Extra Punctuation: Hating Warhammer 40k and Space Marine

[MetalMagpie]

Also, it has Ultramarines.

Never played 40K in my life and all I know about the setting has been gleaned from my boyfriend.

But the name "Ultramarine" makes me crack up every time. The guys at Games Workshop MUST have been taking the piss when they came up with that.

Then again, I reckon they were also taking the piss when they came up with the not-really-dead-Emperor as a psychic lighthouse. (My boyfriend may have given me a slightly bizarre rundown of the setting.)

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?

I refer to the psychic Emperor above and question whether that counts as "military fiction". "Saving Private Ryan" is military fiction. 40K is something else entirely!

Yeah when I heard ultramarines at starting SM I thought " Really? All of the others largely sound like knightly orders(which quite frankly they kind of ARE) and this one is basically could have just as easily been rendered as AWESOMESAUCEmarines wtf GW?

It's the fact that ultramarine is a colour (a shade of blue), turning the name into a very silly pun on the word "marine". I can almost see the design guys nudging each other.

Guy 1: "OK. So, they're spacemarines in blue armour. What should we call them?"

Guy 2: "Ultramarines! OMG, isn't that hilarious!"

Guy 1: "LOL! We gotta go with that."

But isn't a ultramarine a lighter shade of blue? Closer to turquoise or cyan, and less like the shade of, I believe royal blue they use for the awesomesauce smurfs?

I didn't say it was an especially GOOD pun.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Actually, WH40K bolters are partially based on a real gun/ammo concept called the "Gyrojet" that was made in the 1960s.

Not really though. I doubt the people who made 40k knew or cared.

It comes down to this. There is an assumed progression in science fiction from 'less advanced' projectile weapons to 'more advanced' energy weapons, accompanied by the assumption that combat becomes even more long range and deadly than in times before. What 40k has done is just a completely bog standard reversal of this concept for perversity's sake, accompanied by scaling everything up to 11 and making it cartoonishly huge.

Energy weapons in 40k are trash. They're cheap, reliable crap weapons which are given to soldiers because they are easy to maintain and can be recharged by throwing their ammunition packs in a fire. Even plasma weapons are just insanely dangerous crap which overheats all the time and explodes.

The elite weapons of 40k are all projectile weapons and melee weapons. In fact, the 'ultimate weapon' is just a sniper rifle and a normal sized pistol (carried by Vindicare assassins in game), they're just implied to be the most perfect sniper rifles and pistols ever made, made by people whose understanding of ballistics exceeds our own by a considerable margin and who probably spent an entire lifetime making one piece.

Don't be so serious. It's just deliberate perversity and breaking a cliche for the sake of breaking it. The fact that it seems to have spawned its own cliche (hello Gears of War and your stupid looking chainsaw guns!) is regrettable but beside the point.

 

[FlipC]

So of the current 270+ comments only about three address the actual issue - Is it a good game? Remove the franchise setting to avoid bias and it's repetitive, frustrating; not really innovative; and leaden as hell.

Stating that it suits a 40k setting and that people who dislike it don't get the background etc. would be like insisting that everyone who sat down to watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy had read the Silmarillion so they could really appreciate it. Not exactly the way to win over newcomers.

Sure Yahtzee's hasn't 'got' the 40k setting and is basing his opinion on the setting more on hearsay than fact, but given that the game itself barely addresses it that's hardly his fault.

It's a game for those who are already a fan of 40k who'll forgive it its flaws simply because it allows them to stomp around as a member of the Adeptus Astartes. Anyone else is going to say "Yeah it's okay I suppose"

 

[gamegod25]

So says the game critic people only listen to because its funny to hear someone make dick jokes in a british accent.

See I can take cheap, biased shots too. Hey Escapist I want my own weekly internet rant show.

 

[wooty]

Best 15 minutes or so of my life reading some of these comments, I knew straight away that this article would generate controversy and a "man the defences" attitude. May not agree with some points you put across Mr Croshaw, but the responses are keeping me entertained at least.

