothly. Straight to the campaign and into the carnage.

It feels good and stompy. Everything about the marines oozes strength. Great single player setup with close combat feeling in your face. Elites are tough and soon into my 3rd wave of exploding squigs the difficulty kicked in and I had to sit up in my seat. A pleasant 2 hours later I thought I would try multiplayer.
Better than single player by a long margin. The games are quick frenzied and bloody. A nice touch is after you have died you can have a copy of your killers setup for one life. This is a great leveller of the playing field; it gives you a taste of the newer weapons yet to be unlocked. The incremental release of guns and kit made me look at each of the 3 classes before I got too hooked on one strategy. Sound is perfect and now the "microphone on" patch is live it is near flawless. You need sound to judge what is happening ahead and change your tactics to suit. Graphics are good but I have just updated my PC so not sure on lower spec devices. Lag with a poor host but what's new.
I recommend this game, fun, accessible and if you love Warhammer it's an essential play