I would be lying horribly if It weren't true. Warhammer 40k: Space Marine came out today for those of us in the United States. Just spent 8 hours hacking and slashing my way through the game, and was decently satisfied with the story. Seeing as I play 40k, and I play space marines, I was interested in seeing how the game brought some of the gear and mechanics of the miniatures game into life. I was impressed for the most part. There is just something awesome about the English accented orks that I love.
Your character, Captain Titus of the Ultramarines, starts the game off being unorthodox. Diving with a jet pack into a war torn sky evading exploding ships and landing on ones deck to be rid of it. At the begining of the game it reminded me of God of War, which it is but with orks and guns.
Titus strives to establish himself as a bad ass right away in the game. Carving up gretchkin and orks with a knife and mowing down wave after wave of hapless orks with his boltgun. Eventually crippling the ship and riding it down as it crashes upon the forge-world planet.
The game slowly introduces new types of orc, 'ard boyz, Nobz, and even weirdboyz, but they all felt the same. Shoot em enough or hack them to bits enough and they die. It takes far too long in the game to get a new enemy. Which is the welcome but frustrating arrival of the Chaos Space Marines. They are much more brutal and pack serious firepower. I say frustrating because by the time they showed up i was way too absolved in the ork killing tactic of stand in the open and shoot them till they get too close, they chop them to itty bitty bits with a chain sword. That tactic ended in repeat failures for the forces of Chaos.
It probably seems by now that i didn't like the game. On the contrary. I did. I spent the entire time glued to the TV not being able to stop pulling the trigger. The game is so well designed graphically that it was fun just running through the devastated city. I never encountered getting stuck or lost. With all of the objects that are in each area of the game I was expecting to get stuck in a piece of cover or terrain at least once. Enemies did, but I'm ok with that. Saved me bullets.
As far as the seeing stuff from the minis game in this game. I was very satisfied. The game unlocks lots of stuff really quick. This allows you to, in between active fighting areas, rearm and customize Titus. I experimented with classic chainsword and bolt gun, to the insanely fast firing Stormbolter and Power-axe. However, I will say there are a few levels in the game that I had tremendous fun with. You get to use a jump pack, and a power hammer. Rocketing yourself into the air just to ground pound into large packs of enemies, sending them flying. As you recovers start swinging away on the hammer and your rewarded with slow motion carnage of ork bodies and blood everywhere. After these frays even Titus is covered in blood. I was very impressed at the effect.
The weaponry is also very nice. There are a few things that I am disappointed at however. You get to use the sniper rifle and las-cannon which are devastating long range weapons. The plasma gun and Plasma cannons however, we just far to cumbersome to really enjoy using.
If you play Warhammer 40k you will have an understanding of who the space marines are. If you don't the game just kinda lets you find out. There were alot of interesting things that did appear in the game. The Inquisition is in it, as well as mentions of the tyranids, though they never do make an appearance in the game. The Blood Ravens chapter of the space marines make a visit, only to be coldly thanked by Titus. For those people that have forge world minis...don't worry. There is even one fight that takes place on a moving Titan.
All in all it is a fun game. There is no cooperative play yet. But that is going to be a free dlc in October. There is vs multi-player though. Ill be playing that for a few days before i give a review of that. From the little I've played so far they seem to done a decent job at making it feel like your playing the different types of infantry the minis game has.
Until next time I leave you with some advice from the Codex Astartes: Better to be crippled in body, then crippled in mind.