 

[Siege_TF]

"In the grim darkness of the far future the million worlds of the Imperium Of Man are for the most part peaceful and productive places, with a small portion of them embroiled in near-constant war."

It's closer to the 'reality' of 40k, but isn't anywhere near as catchy. It's also 'deeper' in that it's more complicated than 'Always war, everywhere, ALL THE TIME'. The rulebook is used to draw in new players and skim the surface of the 40k universe with the rest fleshing it out. You can't say something's shallow if it would take hours and hours to explain everything (and it would). Overdone? Sure. Juvinile? Not really (see modified opening line), at least no worse than Star Wars. I know it's got a tabletop game and i seriously doubt it's a well written all-encompassing tome codifing Star Wars.

As for the game being merely 'okay' there's at least one 40k game that's far, far below 'okay'. It's called Firewarrior.

 

[Malshien]

Warhammer madness.

Also this extra punctuartion is:

I loved this comment, it's so true!

Like most I knew when Yahtzee got around to it he would rip apart Space Marine, afterall he once referred to people who like Warhammer "the gelatinous creatures who like warhammer 40k" ( http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/1404-Darksiders ) so it was hardly surprising really. Yes I know that quote could be construed as out of context seeing as it was referring to art direction but I'm sure if Yahtzee would reply he would probably confirm that yes he meant that all those who like games workshop products have as much taste as someone who licks car batteries.

Anyways I thought I would agree with a previous poster that I think that Yahtzee's dislike for the subject matter has blinded him to not only the game itself, but also his own haywire compass that tells him what is good about a game and what isn't. Now I could go on to say about cover based shooting games or gritty war torn stories that he has panned or liked, but honestly whats the point? Did his article make me chuckle? Yes. Did his article make me want to post and/or further a discussion? Yes. Will his article stop me playing again tonight? Hell no!

If that makes me sad then fine I'm sad, but I'd rather be sad and having fun then be cool/right and bored out my skull playing generic shooter number 41 (also known as Modern Warfare with 42 being Battlefield).

(Oh and I like the 40k universe I don't care if it has a million plot holes, it makes its own weird kind of sense which is good enough for me! It's definitely much more fun to just go with it then be pretentious and pick it apart just because it wasn't written by Shakespeare... just saying!)

 

[Corporal Yakob]

I was going to get pissed because this is probably the only time I have fervently disagreed with Yatzhee (I like Gears and COD but also enjoy taking the piss out of them for their flaws)-but then I remembered his job is to incite as much rage as possible for entertainment's sake. So you enjoy your thing and I'll enjoy my thing Mr Croshaw and we'll go our seperate ways. And keep making me laugh!

Oh and one last thing: the 40K universe is most definitely not retarded.

 

[GundamSentinel]

Ah, all kinds of people fired up defending 40K. Me, I don't have any real experience with the 40K universe (or Warhammer in general (or miniature wargaming in general, come to think of it)). The only things I know are an RTS I saw a friend play (which looked cool and fun) and the Space Marine demo (which in my humble opinion was boring and generic as sin). It's a Yahtzee review that I could do without and I'm glad it seems that will be the case.

 

[PingoBlack]

The glory of perpetual war!

I'm sorry ... But I understand what Yhatze means. I always found Warhammer shallow and downright simplistic.

War offers no glory, only suffering, economic destruction, resource depletion and general misery for everyone involved, soldiers and civilians. But it makes sense in the tabletop perspective, which is what Warhammer was designed for.

If I try to envision the investment required to sustain perpetual war? Easy ... just look how much US military deployment costs at the moment (without getting into how and why, just the money). You must agree it's huge and not sustainable. And it's not even a planetary war.

Now imagine the cost of galactic war.

 

[TheBelgianGuy]

So of the current 270+ comments only about three address the actual issue - Is it a good game? Remove the franchise setting to avoid bias and it's repetitive, frustrating; not really innovative; and leaden as hell.

