Extra Punctuation: Hating Warhammer 40k and Space Marine

[Naeras]

I has always bothered me that the 40k universe is essentially a massive fascist theocracy where any sort of departure from the dogma of the state is eliminated with extreme prejudice.

There's no one to side with. Space Marines are battle-crazed fanatics. Chaos is hell. Orks are well... orks. Tyranids are insectoid monsters. Eldar would exterminate mankind without a second thought if they could. Tau are space communists. Imperial Guard are part of the aforementioned fascist theocratic space empire. Cultists are either alien or chaos mad. Necrons are space-undead-robot-gods or some shit.

I always thought the emperor should be more like a space-pope. Then there could be multiple human kingdoms/federations/confederacies/compacts.

But no, any difference will be purged by a bunch of insane fanatical jihadist. Bah.

From what I understand the Emperor was basically a magic superpowered space Jesus who wanted to protect humanity and teach them the value of science and truth. Then he gets betrayed by his closest, pretty much dies, and then gets worshipped as a god by the masses as a corrupt mashup of the medieval catholic church, communism and fascism runs the machinery: exactly the way he didn't want stuff to end up.
It's basically a Bible satire as far as I'm concerned. A Bible satire with chainswords, jetpacks and orcs.

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

Also this^

 

[Zagzag]

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?.

I was attempting, somewhat incoherently, to refer to the fact that since they made up their own chapter for DOW they should have done the same for Space Marine.

 

[rayen020]

as a strategic tabletop game warhammer 40K is good

As a Real time strategy video game Warhammer 40K is really good. (until it get bogged down with too many expansion packs with less and less focus on it's original premise...)

As a storytelling tabletop game Warhammer 40K is bad.

As a first person shooter Warhammer 40K is generic. Which is a shame because it basically invented space marines as they are known today and the video game actually brought some unique concepts to the formula.

Now the big one.
As a storytelling setting warhammer 40K is really really good. The novels the lore and ideas behind it aren't unique but they are presented in a unique way. This setting isn't juvenile it's just the one that a person who hates humans would see coming. deification, absolutes, fanaticism, human perfectionism, these are things the setting deals with and they are not juvenile. Why it deals with such things when it's just a tabletop game is beyond me but it does and that is why warhammer 40K shines.
just my take on it.

 

[rda_Highlander]

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

No, I know precisely what it means. Maybe I didn't pick the right words. At what time do we see that it is a satire? Just because some of you want to believe it is? Or there was some interview where developers said this? I mean, I could say that Tetris is a satire on modern society, and even give some insight, but it would still be my opinion and not the fact.

 

[Princess Rose]

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.

Okay, this confused me. How are his views wrong?

He doesn't like 40K because of it's story telling (or lack thereof, in his (and my) opinion), or the fact that the story telling is generally awful (again, in his and my opinion).

That sounds like a perfectly valid viewpoint to me. Sure, you can disagree - perhaps you like the story telling, or perhaps you don't care about the story telling (many gamers don't, even D&D players). That doesn't make the opinion of "I don't like the story" invalid.

The "generation without war" thing is a rather standard grip of his, and it certainly isn't meant to only apply to 40K.

As to the surprise over the women thing, I think that's more a reflection of the mindset of those who made the game rather than of the 40k universe in general. There are plenty of women in 40k... who are equally badly written.

From the point of view of a gamer who has been (repeatedly and often) subjected to the 40K universe and not liked it, Yahtzee had a lot of the same complaints as I do. And, as noted, I'm not coming at this from an ignorant point of view - I hear about this crap all the damn time. It doesn't float my boat. And it fails to do so in many cases because of the reasons that Yahtzee listed.

 

[Calbeck]

I'd have to say I agree overall.

I've looked over the WHM40K universe. I found it strong on drama and action, but short on everything else, and my big tabletop wargaming experience previously was Battletech (3026-Clan Era).

Whereas both franchises have a voluminous backstory, Warhammer's is wide but shallow. There aren't many main characters that stand out, and those that do are stereotypical to an extreme. In fact, extreme characterization and imagery is pretty much the bread-and-butter of WHM40K to start and end with.

By contrast, Battletech provides a strong range of both primary and support characters, driven by a wide variety of ideals and passions. While each major faction presents an overall specialization, this is generalized instead of being made the be-all-end-all found in Warhammer.

Of course, it's easy to dismiss Battletech in computer game terms, since to date almost all such have been in-the-cockpit slugfests between giant robots... which is a slim slice of the entire game universe. It's like going to a smorgasbord where all you end up eating is mountains of creme brulee.

Putting aside the fact that it's a much stronger combined-arms wargame system, the social dynamics and economic considerations in the larger backstory of Battletech are generally what drive the various factions' military decisions --- something with much more depth and nuance than yelling WAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGH a lot.

All of that said, I can see why some people would find WHM40K fun --- on the same level as finding a fart-joke comedy flick fun. It's all a matter of how seriously you want to take your entertainment.

 

[Ursinedriver]

Lol k no one will care in a weeks time anymore.

This may be the most well written argument I've read in months

 

[darthricardo]

Really, I love the Warhammer 40k setting, except for one small caveat.
There is only war.
I mean, after Ten. THOUSAND. YEARS... something would have to give. I mean, yeah, a prolonged state of technoligical regression, I can get that. The world being more or less static, largely based on the near-immortality of the ruling class? I feel that. But after spending so long embroiled in an endless war, something would happen.
I guess the entire premise is an extended dramatization of the stupid old question: What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?

