Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine Review

[Kahani]

I agree, especially given that were talking about the Ultrasmurfs: the mariniest marines who ever marined. They are bland, they are super-cool?, and everyone hates them because they dumb down the entire franchise.

I think the problem with the Ultramarines is really very simple - they're the baseline. You have the concept of superhuman, brainwashed fanatics, utterly loyal to the Emperor but with no real humanity left as they happily march into battle by the thousands to lay down their lives to defend him. They don't socialise, they don't interact with the rest of humanity, they just live for war. And when it comes down to it, that's really boring. The interesting part comes with the variations - take that baseline and add a twist. Space Wolves who take the baseline and add Vikings. Blood Angels and Dark Angels who add secrets and corruption. Grey Knights who turn the "brainwashed fanaticism" dial way past the 11 it was already at. Ultramarines really aren't meant to be played at all, they're just the boring baseline that needs to exist to give all the more interesting characters context. You need the masses of unnamed, indistinguishable fighters for the ones we focus on to stand out from, and since we're looking at 7 foot tall superhuman killing machines, those masses also need to be 7 foot tall superhuman killing machines, just boring ones.

This is even stated repeatedly in the lore. Ultramarines are the ones who do everything by the book, who have no flaws in their genes, no dark secrets to hide, and who have been the source material for the vast majority of space marine chapters. In other words, they exist specifically to fill the universe with the boring stuff and give players, authors, and so on, the base material to build on.

The problem is that because they're necessarily prominent in the source material, a lot of people seem to have made the mistake of thinking that they must be in some way interesting. This isn't so much of a problem for the tabletop game, because it doesn't affect much other than the colour paint you need and the odd special rule. But when it comes to actually telling stories, whatever the medium, the Ultramarines are just not the right choice. This is summed up brilliantly by the Ultramarine saga by Graham McNeill - in order to actually tell a story about the Ultramarines, he had to have the protagonists thrown out of the Ultramarines for not being boring enough.

Okay so I think this game kind of got me bit with the setting interest bug. So should I get DOW1 or DOW 2 on steam? My pc is win xp, geforce 9600 gt, 2G RAM, dual core amd if that matters.

DoW1 is an RTS, DoW2 is a squad based shooter/tactics/RPG hybrid thingy, in single player at least. If you like RTS, DoW is a very good one. If you like whatever DoW2 is, it's a very good one, but you might be disappointed if you were expecting an RTS.

And to keep things vaguely on topic, I haven't played Space Marine yet because it's still not available on Steam and I'm not about to give in to Game so I'll wait. And much as I love 40K, from the reviews it really sounds that it's just not worth full price, so I'll probably end up waiting until it's on sale anyway. I'm not that into multiplayer these days, and £35 for an 8 hour game with little replayability is really a bit steep.

 

[Agayek]

I agree, especially given that were talking about the Ultrasmurfs: the mariniest marines who ever marined. They are bland, they are super-cool?, and everyone hates them because they dumb down the entire franchise.

Also, by "moral choices" I'm assuming you meant "Should I inflict massive Imperial and Tyranid casualties with fire, or with nukes?" and "Do I tell everyone I killed all of those folks to be safe, or because they looked at me funny and that was somehow heresy?" >=)

Essentially, yes. I was thinking something along the lines of escorting people who may or may not flip out and attack you, and you'd have to weigh the benefits against the rewards, which would be something awesome. Like temporary control of a Baneblade or Predator, for some utterly arbitrary reason.

 

[Mr C]

See this game is kinda hit and miss. If you like 40k youl be just fine. Gameplay wise outside the health regen system the game works fine and is plenty fun. But i have one major complaint. That is now how you pronounce lieutenant.

Edit: yes i am aware that some European countries pronounce it that way but i dont care it sounds dumb and the Etymology disagrees with that pronunciation.

You mean the English pronounce it incorrectly?

Please make an effort with grammar and meaning if you are going to criticise (holy shit he used an s!!!) the use of language.

You have also misused the word etymology. It simply has to do with the origins of words and how they change over time. It has nothing to do with 'correct' pronunciation.