Stating that it suits a 40k setting and that people who dislike it don't get the background etc. would be like insisting that everyone who sat down to watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy had read the Silmarillion so they could really appreciate it. Not exactly the way to win over newcomers.

Sure Yahtzee's hasn't 'got' the 40k setting and is basing his opinion on the setting more on hearsay than fact, but given that the game itself barely addresses it that's hardly his fault.

It's a game for those who are already a fan of 40k who'll forgive it its flaws simply because it allows them to stomp around as a member of the Adeptus Astartes. Anyone else is going to say "Yeah it's okay I suppose"

But Yahtzee wasn't reviewing the game. Yahtzee was deliberately provoking a large part of the nerds (including myself) by saying that they're juvenile morons, and that warhammer is crap and we're crap for having made it our hobby.
If all he would've said was, "This game Space Marine isn't that amazing" Yeah that'd be okay, I thought it was a nice game but I can see why many others wouldn't. But that's not what Yahtzee did

 

[rosac]

The rulebooks are 90% fluff, 5% actual game rules, and 5% images of miniatures to give you painting ideas.

This perfectly encompasses everything that is wrong with 40K. It has an extensive backstory, which is so ridiculous and un-compelling that even the fans refer to it as "fluff". Reams and reams of text have been written that even the people who like it for whatever reason admit by the term they use to describe it that it completely unimportant to the actual game.

What is important in 40K? Finding an excuse for your marines to point and shout at your opponent's spikey marines. Then you roll some dice, and whoever wrote the better army list wins.

You do come off rather trollishly here, as many of the battles i have played do not revolve around what the army list has in it, but how it is used. Tactics are a large part of any game, which you seem to be ignoring. I frequently lose to my friends orks with my marines, although my army list should, by all rights, be superior. However, he is a very tactical player and uses his army perfectly, whereas I am a crap general.

OT: Yahtzee, read fulgrim from the horus heresy novels, then get back to me. O.k?

 

[someonehairy-ish]

The Space Marine game, I find it to be at least more fun gameplay wise than Gears 1, the only game of that series which I have tried. The combat becomes boring due to lack of variation but at least feels meaty and visceral when you start playing. Also, if you take a step back for a moment and look at the details on some of the buildings etc, it actually looks really godamn good.
I think the orks were a bad choice of antagonist though, and it isn't particularly great as a piece set in the 40k world. So, judging it purely as a hack n slash (it isn't much of a shooter) it is merely 'ok.'



I think that Yahtzee is wrong about the whole 'war is glorious thing.' 40k doesn't do that. The wars in it are violent and grim as hell, and the people in them hate it just as much as you'd expect them to. It doesn't try to make war look good for the people involved, it just tries to justify your army of little plastic dudes beating up the other guy's army of plastic dudes on the tabletop.
The only people who are depicted as enjoying the wars in 40k are also depicted as either sadistic sociopaths or creatures who literally do not have any fear at all. So yeah. I don't really see how that glorifies war...

 

[ACman]

But Yahtzee wasn't reviewing the game. Yahtzee was deliberately provoking a large part of the nerds (including myself) by saying that they're juvenile morons, and that warhammer is crap and we're crap for having made it our hobby.
If all he would've said was, "This game Space Marine isn't that amazing" Yeah that'd be okay, I thought it was a nice game but I can see why many others wouldn't. But that's not what Yahtzee did

He can be a real prick at times. Like he was in his black ops review. He less talked about the game and it's quality or lack their of and mostly just spewed bile and vitriol at people for DARING to be born or naturalizing as American citizens.

I joined the forum on this site specifically to tell him to go fuck his small minded hateful bigot ass self. I was largely amazed they didn't insta ban me for it.

This isn't as bad, at least you choose to become a fan of something, but he can still go fuck his arrogant aussie self for being a judgmental prick just because some people like a setting that he does not.[/quote]

BLOPs review? That wasn't that bad was it?

I thought that the horny nerdy american schoolgirl with a crush on the eastern european boy down the street was an amusing metaphor for the contrived reasoning that games come up with to provide backstory to "America gets invaded" or "America invades X".

