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dkirschner's Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine (PC)

[August 5, 2013 02:04:09 AM]

Pretty much what I expected from reading reviews. I got this for free in some THQ pack and I like Warhammer, so I figured I'd try anyway. I found it definitely a fun game overall, but it was still very basic and drab. Quite a feat to maintain a fun factor in such a dull world.

I'll start with the pros. The "feel" of being an Ultramarine was fantastic. When you run, you hear the clank, clank, clank of metal boots on steel ground, and the screen shakes slightly. I loved that touch. The Ultramarines and the other characters also looked great. The armor, especially that of the last boss, wow, was detailed and authentic looking. Your character also gets nice blood spatter on his during battle.

The other thing I really liked was the jetpack. The jetpack segments were hands down the best in the game, but waaaay too few and far between. If I remember, you get a jetpack three times. The first time you lose it, it's because you're going into some tunnels and can't use the jetpack. I accepted that. Then it was like 5 chapters before getting it again, for a sweet sweet 10 minutes or so, and then Tidus discards it after "it's out of fuel." What?! The last time you get the jetpack "it's out of fuel" too. That's such a crappy excuse for making you get rid of the jetpack! I actually got mad the second time. "It's out of fuel? Bullshit! Find some more fuel! You're on a planet designed to manufacture war machines. There is definitely fuel nearby!" Anyway, despite having it rudely taken from me every time, I cherished our time together. You can fly around a little bit, and the best part is that you get a slam attack. You drop from the sky like a meteor crashing into enemies below, killing or stunning them. It was so. much. fun. to do. And it actually didn't feel overpowered because in the jetpack segments, they put lots of shooters on roofs and ledges, and used the psykers to fire at you and warp in more enemies and things. Those parts were nice because they ramped up the challenge and gave you the tools to deal with it.

So those were the great things - the feel of being an Ultramarine and the jetpack.

The not-so-great things were greater in number. The first one is sort of pro/con, which was the combat. I realized immediately when looking at my "move list" that all four melee weapons had about 7 or 8 moves (good) but that they were all the same buttons (bad). For example, every weapon you attacked with X and stunned with Y, and combinations included X, XX, XXX, XY, XXY, or XXXY. One weapon had an additional XXXX. Well, it took me about 2 minutes to master melee combat, and the prospect of repeating XXXY for 8 hours wasn't sounding like much fun. Luckily, you gain access to a number of guns as well, and there is a bit more variety there. You get your bolt pistol, your repeaters, plasma guns with charge, sticky bombs, grenades, sniper rifles, and a couple others. Not a huge variety, but the interplay of melee and ranged combat was enjoyable and spiced things up, especially as more and more enemy types were introduced requiring more than just XXXY and bolt pistol. Still, it was a lot of button mashing and lacked the finesse I've come to appreciate from more better combat-oriented games like Devil May Cry and Bayonetta.

The game is completely linear. There's nothing optional, no exploration, no secrets, no nothing besides "go here, shoot that, watch this cut scene." It's a shame that the Ultramarines themselves and the Orks and Chaos were so detailed because comparatively the world was utterly devoid of life. Sure, there was an invasion going on, but the environments were dead and gray, there wasn't a lot happening in the background besides the occasional ship flying past, and there were hardly any humans anywhere. The ones that were there (besides the ones fighting) just sat on the ground and didn't move. There were no homes, no one doing anything like they would in daily life. It was just dead and dull and a stark contrast to the color and attention paid to the Ultramarines, Orks and Chaos.

Actually I realized that there is a lot of 'dead space' in the game too. When you play, you will get used to running to your destination and going through A LOT of doors with green lights guiding your way. Almost all of these rooms are plain empty, and by the end of the game I was just running through battles looking for the green light to move on to the next place to find the next green light, through all the empty rooms. Toward the end I was getting a little annoyed because I would find the obvious elevator or doorway or green light, but I would have to kill all the enemies first before my AI companion would announce something like "Over there! An exit!" And I'm like, "Yes, I found that 5 minutes ago and it was open. Why couldn't we go then?" Which brings me to my next point - there is just so much killing. Hordes and hordes you have to slice through, waves and waves of enemies you have to kill before the game will let you move forward. More and more and more little objectives that pop up requiring you to go to some other place before you can do the main thing you set out to do. I get that most of that is necessary for the narrative and to keep things rolling, but man, it got repetitive.

I could have used more boss battles. There were two. The first was alright. The second was really bad. I'll rag on the second one a bit. If, by the end of the game, you hadn't had enough of waves and waves and waves and waves of enemies, prepare to fight four more waves of enemies before getting to fight the final boss. These last waves of enemies suck so much. There is one wave of a bunch of the imp demons, another wave of Chaos soldiers and tough chaos marines, a wave of psykers with more demons and a final wave of imp demons and really really deadly chaos ultramarines. I died so much. I started out with the Thunder Hammer, which I eventually discarded for the Power Axe so that I could use more powerful guns, which I needed to take out the psykers and the chaos ultramarines. The first wave was ok, just kite the demons around killing them slowly. The second wave was alright, just move behind cover and take out the regular soldiers, then the more powerful ones one by one and execute the powerful ones for health. The third wave killed me the most because those psykers' energy ray laser things just burrrn through armor and health if you get caught in the open. Unfortunately though you have to run in the open because of the horde of demons chasing you. I tried a long time and finally figured I needed to take out a psyker ASAP with the laser sniper gun, then thin the demons, then take out the other psyker. The final wave was hard because of those chaos ultramarines, which were beasts. They took forever to kill, and I died a lot because I kept getting stuck in corners, which was the one big problem with the controls. You'd get your bulky self stuck in corners by big enemies and not be able to roll out of the way and you'd die, quite frustrating especially at this last battle.

Waves defeated, you get to take on the final boss, which was a complete letdown and a crappy quick-time event. I am not exaggerating when I say the quick-time event largely involved pressing XXY about 15 times in a row. Why didn't they use other combinations for the quick-time event? "Let's make it more fun and change things up." "Nah, let's just have the player tap XXY 15 times." Also, the on-screen prompts didn't indicate whether you needed to press the button once or tap it repeatedly. That cost me a couple lives, which was irritating. I guess I learned when to tap and when to press by dying, but those prompts should have been clear. And then, the end, which I liked.

And so goes Space Marine. Recommended only for hardcore Warhammer fans or if you really enjoy mashing XXY a lot. It was fun enough, short, ultimately forgettable.