Extra Punctuation: Hating Warhammer 40k and Space Marine

[Quellist]

Well the game doesn't interest me at all, mind you a lot of 40k fans and even fanbois will be pissed off by it simply because its Ultramarines but anyway.

As a wargame i never had any interest in 40k because i dont like wargames and i totally agree GW is primarily interested in seperating teenage kids from their cash but the setting goes deeper than that, especially since the release of Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader etc.

As an RPG fan i love the setting for the rich opportunities for storytelling so i disagree with Yahtzee about that. Crap game, cool setting imo.

 

[Princess Rose]

Why come up with your own opinions when you can leach off of others, fair enough.

Got a source for how it was originally written as a parody? Never heard that before.

My source was a pile of 40K players I also play D&D with. I've had many discussions with them concerning why I dislike the 40K universe. One of them stated that 40K was a parody - hence some of the sillier aspects of the back-story. Then, in more recent additions, the setting started to take itself more and more seriously.

As far as my own opinions go, I've come up with plenty. Yahtzee just happens to have collected most of them in a nice, well written article. Hence easier.

 

[IndianaJonny]

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....
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.

Oddly enough the 40K setting is largely borrowed from another 2000AD strip, Nemesis the Warlock. They depoliticized the setting a lot, the original contained digs at the catholic church (ever wondered why the marines called each other brother), Margaret Thatcher and apartheid era South Africa. The fascist nature of the human empire was far more explicit. The leader of the empire, Tomas de Torquemada, favourite saying was BE PURE, BE VIGILANT, BEHAVE. Many of the artist who worked for 2000 AD at the time also worked for games workshop. In some cases (Carl Critchlow and Bryan Talbot) they worked on the art for 2000AD and for warhammer 40k

Bump to both of you there; for the 2000AD refs and for adding some much needed but often overlooked context to the 40k backstory. It doesn't come across as trolling when people have done their homework, so thanks.

 

[punipunipyo]

This rant is bad taste... I liked how you used to glorify some games with the comparisons to other, at lease there are things to look forward to (like the time you trashed Halo3 and brings up Bioshock as a better game..i think if i remembered correctly) ... did the "...there is only war..." rubbed off on you?

You aren't focused on WarHammer40K, more on how your childhood was all about D&D, and how Superior IT is compares to WarHammer40K... The worse part was that you came and "judged" a game that you have NOT know enough to judge first... You came to this topic with little known about the franchise, and with pure instinct based on your hatred towards GoW (which is only a shallow knocked off from WarHammer40K) and judge the Space Marine game because you had predetermined taste from other titles to kick off with the whole "down with shooter", "down with trilogies" commons... (well... Space Marines is the first installment... prepare for sequels!~)... all the negativity...

Yes, the game is not perfect, yes, the characters aren't "human" (they ... aren't) like, and yes, plot needs to improve (Even I could come up with better one...). But you know what? I enjoyed this title, for many reasons.

I wasn't a fan of WarHammer40K before, and what got me in to wanting to know about it was NOT the table top either, it was the RTS WarHammer40K DawnOfWar, it introduced a system where all other RTS games failed on delivered! it's called ACTUAL Strategy, yes I have always considered RTS games to be RTT+farm (T; being tactic, THINK, Micro-Management is basically extra turns per minutes in a REAL TIME TACTIC game!...i can go on and explain... but that's not the point) Yes the back story is long and complex, thus is why it's hard to make any new contemporary ones, it's very hard to make compelling story when you are always focused on staying true, and having to reference to the table top/back story all the time... the Space Marine dev group did just that... with the sacrifice of the story arc being blend, and character-less.... plus crappy boss fight in the end... and a cliff/cheesy ending... but the story was consistent, with a few (highly predictable) plot twist it's a nicely delivered first game in series... (wait and see the second game... where the story began as you tutorial through as young Leandros having hard time fighting off whores of Xenos, and then at the nick of time, enters Titus, as a inquisitor/Gray knight to back up the young fool to officially start the story...) Will be seeing more rants on Space Marine soon... I assumed?