Maybe you're too easily offended.

And here he was expressing his (remarkable) distaste for the setting. He doesn't directly insult the fans.

He does that in the DarkSiders review.

 

[nyysjan]

Snip

snip

But there is fragmentation, and those fragments do face of, that's what the huge bureocracies are there to prevent, inquisition to uncover, and the imperial guard to stamp out.
That's where the constant rebellions come from, even different bureocracies are at each others throats, arbites and ecclesiarchy might argue about something (read the enforcer omnibus), inquisition is at constant war with itself, space marine chapters might class between each other, etc...

And that's where I find it oppressive. It's only instruments of the state that showdown with each other like a giant space-USSR crushing rebellion in Hungary and members of the the Kremlin getting hit by members of the KGB.

Well, that's no longer about how good the setting is qualitively, or how well made it is or how imaginitive it might be.
It's simply that you, personally, would prefer something different, wich is fine, i'm not that fond of Forgotten Realms and find later Dragonlance stories to be rather depressing, but those are just my personal likes and dislikes.

The glory of perpetual war!

I'm sorry ... But I understand what Yhatze means. I always found Warhammer shallow and downright simplistic.

War offers no glory, only suffering, economic destruction, resource depletion and general misery for everyone involved, soldiers and civilians. But it makes sense in the tabletop perspective, which is what Warhammer was designed for.

If I try to envision the investment required to sustain perpetual war? Easy ... just look how much US military deployment costs at the moment (without getting into how and why, just the money). You must agree it's huge and not sustainable. And it's not even a planetary war.

Now imagine the cost of galactic war.

The problem with USA's wars is not that they are expensive, it's that they are unwilling to actually pay them (or tax their wealthiest people for the money), Imperium of Man does not have that problem, their whole infrastructure is built on war, either by making weapons, raising soldiers, or managing the support structures for the empires warmachine.
sure, the resources are limited, but with the empire spanning rather large chunk of the galaxy, those limits are way out there, and there are brief stops to the fighting, if only to let everyone rearm themselves before the next battle, the huge wars happen only every couple decades or so, apart from that it's minor interplanetary squables and insurrections (and demons/tyranids eating a planet or two).

So of the current 270+ comments only about three address the actual issue - Is it a good game? Remove the franchise setting to avoid bias and it's repetitive, frustrating; not really innovative; and leaden as hell.

Which would be fine if it was about the Space Marine game itself, but it's not, Yahtzee went fullbore at the whole Warhammer 40K franchise, it's developers and people who play it, and showed clear and obvious misunderstanding, ignorance, condescension and arrogance towards the subject.

Now, if/when he does make a game review/criticue, it will probably be after he has played the game, either in full or atleast some of it, and i will probably agree with some parts, disagree with others, and generally enjoy the experience (i do enojy Zero Punctuation, even when i personally disagree with him, for example, Witcher and Dragon Age:Origins), but this was not a game review, and he failed in basic understanding of the subject.

 

[Something Amyss]

He less talked about the game and it's quality or lack their of and mostly just spewed bile and vitriol at people for DARING to be born or naturalizing as American citizens.

Except he didn't. Most of the review was on topic and what was specifically about ranting at Americans was about the way American culture has turned American mlitaristic behaviour into a major fetish. That has nothing to do with people just being born Naturalized American citizens. It has to do with a dogmatic mentality that, frankly, if you're offended by the statement you very likely share.

If you're going to get mad at someone, at least understand what they're saying and why you're mad.

 

[Malkavian]

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.

That's the point- You are not supposed to root for any one specific faction, because they all have their horrible ways, but they also all have their very good reasons for them.

What you are supposed to do is to fight a desperate struggle that requires great sacrifice, to keep your own race safe. To root for mankind itself, not the beliefsystem that governs it. The Imperium of Man is an empire in decline, teetering on the brink of destruction, with only the vagues glimmer of the hope for salvation. Desperate times.They need a dogmatic, theocratic, fascist government, because the forces set against mankind aren't just military forces from without, but a spiritual enemy from within, a religion that has real actual existing gods, with malevolent intents.

