I can see how someone that is unfamiliar with the Warhammer 40k universe might associate the game's look with Gears. But the people here know better so there's no point in being salty about it. It's Space Marine, not Spice Marine.
Well I'll definitely give the Gears influence for the camera (which is of course from RE4 and maybe earlier), and most certainly how to convey weight, heft and inertia, both in movement and in weaponry.
And just to be sure I love* both Space Marine and Gears so I'm not even about to take sides or anything, but I think it sends the wrong message for somebody who should know better to refer to the game as a Gears of War clone, that's all. Its way too superficial a comparison.
* And yeah, I think I'm in love with this game. Its managed to activate the same joyful adrenaline zone that high level Horde and Firefight matches reach at their very peak. And unless chapters 10+ fall off a cliff in terms of quality of difficulty I can easily see myself replaying this campaign many times.
I'm very curious to know what happen to Titus now that he surrendered to the Inquistion? Do they poke and prod him, or does the Inquisition just kill him and move on?
They can do whatever they want. They are just as likely to execute him on a whim as they are to put him to some use. Veteran space marines are a valuable resource regardless of his "crimes."
- Teleport Homer should give XP whenever someone spawns on you, as it stands now pretty much no one uses it
- Melta (SO cheap but so good) + Storm Bolter load out = anti assault class
- Wished they continued to list what the requirements were to unlock armor pieces in the customizer, would be nice to know for quicker reference. Would also be nice if they just listed the progress to unlock it their too.
- Wished they listed what class your teammates were using on the scoreboard
- Part of me wishes that greades were just perks. The amount of grenade spam on Waste Management is ridiculous.
Played some more multiplayer and had a much better time. Last night I was playing the TDM variant and didn't much like it but the game really comes into it's own with the territory capture mode. There the class differences really shine.
99% of the time, comparing one game to another is usually seen and suggested as a jab. There were cover systems before gears, and space marines were there before dom.
Its just a pointless comparison that serves no real purpose, considering that while gears is a great game, its mechanics were hardly genuine enough to claim innovation, and be compared to all cover based games.
There are ways to do comparisons to where you're not taking jabs, but 99% of the gaming media doesn't take that route.
- Teleport Homer should give XP whenever someone spawns on you, as it stands now pretty much no one uses it
- Melta (SO cheap but so good) + Storm Bolter load out = anti assault class
- Wished they continued to list what the requirements were to unlock armor pieces in the customizer, would be nice to know for quicker reference. Would also be nice if they just listed the progress to unlock it their too.
- Wished they listed what class your teammates were using on the scoreboard
- Part of me wishes that greades were just perks. The amount of grenade spam on Waste Management is ridiculous.
Pretty good ways into it now. I feel like some of the areas drag on a bit too much and some more variation to the executions would have been great, but aside from those two remarks I am really having a blast.
I really love the confidence and badassery spewing from these marines. Professional badasses.
I wish I knew where to start with the books. My knowledge of this world is really only from the games and some wiki fun once in a while.
Pretty good ways into it now. I feel like some of the areas drag on a bit too much and some more variation to the executions would have been great, but aside from those two remarks I am really having a blast.
I really love the confidence and badassery spewing from these marines. Professional badasses.
I wish I knew where to start with the books. My knowledge of this world is really only from the games and some wiki fun once in a while.
Alright, impressions time. I don't normally write something out like this but hey, here goes:
Story
The story is serviceable and as one might expect but it's a welcome simplicity, especially after coming off something like Deus Ex. It's straightforward, and provides just enough impetus to move from point A to B while cleansing all xenos inbetween. What buoys the story itself is the presentation of the world. The audiologs provide more than enough of a glimpse to the backstory. Everything is huge, larger than life, as it should be in 40k. Some of the set pieces you come across exemplify this and the blend of industrial/gothic architecture is fantastic. Whomever was in charge of art direction certainly tried to be faithful to the source material and I'd say succeeded. Permit me a steam compressed screenshot as an example. Not a spoiler but set as a url all the same. http://i.imgur.com/8Zpfd.jpg
Gameplay
The gameplay is pure combat bliss, a happy marriage of melee/ranged combat. The level design is linear but that's hardly a fault in this case. There are unique areas here and there like the jump pack battle Salazar linked to a page or two ago or the claustrophobia of the sewers but for the most part it is standard fare. I adore the execution/health regen system as well. One feels quite pro to take someone down when you're at half health, watching your bar being chipped away amidst the execution animation, but knowing full well you'll go from 1% to 100% as soon as it finishes.
