Every once in a while there comes along a title that gives you everything you’ve ever asked the video game Gods for, ticking all the check boxes you’ve laid down on its way to being your ideal video game. Warhammer 40000: Space Marine, that we’ve just put through a review, is just such a game with intense action, a compelling story, and gripping revelations. Published by THQ for the PS3, Xbox 360, and Windows PC, the title is set in the dystopian Warhammer 40000 universe. You know you’re going to get a visually appealing, hard on combat experience when Relic Entertainment is at the helms of development. And the game delivers stunning visuals to great effect mixed together with explosive combat options.
Warhammer 40000: Space Marine follows Captain Titus of the Ultramarines and his squad on a mission to curb a nasty Ork invasion on Graia, a distant Forge world, when a bigger threat appears endangering the safety of the entire planet. Gameplay in the title is characterized by an innovative combination of ranged and melee combat, the latter being extremely gratifying. And while the game’s weaponry gives players something to gawk at, there is absolutely nothing like chaining together a string of melee attacks on lesser, more ferocious foes.
Warhammer 40000: Space Marine features regenerating armor as well as a fury mode which charges up when you attack enemies and unleashes devastating amounts of damage when activated. During the course of the game you also unlock a Marksman mode which serves to slow down time while using ranged attacks within fury mode. But topping it off is the ability to take a little life from enemies. You can replenish low health by executing a stunned enemy, but you are still vulnerable to enemy attacks at this time.
And there are a variety of fascinating weapons included. One such harbinger of death is the ‘Vengeance Launcher’, which fires sticky bombs that can be remotely detonated. There are a few other interesting ones like the armor-piercing ‘Lascannon’ which fires a very concentrated pulse of energy along a laser beam, and the close-range, crowd-clearing Metlagun with its focused intense heat burst putting anyone who gets too close, permanently in the ground. The melee weapon worth mentioning is the mighty ‘Thunder Hammer’ designed to channel energy upon impact and obliterate anything in the vicinity of an attack. But carrying it restricts the use of ranged weapons, a trade-off which is well worth it most of the time.
The Orks will come at you hard, and confident of the numbers on their side; unrelenting numbers. Alternating a brutal hands-on approach with occasional ranged attacks makes for a marvelous game experience. And while WH40k: Space Marine doesn’t feature a cover system, the action-packed title simply doesn’t need one.
The storyline incorporated features a few twists and turns, some of which you won’t see coming. Captain Titus and his trusted crew members Chapter Sergeant Sidonus and a young Space Marine Leandros have been sent to help take a Forge world back from the Ork’s chaotic plunder. Ork Warboss Grimskull and his forces need to be systematically pushed back at any cost in order to secure what is left of the world and the precious war machines it harbors. Several characters come into play during the course of the game, an Imperial Guard officer 2nd Lt. Mira, Corporal Antioch of the Imperial Guard, and a certain Inquisitor Drogan, whose experimental weapon sounds like a good solution to the planet’s problem. But when the Inquisitor’s weapon doesn’t do what Captain Titus had in mind, causing a rip in the Warp space, scores of beasts from the Warp pour out infecting Graia further. There are also some chaotic forces at work like the Chaos faction leader, Nemeroth, whose many minions are summoned out of the Warp space to put a dampener in Captain Titus’ plans.
The game can seem rather linear at times with not many choices at your disposal and roads to go down. But if you love the slaying of myriad creatures and the thrill of hand-to-hand combat, you can overlook its procedural linearity. Space Marine’s single-player campaign is a like a tiny pellet of highly explosive material. Not in that it is small, because it isn’t; but because it provides unimaginable action and clever sequences with a fairly straightforward approach. There are even times when your character dons a jump pack allowing him to manoeuvre behind enemy lines and smash them from above with a melee weapon causing a major shock wave.
Final Word: The game’s fast and exciting action, with mind-blowing slow motion fight sequences, keep things very entertaining till the end when an absolutely massive battle rounds things up. The linear nature of the game’s storyline and purely cosmetic environmental damage may take it down a notch, but it still makes a sure-fire pick up. Warhammer 40000: Space Marine may represent a battle for just one planet among the hundreds of thousands in the Warhammer 40k universe, but missing out on Relic’s unique offering is simply unforgivable.
Graphics: 8.5/10.
Gameplay: 9.0/10.
Environments: 8.5/10.
Game Sounds: 7.0/10.
Replay Value: 8.5/10.
Overall (not an average): 9.0/10.