You shouldn't take the fascist theocracy too litereal, though. An imperial citizen on one world can have a vastly different culture than an imperial citizen on another world, and you are not forced to church at gunpoint. A great many citizens have lives no different from what you see in other, much brighter settings.

I apologize if someone else has already replied to this. 9 pages...

 

[ACman]

Snip

snip

But there is fragmentation, and those fragments do face of, that's what the huge bureocracies are there to prevent, inquisition to uncover, and the imperial guard to stamp out.
That's where the constant rebellions come from, even different bureocracies are at each others throats, arbites and ecclesiarchy might argue about something (read the enforcer omnibus), inquisition is at constant war with itself, space marine chapters might class between each other, etc...

And that's where I find it oppressive. It's only instruments of the state that showdown with each other like a giant space-USSR crushing rebellion in Hungary and members of the the Kremlin getting hit by members of the KGB.

Well, that's no longer about how good the setting is qualitively, or how well made it is or how imaginitive it might be.
It's simply that you, personally, would prefer something different, wich is fine, i'm not that fond of Forgotten Realms and find later Dragonlance stories to be rather depressing, but those are just my personal likes and dislikes.

But this does actually got to the DEPTH of the setting.

There is only war.

Shallow.

If there was some political intrigue in the backstory as opposed to lots of descriptions of "battle and glory for the emperor" it would be more believable and interesting.

The setting has a great religious back-drop. 'God king creates a range of super-humans and goes to take over the galaxy al-la Alexander the Great' plus 'Son of the God king goes rogue and returns to destroy his father'

All very pompous and epic and fine. But it leaves out any particular real world political considerations.

Who governs? How do they govern? How do they attain power? How do they maintain power? How do they interact with others of similar positional power to themselves? How do they interact with those attempting to maintain state orthodoxy? What if they want to go to war and others don't? What if they attain to much power? These are the things missing or glossed over in the 40k setting.

Instead all that's detailed is that "there is only war".

 

[Malkavian]

There is only war.

Shallow.

If there was some political intrigue in the backstory as opposed to lots of descriptions of "battle and glory for the emperor" it would be more believable and interesting.

-snip-

Who governs? How do they govern? How do they attain power? How do they maintain power? How do they interact with others of similar positional power to themselves? How do they interact with those attempting to maintain state orthodoxy? What if they want to go to war and others don't? What if they attain to much power? These are the things missing or glossed over in the 40k setting.

Instead all that's detailed is that "there is only war".

That's wrong. All of this is shown in various works. The Inquisition War, The Eisenhorn Trilogy, The Rawne Trilogy, hell, even the Commisar Cain books, all to some extent describe the daily lives of ordinary citizens, and how the society is constructed. Everything you asked for in the second part I quoted, has been covered in the setting.

 

[ACman]

There is only war.

Shallow.

If there was some political intrigue in the backstory as opposed to lots of descriptions of "battle and glory for the emperor" it would be more believable and interesting.

-snip-

Who governs? How do they govern? How do they attain power? How do they maintain power? How do they interact with others of similar positional power to themselves? How do they interact with those attempting to maintain state orthodoxy? What if they want to go to war and others don't? What if they attain to much power? These are the things missing or glossed over in the 40k setting.

Instead all that's detailed is that "there is only war".

That's wrong. All of this is shown in various works. The Inquisition War, The Eisenhorn Trilogy, The Rawne Trilogy, hell, even the Commisar Cain books, all to some extent describe the daily lives of ordinary citizens, and how the society is constructed. Everything you asked for in the second part I quoted, has been covered in the setting.

Well why isn''t it detail in the background to the bloody games then. Why do I have to go read tie in novels, tie in novels are one step above fan fiction.

Edit: I mean technically the "High Lords of Terra" are supposed to be in charge? How in charge?

This is the extent of the explanation:

Of which three or four seem to be layers of government and the rest seem to be military or paramilitary.