The enemy and encounter design is something else though. It struck me that there was a lot of care in enemy placement and this often led to on the fly prioritization so I wouldn't be wrecked by something like promoted Shootas or renegade militia. Enemy behavior was top notch too though although I wished the Bloodletters abused their teleportation/dash/whatever far more often. Few things had my pulse pounding as firing into a group of them only to see them dash out of the line of fire and be flanked all around for my troubles.
Weapons
And for fun I'll rank the weapons! This is entirely my opinion though as different playstyle will lead to different affinities on a per player basis. I won't even use the whole scale IGN-style. (But mostly because every weapon had its place.)
Chainsword: B
Didn't really care for it and it felt weak and clunky compared to the other options.
Power Axe: A-
Simply, it felt stronger and far more fluid than the chainsword. Whether it actually is stronger, I'm not sure.
Thunder Hammer: A+
I hated dropping this as it wsa such an "I win." button.
Bolt Pistol: B-
Standard peashooter but effective enough
Plasma Pistol: B+
Did not like the charge arc but being able to cancel the cooldown (reload) was welcome.
Bolter: A
Your steadfast companion throughout the game. It's an amazingly versatile gun that can see one through any situation. It's the jack of all trades compared to the specializations of the other ranged weapons. I think I used it more than anything else even when I had other options available.
Heavy Bolter: A
Walking around with one of these is going to work its way into those "things that make you feel badass in games" threads. The low ammo sound effect was an extremely nice touch as well.
Vengeance Launcher: A-
Low ammo count but useful for clearing groups or making room. Also funny to tag a Nob with a few and just light him up shortly thereafter.
Stalker Pattern Bolter: A-
Useful for what it is although I never used it all that much. The bullet pen is funny as hell though when they're all lined up
Plasma Gun: A
Admittedly I didn't play with the with the charged portion that much but it had a high damage/shot ratio when I was playing around versus Bloodletters. I think it was something along the lines of 4 shots to kill one.
Lascannon: A+
Ridiculously strong and the range lets you clear out stronger enemies before they even have a chance to get close.
Meltagun: A+
Arguably the best gun in the game. Useful for clearing out large groups, making breathing room, and cheesing fights. There's grim satisfaction in murdering half a dozen enemies, if not more, in a single shot.
Storm Bolter: B
High rate of fire but inaccurate. Would be useful to force an enemy into cover I suppose. I'm sure others will sort it out as I often skipped it in lieu of the Thunder Hammer and found little use for it aside from an "Oh shit." button in tight quarters.
Heavy Plasma Cannon: A
Similar to the Heavy Bolter but sadly underutilized ingame.
Autocannon: A+
Exotic weapon equivalent of the Thunder Hammer or Meltagun. Strap that baby on and go to town.
Gears / God of War comparisons
Not sure I really understand these but hey, I'll throw my two cents in. The Gears comparison seems tenuous at best. At a glance, yeah, I can understand the comparison but the games play nothing alike unless level design of corridor-> arena fight -> corridor has become synonymous with the game. I wouldn't equate that with TPS in general as it has long held its own place in action games themselves.
As far as God of War goes, the only comparison I'd grant has any validity is both share an excellent presentation of an amazing larger than life world. Story quality is debatable but I'd wager presentation is not.
Short version
Pros:
+ Stellar combat
+ Amazing atmosphere
+ weapon caches being so prevalent so one could switch it up for whatever reason such as necessity or simple preference
+ Hard mode balanced without cheapness
+ Action game with no bullshit puzzles between the action
+ Sensible rate of character advancement via in-game item pickup
+ Non-useless squadmates. Their audio cues were handy.
+ Enemy effectiveness especially Chaos.
+ I think the length was just right. The game doesn't overstay its welcome.
Cons:
- Too few exotic weapon pickups & associated encounters.
- Would have liked something like the heavy bolter be something you could main but say with some tradeoff as with the Thunder Hammer.
Perhaps no melee with it taking both extra ranged slots.