And in the end... you missed the whole point, it's grimness was for you to find all the little things "funny" about the whole lore, Orks (can't even spell/say things right) are stupid, but they CAN make junks work, they have f-ed up logic, but it WORKS! Like painting a car red makes it run faster...Etc. Eldars are smart/wise, but they don't care for others, even when it will effect them later... Space marine is worshiping their empor who's dead as rotting bones on a giant golden toilet... etc and more if you dig in to it, it's enjoyable to know little side stories as well.. especially the Orks!

 

[Ulquiorra4sama]

I have no familiarity with the WH40K series what so ever so i don't know if it's just something the game needs to fit it's origin, but i keep wondering:

Why the hell can't space marines have a personality?

I'm sure if the game is Gears of War in terms of gameplay then the game could be ok to play, but without anything interesting going on in the story then i'm just not gonna bother.

 

[flaming_squirrel]

My source was a pile of 40K players I also play D&D with. I've had many discussions with them concerning why I dislike the 40K universe. One of them stated that 40K was a parody - hence some of the sillier aspects of the back-story. Then, in more recent additions, the setting started to take itself more and more seriously.

As far as my own opinions go, I've come up with plenty. Yahtzee just happens to have collected most of them in a nice, well written article. Hence easier.

So you pretty much stated somebody elses opinion as your own personal facts.

 

[poleboy]

I'll agree that space marines are dumb. I always thought so. There's a very juvenile part of me that thinks chainswording things in power armor is fucking awesome, but deep down I don't really like space marines.

I do, however, like 40K. I know that's hard when you don't like space marines, but I made it work somehow. Imperial Guard is all the fun and grizzle of warfare (usually) without colossal manchildren in power armor.

 

[rda_Highlander]

It's been bugging me for quite some time, and I just can't calm down about it.
THEY ARE NOT SPACE MARINES. THERE IS NO WATER IN SPACE. THEY ARE SPACE INFANTRY, damnit!

It so pisses me off, I can almost see the people who came up with this name, think "They should be the MOST badass awesome hardcore ubermencsh in entire world! Dhuur, what is the most awesome army type we heard about? Oh, they're called marines! Awesome!"
I'm sorry, it just makes me so irritated for some reason.

 

[Versuvius]

I have no familiarity with the WH40K series what so ever so i don't know if it's just something the game needs to fit it's origin, but i keep wondering:

Why the hell can't space marines have a personality?

I'm sure if the game is Gears of War in terms of gameplay then the game could be ok to play, but without anything interesting going on in the story then i'm just not gonna bother.

They do generally. Some don't. Some grow up on irradiated deathworlds as children then get indoctrinated, brainwashed and sometimes chem gelded. Some like the Ultramarines follow their book of tactics strictly. Space Wolves are a bunch of space vikings who love beer and axes, Salamanders retain their 'humanity' and work to develop their personalities as they feel it's important whereas the Ultramarines don't. It's all about the chapters, like each country has it's own cultures each Chapter has it's own ways of doing things, some more interesting than others. Also this is why 40k fans nerdrage at Ultramarines. Using them puts off people from the franchise by being blandtastic.

 

[jackpackage200]

Oy yahtzee you magnificent bastard that was great. Pissing off fanboys is awesome

 

[Therumancer]

Meh, tastes vary. I think Yahtzee doesn't really get the whole "post apocolypse" thing to be honest, or is pretending NOT to get it simply because it let's him get attention by criticizing something popular.

Warhammer 40k is your basic Dark Future setting, except set in the far future, rather than the near future.

As for why we don't see much focus on how your average person lives, and what people do in their spare time... well it IS a set of adventure and war games, focused on fighting and doing stuff, and the setting is intended to be condusive to that.

To be blunt I'm not the biggest Warhammer 40k fan out there, but a lot of the novels, and non-minature based RPGs *HAVE* gotten into things going on outside of the military, of course the focus tends to be on things like police work, solving mysteries, and so on with plenty of action. Honestly the "Eisenhorn Triology" is one of my favorite dark future novel sets, and if it wasn't for that I'd have minimal interest in the setting at all.

