Extra Punctuation: Hating Warhammer 40k and Space Marine

Yahtzee Croshaw

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Hating Warhammer 40k and Space Marine

Yahtzee thinks the whole setting of Warhammer 40k is juvenile rubbish.

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Ferisar

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Eh. Cheap Shots and opinions as per usual. I'll grumble and disagree, giggle because it's still funny and move on. Stay classy.
Also, Space Marines do not spend time doing anything but chainswording people in the face. It's in the job description. :/

Thinking about it now, what's wrong with grim settings Yahtzee? I mean, just about every video game has them.

Wait a second...

Just about every vid--

DID YOU NOT JUST REVIEW RESISTANCE 3?
 

Thaluikhain

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Ouch!

IMHO, he does the backstory a serious injustice. Or, rather, he's missed the opportunity to complain about the really specifically crap bits, rather than just the vague premise.
 

Lord_Gremlin

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Hm, I don't think Yahtzee is really familiar with W40K universe. I would agree that game somewhat assumes that player is familiar with the setting and already knows in details who are Ultramarines, what's a Weirdboy etc.
Thing is, it's a good W40K game. Now, it's all depends on your angle on W40K, but it's good at what it does.
Also, it has Ultramarines. The most boring, dull, emotionless Space Marines of all. I was actually surprised just how much emotion they show in game.

Enjoyed this game a lot and still enjoying it now. Multiplayer is fun, let's you play as Chaos.
Ultimately how good this game is is determined by your love W40K and your opinion on Ultrasmurfs.. I mean, Ultramarines.
Honestly, they should have used Space Wolves... Or maybe Chaos marines, something less bland than Ultrasmurfs.
 

Zachary Kramer

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Woot for the "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" honorable mention! As a lover of RPGs and WH40K, all I have to say is "Dark Heresy." Anyone who is a fan of table-top RPGs should play it, anyone who is a fan of WH40k should play it, anyone who hasn't played but shows the least interest in either should play it. Immensely fun.

As for Space Marine, no matter the fact that all things 40k make me randy, it didn't really slake my thirst. Of course, neither did the Kill Team marketing tie-in/XBLA game, but that can be expected for $5.
 

KDR_11k

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I like how Space Marine is a big dumb game with a setting that expects to be taken seriously. But yeah, the characters in their freaking RTS games have more depth than the guys in this one. Though I do like how at least the RTS games aren't trying to push modern day morals onto you despite being set in a world where that would be completely absurd. Unlike the trite we're used to from Hollywood where they still put black people into equal roles when making a movie about a time period where racism ruled supreme and the main characters are always so enlightened that they are neither racist nor sexist.

I prefer seeing no emotional response to something like Cole Train from Gears. That guy is like Jar Jar to me.
 

Stu35

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Well I've read the Horus Heresy novels. And yes, the 40k universe is incredibly retarded, but it's fun, and it's fantasy, and it doesn't really matter that it makes no sense on an economic level.

As always however, a very funny article.
 

Versuvius

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Resounding "eh". I agree, DnD is fantastic until 4ed shits all over but as for his gripes with Spork Marine he is judging the whole setting on the emotionally retarded smurfs (Codex codex prayers codex prayers dinner codex sleep). While it probably would be too much to ask that he knew the practices of other chapters (Salamanders living with human families in down time so they don't become scowling fridges with boltguns) he could at least acknowledge his "Don't know what real war is" comment was a low blow. Plenty of Imperial Guard stuff is one long post traumatic stress and dysentry story based on real accounts of trech warfare. Though agreeing with guys above me. I will grumble at his comments because it's about something i like, giggle at his funnies and go back to playing Space Marine to do some more mindless rape on greenskins.
 

hansari

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You know what Warhammer 40K is? It's the product of a generation that has never known any kind of real conflict or struggle. No-one in the trenches of the Somme would pass their time imagining something even worse. No-one talks about the "glory of battle" when they're trying to sleep through a shelling raid with a bad case of trench foot. But that's the whole "Space Marine" thing, from what I can gather, a bunch of people who've based this mad space religion on how many twats they've chainsawed in half.
I don't know how you can fault the product if the 14 year old playing can only get "war and being ripped is awesome!"

There is a lot more to be perceived from the 40k universe... a lot of social/philosophical questions too. Its in the backstory and the only reason the gameplay doesn't focus on it more is because everyone playing pretty much knows it. (well that and who would want to play a point and click debate game against Socrates...)
 

Zagzag

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Lord_Gremlin said:
Hm, I don't think Yahtzee is really familiar with W40K universe. I would agree that game somewhat assumes that player is familiar with the setting and already knows in details who are Ultramarines, what's a Weirdboy etc.
Thing is, it's a good W40K game. Now, it's all depends on your angle on W40K, but it's good at what it does.
Also, it has Ultramarines. The most boring, dull, emotionless Space Marines of all. I was actually surprised just how much emotion they show in game.

Enjoyed this game a lot and still enjoying it now. Multiplayer is fun, let's you play as Chaos.
Ultimately how good this game is is determined by your love W40K and your opinion on Ultrasmurfs.. I mean, Ultramarines.
Honestly, they should have used Space Wolves... Or maybe Chaos marines, something less bland than Ultrasmurfs.
I really detest the way that it is ALWAYS Ultramarines, who, as you say, having literally written the rulebook as far as Space Marines go are therefore the most boring of all of them. If any other chapter was used, or even emperor forbid they MADE UP THEIR OWN, like the half of the tabletop players who don't play marines or another chater with its own book, then they could have introduced something interesting about the chapter. Even the marines in Dawn of War have more personality than Ultramarines, and that's an RTS game, where I would expect jsut about 0 characterisation or interesting characters.
 

sharpe95th

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Why are any of your surprised the skinny nerdy man who loves fantasy, wears a stupid hat, and has a pretentious beard doesn't like military fiction?
 