You fail.

OT - this game make you feel like a 40K space marine. If only I could be Blood Angel

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

I don't think an imperial guardsman would've been a good idea, too fragile. You'd be dying every other second.

Uhm, no. You do know that the Imperial Guard have units called VETERANS and Storm Troopers. And there's plenty of Imperial Guard regiments out there who have Orks as their preferred enemy and have given the greenskins a hefty chunk of whoop-ass on several occasions.

The thing is, Guardsmen fight differently than Space Marines. They fight in a manner more akin to real world militaries (i.e using artillery, airsupport, teamwork etc.), while Space Marines are more specialized for extremwely heavy assaults.

A third person shooter playing as an Imperial Guardsman would've been awsome.

 

[Xan Krieger]

Edit: yes i am aware that some European countries pronounce it that way but i dont care it sounds dumb and the Etymology disagrees with that pronunciation.

That's how the Canadian forces pronounce it. Once again your country is trying to be different but tried you guys tried to hard....sad sad USA.

I also had a problem with that. Lieutenant is pronounced Lewtenant, not leftenant. In that case I assume there are also rightenants. In this case the U.S. is right and it is Europe and Canada that can't say it right. Maybe they could patch it to have Titus say it correctly.

/facepalm
You know, it's called English language for a reason.

Which makes it all the funnier since it means the english can't speak english right.

Yeah, because only the american pronounciation is right... Are you serious?

Look at the word, then look at how wrong the other countries are. They're pronouncing letters that aren't even freakin there. This is a case where America is in fact right. Also I'm not trolling, I looked at the word and how Britain and American say it and the American way makes more sense based on the letters in the word.

 

[Scow2]

-awesome summation of the Ultra Marines -

Thank you.

Also, I'm really enjoying the game so far (My brothers paid for it, I just paid the tax and provided the ID). My only complaint is that I'm even finding EASY difficulty to be too hard, unless the higher difficulties actually cut back on the number of Rocketboyz. About halfway through the game, it became a cover-based shooter as I had to struggle to not die to all of the goddamn rockets and sneaky Squigs.

The shield upgrade didn't really help me much either. I'd much rather have preferred something to increase my combat-refilled health bar instead of regenerating shield, so that even when in the thick of melee, armor gone but health remaining high through the constant stream of executions, I could survive the stray rocket or squig that impolitely forgot to roar first.

This is also the first game I found that actually made cutscenes enjoyable. Sure, all the epic moments are cutscenes (I wish they were gameplay too!) but with the pace and nature of the game, I found them to be some pretty refreshing opportunities to put the controller down.

This game gets bonus points for accurately and convincingly representing the Bolter weapons, though a more visible explosion radius would have really helped.

I almost felt sorry for killing the Ork Warboss. He took all the fun with him too.

 

[Tarkand]

Ironically, I found hard to be too easy...

 

[ScreamingNinja]

"Gears of "God of War""

I want an Inquisitor game. Fly around the 40k universe KOTOR style with a Navy psychic Navigator, My collection of Ordos Assassins (Careful with the Eversor, he's Cr-azy.), Some Deathwatch, A Grey Knight, An imprisoned chaos daemon and maybe a space elf or two.

It'd be Rad. Come-on Bioware. You could make stories in a universe where a giant space robot would actually make sense.

That's going to be the 40K MMO I reckon. Can't wait for this. I loved it. Seriously.

 

[Nouw]

Thank Elpihas for taking out cover-based shooting.
"We...should take away their metal bawxes!"

Reference aside, I really like this game. Got it a bit late due to overseas shipping but I got it for an insanely good price so I'm happy. The Campaign was a bit boring in some areas but overall, it kept me entertained and excited.

 

[TRR]

This game got very monotonus for me. However, you can't ignore how perfect its aesthetics fit the 40K universe.

The one thing that always bothered me was the fact the the orks were speaking near perfect english

 

[Scow2]

The one thing that always bothered me was the fact the the orks were speaking near perfect english

Yeah... that bothered me as well at points, now that I think of it. I was constantly confused because the Orks sounded just like many of the Marines from Halo, and the few Imperial Guardsmen I fought alongside. At least the Warboss' voice was right.

