Many would tell you that Warhammer 40,000 started the whole Spacemarine fiction, they even started the “chainsword” concept way before the chainsaw bayonet that was on Gears of War’s Lancer assault rifle. I’m still very new to the Warhammer universe, only tried Blood Bowl for like 20 minutes and bought some figures that I should find time to paint. Right now, this the review for the long awaited Warhammer 40,000 third person shooter.

You take on the role of Captain Titus, leader of the Ultramarines, one of the most honorary Spacemarine chapters in the Warhammer 40K universe. Titus and a handful of his Spacemarine brethren are sent to an industrial planet owned by the Imperium of Man (the faction space marines fall under). There has been an invasion of orks and the planet is home of one of the titan mechs, so it is a potential threat if the orks get their hands on it.

While the main story is quite generic, Relic made an excellent job introducing the Warhammer 40K universe to those (like myself) new to it. There’s a certain grand scale that the game has, and it seems to set it self amazingly well. While spacemarines in video games in general are the epitome of genericness (Masterchief, COGs, etc), the Warhammer Spacemarines are a lot more interesting than the spacemarines I’ve come across in different games. In this universe, the spacemarines are idolized as gods by lesser soldiers. The spacemarines are crusaders, sworn an oath to the emperor to fight and die for his name, genetically modified to live for thousands of years to serve, crusading zealots that fight against anyone and or anything opposing their emperor.

For cannon fodder, the Orks have more personalities than any swarming enemies I’ve ever seen in any other video game to date. The Orks speak and act like hooligans, talking smack and not thinking twice about provoking anyone that opposes them. It never gets boring or tiring throughout the game, and the Orks never for a minute take a break from being outrageous, one point they even attack your aeroplanes with jetpacks. Part of the Orks’ charm is that they are very crude in their equipment, many of their equipment is pretty much rag-tag, automotive engines as prosthetic enhancments and the like.

While the Orks may outnumber you in every scene in the game, you (as a Spacemarine) are handed an interesting assortment of weapons that let you plow through the swarms. Guns come in two flavors, bullet based and energy based, while both are replenished from the same ammo box, both behave differently in the game, bullets are more abundant as the weapons that use them have massive magazines that hold them. Energy based weapons have smaller capacities but come in different varieties, like a laser sniper cannon that melts anything in its way and a pressurized shotgun that has a very short range blow but devestating in the range its in.

The game plays much like your usual 3rd person shooter, linear levels, enemies to shoot and everything. Thought the game stands out for a few qualities only a few people like myself genuinely appreciate, the game has no cover and no health regeneration. Who ever thought those were good ideas, has probably have heard me rant about these annoying conventions, and for that I salute them for really considering us who got sick of them, really, thank you.
An interesting mechanic in the game is the jetpack that you are given in some areas of the game. While it isn’t fleshed out in its controls like Dark Void was, the controls seem to be just right for this game. You don’t fly in this game, the jetpack merely launches you high up into the air and from there, you can either shot your enemies from a higher altitude, land a cause a shock wave to stun them, or dash down with your melee weapon to completely devastate them.

There is no health regeneration whatsoever, the only thing that replenishes on its own is your shields. The only way to regain health is to violently take down your opponents. Once you stun your opponent, they are hopeless against your takedowns, during this take down you will go through a small animation of you brutally taking the enemy’s life and use it as yours. During this animation you are more vulnerable to get killed, many people seem to complain about it being an annoying way to die, but I never died throughout the game while gaining health. I personally think it’s an interesting mechanic and the gamble does give the game a little more tension that makes it worth it.

Playing the game on PC, I can see that the developers have some PC gaming pedigree in their hands. Putting the beautiful graphics and the amazing sound design on one side, all the cutscenes are realtime, none of that compression ridden, pre-recorded turd that annoyed me so much in Deus Ex: Human Revolution. The sense of scale in this game is amazing, it really feels like the entire planet consists of one gigantic factory, the very Titan that you protect makes Metal Gear Rex look like a wind up toy.

As if the single player mode wasn’t enough of a treat, the multiplayer is surprisingly fun. Though it does follow the Modern Warfare formula far too closely for my comfort, it does fit the game surprisingly well and is genuinely fun to play. Once you first start, nothing is open for you besides a few job classes, slowly go up the ladder and then you can customize your characters color scheme and the look of the armor (which is entirely cosmetic, but completely customizeable down to changing each armor piece on the left side and the right separately, down to colors and armor look).

In the multiplayer you play the Space Marines and the Chaos Marines (polar opposites of the Spacemarines that have involvement with black magic and daemons), They play similarly the same, mainly to keep the games balanced and fairly enough, it works. you do earn more weapons on the way.

Warhammer 40,000 Spacemarine is an excellent package, it does a lot of things right, both fans of the series and new comers will find a lot of things to get excited about.

What We Think: In cases more than one, this is really what the first two Gears of War should have been like if it were to keep my attention going on long enough to finish them. Spacemarine takes away many modern conventions that annoyed me in more modern shooters, throw it out of the window and offers a focused and fast paced experience that had left a smile on my face that Battlefield Bad Company 2 left last year, even when both games play completely different from each other. An excellent games in every possible factor.

Though according to many sources, console versions are impossible to play unless the x and y axes sensitivity is set higher than the default, and judging from the way I played the PC version with the mouse and keyboard, that is quite understandable.

Mohammad AlHuraiz

Founder, editor and host of Lochal Archade. Mohammad has been running Lochal Archade for years and working hard in bringing video game-related content to the UAE and the Middle East as a whole.

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