Quick Time Review: Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine

Warhammer 40,000 was a strategy board game played by nerds who grew tired of role playing as a single hero in Dungeons and Dragons. So instead they role played as a General sending hundreds of other heroes to their deaths. Then in the early 90, realizing how lame painting dozens of tiny figures is, Warhammer was adapted into a series of Real Time Strategy games. Mostly.

About a year ago when THQ, the publisher on many W40k games, went belly up, the magical land known as Steam, with it's infinite bounty of love and video games slashed the catalog of the bankrupted company. I scored about a dozen games for $24.99, including a game call Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine. Knowing a little about the series and having played a demo for the console exclusive twin-stick shooter genre shitfest, I decided to give the series a chance and after randomly picking between the 4 W40k games in my Steam library I settled on Space Marine despite my retardation of the strategy genre (I'll leave that for another time). But praise Jesus, holly David Blaine, the game was a fucking 3^rd Person shooter... with melee!

I know what you're thinking: Why abandon the RTS/RPG elements of a well established and beloved franchise for a gears of war/zelda hybrid? And my only answer to such a justified question is that the game rocks like a geodude. No joke, Space Marines is a surprisingly fun game. Its starts with the gunplay. Like in most 3^rd person games you have your hip shot and then a zoomed in, over-the-shoulder shot. Two of the guns have scopes that gives you a first-person view, but that's pretty standard. What isn't standard is that a hip shot is just as accurate as over-the-shoulder. Which probably sounds kind of cheap. But you're Tidus of the Ultramarines! Of course you can hit an Ork between the eye without your fucking sight.

Unlike Gears of War, there is no cover-based shooting. Well you can and will hide behind shit but there's no button that stick's your ass to chest-high walls. Hell. There's not even a duck button. Early in the campaign, guns are used to thin out the herd of stampeding Orks and close the gap for some melee-in'. You get 4 options: A knife, a chainsaw sword, the Power Ax and the WarHammer. The knife is quickly replaced and the next two are pretty interchangeable but the last weapon is a beast. The Warhammer can takeout lower and mid-strength enemies pretty quick but the downside is that you're limited to two gun types from the standard four: the infinite ammo pistol and the assault rifle. Later in the game, not using a sniper rifle or an energy based rifle isn't an option, so I mostly stuck to the Power Ax. Melee, honestly, has style and no substance. Watching Orks explode red is a hoot but with a primary attack and a stun attack, close range combat is a Dynasty Warrior style button masher. An on-screen tutorial did mention something about checking my combo list but obviously, I never needed to do so.

As you may remember about 2 sentences ago I said there is a stun attack in Space Marines. And I'm sure that you are scratching your nuts wondering: What the hell is a stun attack supposed to do? Well, it's simple dumb-dumb. For your health! Thats right. To recover health, you must stun an enemy, hit the action button (E on PC) and watch an execution animation during which you still take damage. Oh yeah. Tougher enemies require you to repeatedly tap the attack button (left-click on pc) for that sweet rejuvenating Ork nectar. It's not even a real quick time event, with the tapping of the same button every time. There is, however, another way to recover health. After dealing out enough damage Tidus can go Super Saiyan and his health bar will automatically refill. This is the primary way I healed him. As a back up, The Ultramarine's armor has it's recharging shield much like in Halo.

The best part of combat was the sections in which you get...A Fucking Jetpack. Flying up in the air and landing a massive power slam in the middle of a group of enemies

felt so satisfying. And I think that gets to the main reason for my love of this game: You feel like a fucking badass. Sure. You run head first into a hoard of Orks or (spoiler) Heritics sporting the same Ultramarine armor, you're fucked in about 5 seconds. But when you're smart and cautious, there is nothing that can stop you.

My biggest problem wasn't even anything gameplay or story related, it was the setting. And by setting I mean two different things: the Warhammer universe and the actual locations the battles took place. My problem with the Wahammer's take on the human race's migration into space is by their embrace of imperialism. Tidus' almost brainwashed devotion to the honor of the Imperiaum and constant spewing of crap about how lives are the currency of the Emperor, kind of took me out of the experience. Maybe I just hate the idea that humans would devolve to such a philosophy or the fact Tidus would bring it up every five minutes, especially when you die.

As for the level design, all the environments looked good but after a while its all just sort of blended together. They're very linear, with next to no exploration, yet the developers still felt the need to point the player in the right direction. “Really? I need to walk though that door? I thought I needed to jump off this ledge. Oh wait, thats right. There's no jumping.” Hell you can't even run off a ledge thanks to the invisible walls.

Just to reinforce my earlier statement, I really liked this game. It's flaws are few and the action is fun. The story not so subtly hints at a sequel and I would diffidently like to take another trip in Tidus' giant metal pants.