I see the game as an advertisement for the WH40K franchise first and an awesome game second, much like the first Dawn of War. It provides a story that has enough information to be cohesive and relevant to itself and (mostly) satisfy the pre-existing fans. But while newcomers are given enough knowledge to know what's going on, there's enough "assumed" knowledge to encourage them to buy more WH40k products to learn more about the awesome universe. The Ultramarines were chosen as the protagonist chapter for two reasons:
1. They are the most iconic chapter of the most iconic faction.
2. They can familiarize new players with the concept of what the Space Marines are about, without bogging them down with having to first establish the baseline of the Space Marines, then explaining how the chapter you are playing differs from that norm.

I found the characters to be very interesting, given the source material. What's with accusation of Leiutenant Mira being absolutely enthralled by the Protagonist? When she was first introduced, she was the only Imperial Guardsman not absolutely enthralled with Titus and the Blueberry Smurfs, and at certain times gave him only minimal respect. Fortunately for her, Captain Titus has deep respect for the lives of the Imperial Guardsmen as well.

I haven't finished the campaign yet, but I'm kind of hoping there's some climax and resolution to the tensions brewing between Leandross and his captain. I took his line "The Codex Astartes advises against jump-jetting blindly into enemy fire... with good reason" to be a polite way of telling Captain Titus "Your orders nearly got me killed," instead of just reciting protocol.

 

[lordlillen]

I like the 40k games and all, but I wish they would do something other than Space Marines as the main characters, I mean, who wouldn't want to play a campaign as an Aspect Warrior or Ork Boyz or (Emperor and Harlequin strike me down for admitting this) a Tyranid? Personally I think that they need to make a 40k game that includes like a six hour campaign for each of the Officio Assassinorium branches, they could really go for different gameplay mechanics for each since each has their own way of doing things and would make around a 30 hour game in campaigns alone, and then release different DLC for each branch that adds like another couple hours to each, or just make each branch a ten or twenty hour game in itself

dawn of war dark crusade,
tau
orc
space marine
imperial guard
eldar
necron
chaos.
choose one you like then take over a planet.

 

[flaming_squirrel]

I fucking LOVE them for adding Relictors as a pre-made paintscheme considering they're quite a little known chapter, I used to collect them and still have a 2-3k army hanging about somewhere.

SP was fun, if perhaps a little predictable. I do wish they'd push the boat out a touch more with their writing, considering the sheer amount of fluff they have to work with they could do MUCH more then "start fighting orks, chaos appears, oh noes" (but at least no Eldar filling the same predictable roll this time). On the other hand, inquisition, sweet, please say we can play as an inquisitor in SM2.

MP is perhaps a touch too easy at the moment, I can fairly easily get a 11:1 or 2 k/d by using a melta combined with the storm bolter simply by rushing in firing off a quick blast before switching and ripping through their exposed hp, not to mention the plasma cannon..
But hopefully they'll patch in some weapon tweeks soon enough.

The game would have been mu better if you could play as an imperial guardsmen i think. I like space marines and all but guardsmen make for better character.

Thought about this as well but then realised how gimped the action would be, you'd be limited to very few weapons, combat would be pretty bland and lack all of the flashy over the top brutality which Marines enjoy.
A game based on the IG would be great, just not in this style.

 

[SnakeoilSage]

All in all I liked the game, it was short but more than 8-hours of linerar shooting galleries would really drag the game down. It was short, basic, but it was polished and I think would make for a great springboard into a better, more extensive sequel.

I liked:
- The shooting
The Boltgun is just perfect both aesthetically and in terms of gameplay

- The fighting
Let's see a bigger combo system in the sequel!

- The story
Easy to get into, to the point, and even if you're not a Warhammer fan you won't be left scratching your head. Orks bad, Chaos Bad, Inquisition shifty, Ultramarines good.