Assuming Yahtzee's dislike is based on the focus of the wargames, given his focus on things like AD&D, it would be interesting to see what his opinion would be if they ever did anything with the PnP RPGs like "Dark Heresy" (about the Inquisition), or "Rogue Trader" which is about freebooter adventurers. The latter even follows a sort of AD&D format where you play a campaign based around exploring, accumulating treasure, and (usually) trying to leave things better off than before you got there. The whole "Long Night" concept of Warhammer 40k really allows "Rogue Trader" to follow an adventure-per-planet type Star Trek premise as the characters chart dark space and such looking to establish new trade roots, or get involved in messing around with affairs and politics in established space.

 

[Frankster]

As far as my own opinions go, I've come up with plenty. Yahtzee just happens to have collected most of them in a nice, well written article. Hence easier.

The problem with adopting the opinions of this article is it's riddled with outright falsehoods that are more reflective of yahtzees personal bias and outsiders impressions.

I already previously mentioned the more blatant distortion (space marines being surprised at encountering a low ranked female officer, yahtzee from his bias didn't think twice in seeing this as more evidence of this being typical male power fantasy with submissive female whereas those familiar with the setting know gender isn't a factor at all)

So while it's perfectly fine to hate 40k, heck you don't even need reasons to justify your hate, adopting these particular reasons would do you a disservice.
Another example: 40k being for a generation that didn't know war, while there might be truth in it, it's worth remembering the context in which warhammer came out, 2000ad and whatnot meant there was a movement of "grim darkness" shall we say that spawned warhammer, with warhammer 40000 created soon after.
And you're right about the parody thing, most of the fictional universes of this "movement" can be said to be parodies, warhammer is no exception.

I have no familiarity with the WH40K series what so ever so i don't know if it's just something the game needs to fit it's origin, but i keep wondering:

Why the hell can't space marines have a personality?

They can have a personality but it is difficult (see gabriel angelos in the first dow1 campaign, there are times where he does show a bit of emotion here and there and it makes it all the more touching) due to their psycho conditionning.
Space marines are meant to be purely living weapons, the only feelings they are "allowed" to have is fury and zeal against their enemies.

This is also why they tend to make for boring protagonists imo.

Imperial Truth

Please find attached my marriage proposal.

Think all of us 40k fans expected yahtzee to hate/rip on space marine and 40k, but none of us could have expected him to be so WRONG in his views, and people are actually believing him.

So its a good thing some others here have the patience to write tl drs to refute the various BS arguments ^^

 

[Volodanti]

As one of those "Gelatinous creatures who like 40k" as yahtzee puts it, i gotta say he's pretty much bang on. Space Marine is average. If it weren't for the setting I'd probably not have bought it, never mind finished it. The fact you still take damage when performing the kills is annoying as hell, the plot is mediocre at best, the end fight frustratingly difficult and yet insultingly easy, and the surprise twist is predictable as hell. The multiplayer is fun, but gets repetitive quickly.

On the upside it doesn't use Gears of War style cover system, allows a larger than normal supply of weapons and doesn't have regenerating health - sorta. There's a regenerating shield, but that's runs out quite quickly and is really just so you don't get killed while charging towards you healthpack (read: enemies)

 

[Yokai]

He makes fair points--it is a juvenile and spastically overdeveloped setting if you just look at it from the surface--huge guys in power armor murdering orks and bug monsters and throwing around ludicrously overacted one-liners. And unfortunately, that really is all Space Marine ends up showing: the explodey surface of the 40k universe, without any of the clever bits. It's just shoot-smash-chop with a predictable twist and a lot of noise, which captures the idea of the setting, but doesn't do it justice.

Even the Dawn of War games had far better writing, especially Chaos Rising and Retribution. And of course, Dan Abnett has written some surprisingly good books about the part of the Imperium that isn't only war. The universe is far bigger than the constant, neverending super-battles that are advertised.

Really, I think the problem is anything with Ultramarines in it. They really are just so bland, so lacking in personality--Ultramarines the movie was terrible, Ultramarines the game was meh, and Ultramarines the books were laughable. More Space Wolves and Dark Angels please, and a game about an Eldar Warlock. That is what I want to see.

 

[Dana22]

Warhammer universe has much more to offer then the wargame only. As a DnD player, you might be interested in Wh40k Roleplay, or Inquisitor.