 

[Ragsnstitches]

Can someone tell me if I'm just imagining things as worse then they actually are because of a personal soft spot for all things 40k, but was this EP particularly venomous (and even more biased) then normal?

Look, I know the Lore of 40k is semi-trashy sci-fi fantasy and the games are convoluted and easily stereotyped (to a degree in that they started the stereotyping in some cases). But it's fun if your into semi-thrashy things, or offbeat sci-fi fantasy.

And did he actually try to compare the DnD crowed with the 40k crowed and claim one to be superior? Or was that a joke that went over my head?

Really, I love the Warhammer 40k setting, except for one small caveat.
There is only war.
I mean, after Ten. THOUSAND. YEARS... something would have to give. I mean, yeah, a prolonged state of technoligical regression, I can get that. The world being more or less static, largely based on the near-immortality of the ruling class? I feel that. But after spending so long embroiled in an endless war, something would happen.
I guess the entire premise is an extended dramatization of the stupid old question: What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?

Well... "in the far distant future, we found a compromise" doesn't exactly carry itself for an epic, now does it?

 

[rayen020]

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.

A marine, as a military term, is a type of soldier who specializes ship to ship combat and amphibious or trans-terrain warfare. The US Marines are naval infantry, and in many countries marine (in the military sense) translates almost exactly to that. The term space is applied to the front to note that they are a space going marine, also seen in spaceship, space shuttle, space capsule. They are Marines in that they work both on ships and land and can battle equally effectively on either of them.

 

[Evil Alpaca]

"You know what Warhammer 40K is? It's the product of a generation that has never known any kind of real conflict or struggle."

Yeah... this statement is pretty much bull.

This argument makes no sense when combined with the later statement about Warhammer 40k being juvenile. If the game is juvenile fantasy, then unless you plan on marketing this to child soldiers, your target audience CAN NOT POSSIBLY have known the kind of real conflict or struggle alluded to by mentioning the Somme. Calling the game childish or a juvenile fantasy isn't too far-fetched but you can't then say that the people who enjoy such flights of fantasy only do so because they don't known what the reality of situations like this are.


Here is an example of a product appealing to the "glory of battle" in a worst possible scenario of war - THE ILIAD. When normal wars for the time lasted months, this war lasted years with endless killing on both sides. You have two sides, neither of which are the "good" guys. (Achilles spends a couple of chapters continually trying to desecrate the body of his enemy or murdering prisoners) The story doesn't even show an end to the war, it simply shows that the Greeks and Trojans are going to kill each other in a more civilized fashion rather than the brutal slug-fest they have been in.

 

[dragonshardz]

Ignorance is bliss eh?

 

[SilverUchiha]

I couldn't agree more with the point of wanting to play D&D for the storytelling aspect. I love the way it allows you to pursue the story and roleplay aspect. But I've only played with groups that like the combat only and don't give a shit about the story.

My impression has always been that D&D promotes combat-oriented play. It's one of the reasons why I've always prefered Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (the 1st and 2nd editions, I haven't read the 3rd). The combat is there, but your party is far less likely to be a professional dungeoun-crawling commando unit.

Cool. FYI, wasn't knocking that Warhammer didn't have story or anything. I was just saying I agreed with his point about D&D and that's it.

As for your thoughts on promoting combat-oriented play, it really depends on what version and what books you look at. If you do 3.5 and have a library of digital copies of all a lot of the books, it feels more like a story-telling roleplay experience. If you have 4.0 at all, then it is going to feel more combat oriented. Which is why I have not bothered trying to learn 4.0 yet aside from just not caring enough.

 

[StrixMaxima]

Hmm, this is probably the first time I must disagree with pretty much everything this illustrious reviewer has to say. Tone, motif, background, etc, etc were dealt sloppily by someone who obviously don't know much about this setting, it's history, and who didn't care to do some research to back his arguments up.

Gut feeling and guffaws do not a good analysis make.

 

[mrhateful]

and I though I was pretentious....

I can see I didn't hate it as much as Yahtzee however my oppinion of the game was that the story lacked depth. Especially because the lore felt as though there was much depth to it but it was just never shown in the game which is kinda sad

 

[jonyboy13]

Tau are space communists.

You sir, cracked me up. This is the funniest WH40K joke I heard lately.
Anyway, totally agree with you. Basically everyone are crazy alien haters who seem to look for excuses to kill others.

You know, I figured that they should have some damn evolve nukes so far to into the future.

 

[omegawyrm]

Yeah, this is pretty much the dumbest thing Yahtzee has written since that one column where he said there aren't any good stories about the Batman character because he never changes. Demonstrates the same total blindness to the property he is criticizing and also misses the central theme entirely at the same time.

But it's sure a good thing we have Yahtzee around to be "brutally honest". Everyone knows that online fandom communities don't have enough arrogant bitching. Certainly we don't have nearly enough negativity already. Nope, we don't have any of those things.

 

[rda_Highlander]

A marine, as a military term, is a type of soldier who specializes ship to ship combat and amphibious or trans-terrain warfare. The US Marines are naval infantry, and in many countries marine (in the military sense) translates almost exactly to that. The term space is applied to the front to note that they are a space going marine, also seen in spaceship, space shuttle, space capsule. They are Marines in that they work both on ships and land and can battle equally effectively on either of them.

Although I agree with what you say, it still isn't nearly their definition. All I've seen of them is standing in the field/trees/mud and shooting from heavy weaponry/ripping with swords/bashing with charisma. The Guards are more suited to be called "space marines" as far as I can tell. The marines themselves are more of a paratrooper kind. Oh, right! Space Troopers! That's what I'd call them. Although there are already certain Starship Troopers, but that's beyond the case.