- Captain Titus
See? You can have a main character in a shooter game who doesn't act like a moody teenager pissed off at his parents for making him turn down his Coldplay CD's. Oh my daddy's dead/missing! Suck it up, princess.

I disliked:
- More brown and gray shooting galleries.
Joy. We couldn't set this on a jungle world or maybe a magma planet, or one of the millions of exotic worlds that exist in the Warhammer 40k Universe. No, it was "Generic Human City of the Future #40,000."

- The arsenals, while fun, were too restrictive.
There's nothing in the tabletop rules that states a man with a thunderhammer can't also carry a wield a meltagun. And Lascannons are technically heavy weapons, like heavy bolters, so why the hell can't we keep them?

- And the melta-gun and stormbolter were all wrong.
C'mon, THQ. You KNOW how a melta-gun works. You KNOW how a Stormbolter works. Don't change them just 'cause you want to.

- Pistol weapons that don't act like pistol weapons.
Another no-brainer. Pistol weapons in Warhammer 40,000 also serve as close-combat weapons. Titus should be pistol whipping guys, or at least taking the occassional shot at one. Your main menu cinematic even has Titus using his bolt pistol in close combat, so what the hell? There's no excuse for teasing us like that. What's more, taking a pistol doesn't offer any, and I mean ANY advantage, because Titus can just instantly whip out his boltgun or some other far better weapon in any given situation, ditto for when he needs to switch back to his melee weapons. Make it faster for Titus to use his pistol with his melee weapon, giving us a reason to use it, and make it harder for us to switch to Melee if we're using weapons other than our pistols. Otherwise they're just infinite ammo pea shooters that really, with all the ammo lying around, we'll never need.

How I'd make the game better
- Let's see MORE weapons.
The Space Marines have a huge arsenal and you don't let us pick our favorites and keep them? Don't make weapons that are progressively stronger as the game goes on, give us an array of weapons and let us decide which we want to keep.

- Heavy weapons are not the exception.
I was enjoying myself when I had a Heavy Bolter. I felt a like a Devastator. But then there's no options to take one in the single player as a permanent weapon. Again, this is a customization option you don't give us. And instead of letting us play with all the heavy weapons, all we ever see besides the heavy bolter is an autocannon? Space Marines don't even use hand-held autocannons! Or Vengance Grenade Launchers for that matter, but I really liked that weapon so I won't go too far into that.

- More vehicles and vehicle sections
And none of this lamby pamby Imperial Guard crap. I wanna see Rhinos, Predators, LAND RAIDERS. They're Space Marines! You mention throughout the game there are more than just three Ultramarines on the planet. There's no excuse for this!

Ugh. I just know I'm gonna see Titus/Mira shipping when I go wandering deviantArt.

BUT. It was a fun game. I'd even call it a great one. But uh, there's one issue I have that ruined that score. I'd tell you what it is, but, well...

YOUR NAT ISN'T SET TO OPEN.

 

[ScreamingNinja]

All in all I liked the game, it was short but more than 8-hours of linerar shooting galleries would really drag the game down. It was short, basic, but it was polished and I think would make for a great springboard into a better, more extensive sequel.

I liked:
- The shooting
The Boltgun is just perfect both aesthetically and in terms of gameplay

- The fighting
Let's see a bigger combo system in the sequel!

- The story
Easy to get into, to the point, and even if you're not a Warhammer fan you won't be left scratching your head. Orks bad, Chaos Bad, Inquisition shifty, Ultramarines good.

- Captain Titus
See? You can have a main character in a shooter game who doesn't act like a moody teenager pissed off at his parents for making him turn down his Coldplay CD's. Oh my daddy's dead/missing! Suck it up, princess.

I disliked:
- More brown and gray shooting galleries.
Joy. We couldn't set this on a jungle world or maybe a magma planet, or one of the millions of exotic worlds that exist in the Warhammer 40k Universe. No, it was "Generic Human City of the Future #40,000."

- The arsenals, while fun, were too restrictive.
There's nothing in the tabletop rules that states a man with a thunderhammer can't also carry a wield a meltagun. And Lascannons are technically heavy weapons, like heavy bolters, so why the hell can't we keep them?