 

[Scrustle]

It's a common problem, not just with games featuring space marine-types. I've noticed in almost all games in which they try to make the main character "bad-ass" it amounts to making them a grumbling emotionless shell. They don't feel like the "bad-ass" they are supposed to and even fail at trying to create a character that comes across as cynical or jaded. I guess it's quite ironic that the ones who are cynical and jaded are the ones criticising game characters for trying to be like that. I guess it's because we know what being a cynic is really like, we can tell that these characters are just hollow emotionless blobs. Their cynicism isn't given any kind of reason, it just becomes a general irritable and 1 dimensional persona.

There's nothing really wrong with creating a "bad-ass" character but this generation has become so flooded with them, it's like it's the default character archetype and no-one feels any reason to move away from it. It's gotten so dull and generic that it's lost it's relevance. Because every character is like that, none of them are, because they become the norm instead of something that is "bad-ass" compared to the norm. It's so sad. It feels like developers are using it as a way to make their characters seem cool without putting in any kind of effort to character development.

 

[Gromril]

What I couldn't ever understand is why those huge imaginary table-top army clashes were ever considered possible or even desireable. Since the invention of the rifle it's been bad form to mass troops and advance in large numbers. It's just too easy to put too much explosive power in a targeted area for the opponent to survive. So it's all about small unit tactics and staying out of sight and behind cover. The only reason human waves worked a little in North Korea was that they were HUMAN so tactical nukes weren't used. No such problem with Orks.

It's all just unrealistic bull that only the most juvenile middle-schooler would find engaging.

First up, don't apply real world logic to any fictional setting as far removed from current day reality as this one.

Secondly, the tabletop game gets allot better when the forces are smaller and in dense terrain weirdly, mostly because everyone has to focus on keeping there small force alive while taking the opposing one. The whole "Huge clash" thing tends to devolve into atrittion, especially if one army is close combat happy. Also, at lower point the more insane units are not able to be fielded.

 

[Smurf McSmurfington]

I was going to write a particularly long post basically about how Yahtzee is missing the point...
But that's pointless. I will instead say this: I disagree.
In any case, it doesn't matter. I for one love the WH40k universe, and while Space Marine wasn't a great game, it wasn't mediocre or bad either. It had many irritating design flaws, however I still loved it.
That much is true that you actually need to be familiar with the WH40k universe and into it to actually enjoy this particular game, so it's something of a paradox, this game... a niche product dressed up as a triple-A blockbuster, one that has the funding to go with it...
Ah well.
I'm hoping they actually picked the Ultramarines for a reason, and that we'll get a far richer, less linear, longer sequel in which it'll all make sense. It should also have more factions than just the Orks, Chaos and the Imperial Guard.

Also, orange pirate penguins with bellybuttons.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

I've always found Warhammer (Fantasy and 40K) to be a little...underwhelming.

It's basically a "darker" DnD setting where any faction is justified in going into all-out war with any other faction. It's a setting where the lore is meant to serve the game mechanics. And while that's not inherently a bad thing, there are those of us who enjoy the story side of things more. For people in that camp, it is preferable when the mechanics are made to serve the story progression, or better yet, the story and the mechanics develop symbiotically.

Based on a lot of things that Yahtzee has mentioned in the past, he is the latter camp, as am I. And for people in that camp, Warhammer is "meh" at best.

 

[Elijah Newton]

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.

Perfect comment. I started in on the tabletop game back in the early 90s (1st Edition, thank you very much) and that was pretty clear even to me at that time.

But you know what? I didn't see any of that in the Space Marines videogame - there was nothing in the game to prevent one from taking it as a "love letter to militarism and fascism". In fact, I'm pretty sure that's exactly what they were going for with the Ultramarines. Which, whatever the origin of the franchise, pretty much makes this juvenile rubbish. If we're referencing Judge Dredd, let's be honest - this was, at best, the Stallone derivative not the Wagner original.

FWIW, someone else in an Escapist forum posted a link to "Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine - Most Suprisingly Feminist Game of the Year Contender" (http://designislaw.tumblr.com/post/10076180504/warhammer-40-000-space-marine-most-suprisingly) which I enjoyed. Your milage may vary.