Review - Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine

At a glance:

-        
      Pros: Captures the essence of the Warhammer Universe through art style, atmosphere and well-acted dynamic characters.

-        Cons: Linear campaign fails to live up to the epic story arc that the game attempted to create.

Final Judgement: The Rider Approves.




Available for PS3, XBOX 360, PC

   
    In the grim darkness of the far future… there is a futuristic dystopian wasteland populated by slavering hordes of alien monstrosities with nothing better to do then totally wail on the on helpless unwashed masses of NPC humans. Standing in the their way, with heroic jaws and blinged out chest plates, are a bunch of ‘roided out super soldiers with a penchant to putting their armoured boots through the overripe skulls of said xeno douchebags .  No, I’m not talking about Gears of War, or Killzone, or Resistance, or Red Faction, or even Star Craft… We’re talking Warhammer… bitches.

    Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine by Relic Entertainment thundered into stores earlier this month promising players grand adventures in the gritty setting of Games Workshop’s flagship sci-fi tabletop game.  Leading up to the release I was trying not to get my hopes up too high, after all GW has had a spotty track record when it comes to forays into the video game market.  Especially when it came to the shooter department. Now this is not to say that since THQ and Relic took the helm that there hasn’t been some success, namely  the RTS games of the Dawn of War series and the less renowned,   Warhammer 40,000: Squad Command.  However, shooter games set in the universe have yet to successfully capture the essence of the source material.

    Space Marine puts you as Titus, a Captain of the Ultamarines Chapter of Space Marines tasked with retaking a giant factory world over run by a horde of Orcs who inexplicably speak English with a cockney accent. The opening scene has Titus being separated from the rest of his battle brochachos during their landing on the planet. Titus lands upon an Orc warship loitering over the city and proceeds to wreck shop all up in its business,  interspersing the slaughtering of the hapless greenskins with tutorial cues. After getting players used to the combat system and controls Titus uses his man hands to turn one of the ships cannons on its self, a la Luke Skywalker, blowing the ship to pieces and causing it to crash into the surface of the planet. Titus, being awesome, rides the ship down Dr. Strangelove style pausing as he punches his way out of the wreckage to pose heroically unscathed while the games title superimposes over the screen to the crescendo of epic music.

"Hello, Ladies."

Oh yeah… it’s like that, and it’s unapologetic about it.

    After a play through of the single player campaign, what is there to say? Is it the best third person shooter I have ever played? No. The game play and controls are well executed. However  I wouldn’t call it innovative or genre defining.

    Is the story itself inspired? For Warhammer, it was very much a “bread and butter” predictable story. The single player campaign felt linear and seemed to take place over just a few hours on the planet. This made it feel more like another day in the office for Captain Titus then an epic tale of good overcoming evil.  

    Furthermore the Orcs, who are featured for eighty percent of the game, are the least interesting faction in the Warhammer Universe. Particularly when you can choose from undying cybernetic monsters, demons spawned from your own psyche and ancient aliens that exist only to torture and destroy to play your antagonist. Why you would choose to showcase the faction that was originally created as the comic relief frankly escapes me.  
   
    That being said, I did enjoy the cast of characters finding them all to be believable and dynamic. Titus I particularly tip my hat to as he was given a grounded personality and acted as though he truly cared about the plight of his squad mates and the people around him.

Above - Titus with some people he cares about.

    What really scores Space Marine points however is its ability to capture the essence of the Warhammer universe, and the feel of the tabletop game.

    Being the type of guy that plays the table top game and having collected the Space Marine Army,  I can safely say that the place where Space Marine shines is in making the player feel like the damn near invincible killing machine that Titus is.

    The Shooter  market is flooded with Gears of War style cover based shooters where players run from one chest high wall to the next, blind firing and hurling grenades all the way. Space Marine defiantly says “No” to those games followed up with a defiant  “eat a dick”.

"I said EAT IT"

    The game rewards you for walking ever forward and directly into the Orc hordes. Titus spits death and dismemberment from his trusty Bolter (an automatic cannon that fires fist sized exploding shells) allowing him to get close enough to them to cleave the left overs with hia chainsword (a god damn chainsaw on a stick). In fact the only way to regain health is to send the hapless Orcs to the hereafter  with a bloody and brutal finishing move.

    Those unfamiliar with the source material of the game might argue that the failure to include a cover system was laziness or oversight on the part of the game developer.  However if the rhetoric spewing Space Marines did anything but wade head long into the enemy, it would be a critical failure on the games part to capture the most basic fact of the games main character - he doesn’t hide behind cover because he doesn’t have any fear. Titus is an instrument of certain death, and the battle this game covers is but another movement in the blood soaked magnum opus that is his service to the Emperor that created him. So well played THQ, well played. 

    At the end of the day, the game kept the combat pitched enough that I found myself thoroughly entertained by the headlong charges in to the enemy masses and after a short time didn't miss the lack of cover system at all.

    Finally, a key part of the experience of Space Marine was that it really felt like the developers took a look at the terrain and set pieces Games Workshop created and used in the promotion of their table top game. The environments you fight through truly capture the dark gothic architecture that graces the illustrations of the rule books and novels. Now this is not to say that they didn't cut corners make some of the environments to be uninspired and simply cut pastes of “Default ruined city scape #1” but  even so certain areas, such as the manufactorum level seemed like Space Marine was giving a nod to its tabletop roots.  Some set pieces looked as though they were cobbled together, at least in part from spare parts of various model kits.  A practice often used in the tabletop game to jazz up a homemade piece of terrain. As an example, at one point Titus rides an elevator that has its center piece made up of a belt that looked exactly like the treads that come with many of tank model kits.

 Would I recommend this game? Yes.

    It has enough detail and fluff from the source material that the hard-core fans of the Warhammer Universe won’t be declaring jihad on Relic for leaving out details or glossing over cannon.  At the same time, THQ delivers a game that is still accessible enough that a new comer to Warhammer can pick it up and enjoy it for what it is without having to plumb the depths of the internet to get the jist of universe. It would even stand as a good introduction to the game setting and while the game play and story won’t floor you, they stand well enough on their own that they will keep you entertained through the campaign.