- And the melta-gun and stormbolter were all wrong.
C'mon, THQ. You KNOW how a melta-gun works. You KNOW how a Stormbolter works. Don't change them just 'cause you want to.

- Pistol weapons that don't act like pistol weapons.
Another no-brainer. Pistol weapons in Warhammer 40,000 also serve as close-combat weapons. Titus should be pistol whipping guys, or at least taking the occassional shot at one. Your main menu cinematic even has Titus using his bolt pistol in close combat, so what the hell? There's no excuse for teasing us like that. What's more, taking a pistol doesn't offer any, and I mean ANY advantage, because Titus can just instantly whip out his boltgun or some other far better weapon in any given situation, ditto for when he needs to switch back to his melee weapons. Make it faster for Titus to use his pistol with his melee weapon, giving us a reason to use it, and make it harder for us to switch to Melee if we're using weapons other than our pistols. Otherwise they're just infinite ammo pea shooters that really, with all the ammo lying around, we'll never need.

How I'd make the game better
- Let's see MORE weapons.
The Space Marines have a huge arsenal and you don't let us pick our favorites and keep them? Don't make weapons that are progressively stronger as the game goes on, give us an array of weapons and let us decide which we want to keep.

- Heavy weapons are not the exception.
I was enjoying myself when I had a Heavy Bolter. I felt a like a Devastator. But then there's no options to take one in the single player as a permanent weapon. Again, this is a customization option you don't give us. And instead of letting us play with all the heavy weapons, all we ever see besides the heavy bolter is an autocannon? Space Marines don't even use hand-held autocannons! Or Vengance Grenade Launchers for that matter, but I really liked that weapon so I won't go too far into that.

- More vehicles and vehicle sections
And none of this lamby pamby Imperial Guard crap. I wanna see Rhinos, Predators, LAND RAIDERS. They're Space Marines! You mention throughout the game there are more than just three Ultramarines on the planet. There's no excuse for this!

Ugh. I just know I'm gonna see Titus/Mira shipping when I go wandering deviantArt.

BUT. It was a fun game. I'd even call it a great one. But uh, there's one issue I have that ruined that score. I'd tell you what it is, but, well...

YOUR NAT ISN'T SET TO OPEN.

Tbh, why would the Space Marines bother being sent to a planet with orks if it's a jungle/Magma city? They only get sent in when there's something at stake, or some debt to call in. And even then, there needs to be actual people and huge cities to make it worth while. XD They wouldn't sent a chapter to the ass end of no where to help some krill farmers.

And I think if they made the Stormy more like two bolters put together, people would complain about the ezi-mode weapon.

I thought it was awesome tbh. The way he switched between weapons makes sense. Since Space Marines are epic and super fast etc.

Honestly? I think they should have had lightening claws and stuff. That would be awesome. Or a combat shield to block/soak up bullets and a melee weapon. Either way, lovin' it.

 

[boyvirgo666]

See this game is kinda hit and miss. If you like 40k youl be just fine. Gameplay wise outside the health regen system the game works fine and is plenty fun. But i have one major complaint. That is now how you pronounce lieutenant.

Edit: yes i am aware that some European countries pronounce it that way but i dont care it sounds dumb and the Etymology disagrees with that pronunciation.

You mean the English pronounce it incorrectly?

Please make an effort with grammar and meaning if you are going to criticise (holy shit he used an s!!!) the use of language.

You have also misused the word etymology. It simply has to do with the origins of words and how they change over time. It has nothing to do with 'correct' pronunciation.

You fail.

OT - this game make you feel like a 40K space marine. If only I could be Blood Angel

Etymology refers to the origins of the word as well.

 

[boyvirgo666]

Edit: yes i am aware that some European countries pronounce it that way but i dont care it sounds dumb and the Etymology disagrees with that pronunciation.

That's how the Canadian forces pronounce it. Once again your country is trying to be different but tried you guys tried to hard....sad sad USA.