The_Emperor

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The Space Marine game was meh

40k is still great though, fun chess style game. The lore is so manly it has 4 balls and all of them have rock hard abs.

you puny humans just don't get it :p

mind you it's went downhill in recent years.
 

Von Strimmer

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This sounded particularly venemous towards WHK40. I dont like any of it either and will ignore it wherever possibly. Bloody hell though that was a harsh review =P.

Also Gears of War 3 is hands down my game of the year so far.
 

Sixcess

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What people seem to forget is that 40K originates from the same British punk sci-fi mentality that gave us Judge Dredd - it's intentionally ridiculously over the top because it's meant to be satire, and taking it at face value as a love letter to militarism and fascism is to completely miss the point.

Of course, part of the problem is that more and more these days the background is taken at face value, by writers and players alike. That can be done well (e.g. Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts series) or very very badly indeed (e.g. every Space Marine fanwank power fantasy that spews out of Matt Ward's pen...)

But the original background was tongue-in-cheek, to say the least. Just to give one example - Orks are basically soccer hooligans with green skin and big gunz... and buggies. Red buggies of course, 'cos as everyone knows, red wunz go fasta.
 

darthotaku

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I do agree that the Warhammer universe as a whole is pretty cheerless. which is the main reason I play the Tau. Unfortunately the tau have a completely shit video game as opposed to the Space marine's not completely bad game. I think it would be possible to make a great game based on warhammer, but I don't see it happening any time soon.
 

blackdwarf

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although i love warhammer 40K, i understands his view on it. i think the game does deserve the title "good game". not because it is a good 40k game but because it is really a good game. that he doesn't like the story i can understand, because the main character is a space marine. they are mostly generic dudes which don't show a lot of emotions besides rage.
 

Versuvius

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Though the fact it was the Smurfs sucks. The combat style it encourages (Right down to the leaping out of a burning thunderhawk to deal with this shit personally) falls right into the domain of the Space Wolves or the Dark Angels. They put Ultramarines in and didn't do it the ultramarine way. Actually this sounds alot like what happened in the Ultramarine novel. Uriel thinks freely, gets exiled on a death setence mission. Come to think of it, this game is basically the Ultramarines Omnibus 1 and 2 in short.

MANGLING ENGLISH IN THE NAME OF THE EMPEROR

What i meant to say was: The Ultramarines in this game were bad for the job, in their attempt to use the flagship chapter for their game they didn't give much thought to how they would actually go about it. Oh well.
 

JPArbiter

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and yet he glosses over some of the things that he has hated about space marine style shooters that the actual Space Marine fixes.

1)no in grained cover mechanic, Sir Wally McChest-high is on break.

2) Weapons that have a visceral weight and sound to them, from reload to impact to the sound of firing. heck even the mass of the marines themselves is present (thank to the camera thud during a run)

3) a sincere feeling of wandering around as a god among men.

believe me I am no 40k fan, (Battletech forever baby)but an inbuilt predjudice against the setting has made him unable to see where the game should have provoked a response, even if the game is still shit.
 

Frostbite3789

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Zagzag said:
MADE UP THEIR OWN
You mean like they did with the DoW series you mention a few lines later? You realize it's the same studio who made those games, right?

They chose for the Ultramarines as a basic introduction to the world. Draw in people who aren't 100% familiar with the lore. Then, when they're into the series, hit 'em with the heavy stuff.

JPArbiter said:
and yet he glosses over some of the things that he has hated about space marine style shooters that the actual Space Marine fixes.

1)no in grained cover mechanic, Sir Wally McChest-high is on break.

2) Weapons that have a visceral weight and sound to them, from reload to impact to the sound of firing. heck even the mass of the marines themselves is present (thank to the camera thud during a run)

3) a sincere feeling of wandering around as a god among men.

believe me I am no 40k fan, (Battletech forever baby)but an inbuilt predjudice against the setting has made him unable to see where the game should have provoked a response, even if the game is still shit.
4) You can carry more than two weapons at a time.

5) No regenerating health. Regenerating shields, yeah. But not health.

He mentioned needing to do the finisher, but that's part of it, if you're low, trying to figure out when to dive in and get that in so as get the health while taking the least amount of damage in the process.

If the opportunity to constantly do a finisher unharassed was there, where would the challenge be? He'd just complain about that instead, how it's too easy to get health.

Which is his job, though, so I guess more power to him.
 

Frankster

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Mar 13, 2009
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"At one point the boy's club happens upon an outpost commander who has been talked up by other characters for a while and discovers that she's an attractive young lady. "Oh god, you chunky fucks are going to be taken aback by this, aren't you," I predicted. And sure enough, they were, in the least emotional possible way."

Here there is room for contention and shows more yahtzees bias then the actual truth.
Basically for those who don't know, the uber tough manly space marines meet up with the commander of the local imperial guard who happens to be a woman.

One of the older space marines looks surprised and asks "YOU are in command?"

Yahtzee interpreted this as cited above, but being familiar with the setting and knowing that space marines have no notion of sexism due to the process that transformed them, to me and i hope most 40k fans, the obvious explanation for the surprise is that mira is a mere 1st liutenant (so low ranked CO) in charge of ALL the imperial guard as the higher ranks and even the comissars got killed, that she is a woman doesn't factor into that at all.