Once upon a time in the land of fish and chips there was a small company called Games Workshop. They were a tabletop miniature-making company that created a game called, Warhammer, taking dwarves, elves, vampires, and a whole bunch of other mythological creatures and making them have one big rumble. One day someone at GW decided to play a joke by taking the Tolkien-like setting
of Warhammer and setting it in the future, in space. This was called, Rogue Trader, and amidst the parody of-it-all there was a glimpse of potential, showing a truly excellent game system, coupled with a dark and dynamic universe. But Games Workshop decided to ignore it and made Warhammer 40,000 instead.
Why yes, he is using that Ork's head as a grenade.
A couple decades have passed, and now Games Workshop has quietly grown into a vast corporation, sort of like how mildew grows in a shower. They’ve been able to expand their franchises into surprisingly successful books, comics, a movie, and of course video games. Up until now the Warhammer and Warhammer 40k franchises have been confined to RTS, but no longer. Now Relic Studios has created Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, a 3rd person action game for the PC, Xbox 360, and PS3.
Warhammer 40k: Space Marine follows the adventures of Captain Titus of the Ultramarines. It’s an odd name that Relic chose, as it is also the name of a Roman Emperor who had a famous arch in Rome named after him, depicting his conquering of the Jews. After presumably conquering the Space Jews, Captain Titus is sent to a manufacturing world to kill some Orks and defend the world’s titans, sort of like Gundam mechs crossed with gothic architecture with weapons that can wipe out cities. Along the way you and your mates gradually discover a much darker conspiracy culminating in an epic boss fight, and by boss fight I mean, “quick time event” and by epic I mean, “irksome.”
Now even before I played the game I was dubious. It didn’t seem that Relic, a company that had produced RTS games for the better part of the last decade could successfully make a transition into the action game genre, and this thought wasn’t helped when they chose the most generic of all titles for their game. It also didn’t help when Relic said they wanted the game to feel cinematic, which has worked as often in video games as making consoles with 3d graphics. But perhaps Relic’s new eyes on the action genre will help Space Marine learn from other games mistakes.
At Space Marine’s core is the ability to switch quickly from shooting mode to melee combat, which the game pulls of quite well. It’s very easy to switch between the two fighting styles, ensuring that combat is constantly dynamic. This can result in some really fun moments. There’s no cover system though, and while your shield does regenerate your health does not. Space Marine employs a system where in order to regain health you stun an enemy and execute them, Orks being presumably made out of life-giving jelly. The system is designed to keep you in the fight and for the most part it works. The gameplay is incredibly cathartic and you’ll want to keep fighting. You have a choice of guns that are very effective at turning Orks into headless green bags, a choice of melee weapons ranging from a combat knife to a gigantic hammer that’s very effective at making Ork pancakes. The game then points you to the nearest horde and lets you go nuts.
Game-play is solid, but there's definitely room for improvment, particularly in exections.
There are a few issues though. I did suffer a few cheap deaths when Titus’s executions took too long and a nearby Ork was able to run up and chop my limbs off. And while I didn’t mind it, some of the executions may start to get a bit repetitive after a while. Speaking of repetition, while the level design is quite nice, the environments are mostly brown industrial complexes, which can get old, especially when the level design is unnecessarily padded at points with the worst offender being a forge level early on.
Enviornments are repetitive, so I hope you like Brown...
The worst part is the end though. They spend the last few levels hyping an epic boss battle and after killing a few difficult hordes you do a quick time event and it’s over. Not even a good quick time event! You slap the last boss in the face with the butt of your sword until he dies. Nice to see that being cinematic is working out for your game, Relic.
The Forces of Chaos are a lot of fun to fight.
Also, while it’s nice to see that they went through the effort to make your Space Marine as customizable as possible in the multiplayer (like making a Dark Angel look like a casino playing Marine), there are only five maps and two game modes. Whether you’ll want to keep playing or not depends on any future DLC they have planned. There’s a fight off the horde mode coming to the game later this month, so that may add some replay-ability.
Don't forget, pink is always an option.
Even though these are all polish issues, they’re quite numerous and hard not to notice. Still, at the end of the day I had fun with Space Marine and you probably will too. The developers have announced this to be part of a new series, and you know what–that could work. Touch up on the executions, add some new enemies and environments, trim the padding, and add some new Multiplayer maps and the next game will be even better. Consider this at the very least a recommendation to keep your eye on the series, and not up an iron-sight.