I also had a problem with that. Lieutenant is pronounced Lewtenant, not leftenant. In that case I assume there are also rightenants. In this case the U.S. is right and it is Europe and Canada that can't say it right. Maybe they could patch it to have Titus say it correctly.

See this game is kinda hit and miss. If you like 40k youl be just fine. Gameplay wise outside the health regen system the game works fine and is plenty fun. But i have one major complaint. That is now how you pronounce lieutenant.

Edit: yes i am aware that some European countries pronounce it that way but i dont care it sounds dumb and the Etymology disagrees with that pronunciation.

It's how we in Britain pronounce it and, considering 40k is a British Franchise and that imperial gothic is based on a mix of english and latin, it's not surprising that that's how lieutenant is pronounced in game.

The somewhat obscure references to other games or background pieces? I can understand that. It was nice seeing a cameo from the Dawn of War games, but only people familiar with them will actually get what just happened. Despite being so simplistic in its storytelling, Space Marines seems to do a good job of shutting people out if they aren't on the know how.

I thought the same thing, it would have really helped just to have an in game encyclopaedia where players could look up various background information on the different factions and the universe in general.

Please dont correct me with your facts and logic. They have no place on the internetz. heh.

Anyway yeah the encylopedia might have been a good idea.

The game would have been mu better if you could play as an imperial guardsmen i think. I like space marines and all but guardsmen make for better character.

I don't think an imperial guardsman would've been a good idea, too fragile. You'd be dying every other second.

Heh read Gaunts ghosts. Will show you why thats not true. Mkoll is easily more dangerous than a squad of space marines.

I've actually read about quite a few guardsmen such as Sly Marbo that could work. I'm just saying on average guardsmen are like battle droids in Star Wars, only killing things by crushing them under the weight of their own lifeless corpses.

As a quick reference the word Lieutenant started with the term In lieu meaning "in place" and Tenant meaning "in place" so yes American are right in this case.

 

[Scow2]

The game would have been mu better if you could play as an imperial guardsmen i think. I like space marines and all but guardsmen make for better character.

I have yet to see a great game with a protagonist with a better character.

For this kind of game, there are two kinds of Character that work: A Space Marine (Awesome Paladin-style Warrior kicking Evil's ass!) or Ork Warboss (Killing stuff is fun!)

Really, you can't have deep characterization when the gameplay has the protagonist being a one-man army that's trying to brutally kill anything that moves and isn't outright on his side.

Orks in the 40k universe are the Audience Surrogate. We're there for the over-the-top weaponry, violence, and large-scale warfare. Not to be concerned with the hilariously depressing life of the average human living in the Imperium. If it had been about the Imperial Guard (Even as an extraordinarily lucky/skilled guardsman), the game would have been a CoD clone.

 

[SnakeoilSage]

Tbh, why would the Space Marines bother being sent to a planet with orks if it's a jungle/Magma city? They only get sent in when there's something at stake, or some debt to call in. And even then, there needs to be actual people and huge cities to make it worth while. XD They wouldn't sent a chapter to the ass end of no where to help some krill farmers.

And I think if they made the Stormy more like two bolters put together, people would complain about the ezi-mode weapon.

I thought it was awesome tbh. The way he switched between weapons makes sense. Since Space Marines are epic and super fast etc.

Honestly? I think they should have had lightening claws and stuff. That would be awesome. Or a combat shield to block/soak up bullets and a melee weapon. Either way, lovin' it.

Space Marines are expected to fight for the Imperium wherever there is trouble, and by engaging Orks on that backwater world of krill farmers they might stop the Orks from spreading and doing the kind of damage to valuable worlds like Graia in the first place. Space Marines don't pass up battlefields just 'cause they don't feel like it; they aren't shopping for groceries.

Storm bolters should have their own draw backs, like no zoom-in mode. It should be a strictly "charging into melee" weapon.

Space Marines are fast, but again, it makes the pistols redundant. You need to get some kind of use for them.

Lightning claws would rock. Storm Shields would rock even further. By the end of the game you should be in Terminator armor, too. Epic.

But yeah, loved the game! I'm looking forward to DLC's and for the multi-player to finally get that NAT issue fixed.