- Invincible squadmates
- Not enough explored in the larger storyline.
- Linear weapon growth when it happens at all
- Teasing me with a melta bomb as a quest item and not letting me replace grenades with them!
- Final encounter seemed rushed.
What I'd like to see in the future
- Better stat tracking such as kills per weapon, accuracy, individual enemy types killed.
- Optional scoring/ranking mode for chapters
- Weapon leveling/customization. Slight stat nudging to meet playstyle would suffice.
- More destructible cover so one could flush the enemy out and vice versa.
- Ability to drop the Thunder Hammer and fall back to the combat knife if you're in a heavy ranged scenario.
- Last Stand Mode as mentioned earlier in the thread complete with various faction heroes to level up.
- More 40k race representation. Tyranids/Eldar might be done to death after Dawn of War II though.
- More 40k locale representation. The Imperium is vast.
- Melee weapon cache added
right before boarding the Titan. Doing that with a thunder hammer and pistol sucked!
- Primarch difficulty. Reduce clip size/ammo pickup counts, increase rate of promoted enemy spawn, and you're on your way.
Pretty good ways into it now. I feel like some of the areas drag on a bit too much and some more variation to the executions would have been great, but aside from those two remarks I am really having a blast.
I really love the confidence and badassery spewing from these marines. Professional badasses.
I wish I knew where to start with the books. My knowledge of this world is really only from the games and some wiki fun once in a while.
I love the reverence and solemness that the Space Marines presence elicits on the Imperial Guards. I remember one room filled with injured guards and a voice of one of them saying (paraphrasing a bit here) "I can now die as I finally saw a Space Marine". It gives a great feeling of gravitas to our character.
As for the books the consensus seems to be to start from whatever falls into your hands. But Salazar highly recommends Horus Heresy and anything from Dan Abbner. I'm reading at the moment "The Ultramarines : The Omnibus" by Graham McNeill. It's a great vade mecum to the game.
I love the reverence and solemness that the Space Marines presence elicits on the Imperial Guards. I remember one room filled with injured guards and a voice of one of them saying (paraphrasing a bit here) "I can now die as I finally saw a Space Marine". It gives a great feeling of gravitas to our character.
It might however seems to be out of place for people who are not familiar with the W40k universe.
The game does not go in length to explain that there are only a few hundred thousands Space Marines in an entire Galaxy with Gajibillions of humans and that they are only requested to act on despaired situations and therefore scarcely seen by the population or the regular militiae.
The game does not go in length to explain that there are only a few hundred thousands Space Marines in an entire Galaxy with Gajibillions of humans and that they are only requested to act on despaired situations and therefore scarcely seen by the population or the regular militiae.
The books emphasise that the general population's awe for the astartes is not incompatible with disgust or even a kind of hatred - for their pride, for their physical super-humanity, for their tendency to occasionally act with extreme "fuck the civilians" ruthlessness. Probably, too, out of an ingrained distrust after Horus and a bunch of traitor primarchs fucked things up. The aristocratic class on Terra really don't think much of them at all. In part, perhaps, because the 40k universe is one in which political authority is exactly and minutely proportional to one's capacity to kill. The astartes have that capacity to a unique degree, but they are not - by and large - political beings. There's a weird and awkward suspension that arises from that problem.
Or arises occasionally, when the brute necessity to kill xenos in order to survive and protect isn't blazingly urgent.
And yeah, fuck the Inquisition. Chaos have a sort of respectable directness. The Inquisition are just fuckers.
Repetition and a significant lack of progression/unlockables are the only major gripes I have with the campaign, but they are somewhat sizeable ones in my eyes. Each weapon could probably do with a couple more executions, as well.
Other than that, it's a pretty rad game. I've decided to do my first run-through on 'normal'; I thought it'd be a cakewalk, as I had played the demo quite a bit and could conquer it on 'hard', but some areas have been quite testing. Died, I have.
Oh man, the Power Axe is so great. Honestly, the Chainsword started to feel a bit sluggish for me, but the Power Axe fixes all of that. So good for cutting down crowds.
Just started part III, enjoying it a lot. And it's making me glad that I ordered a bunch of 40K omnibuses a few weeks ago :lol. Just love the universe.
I actually wasn't sold on it in the demo, but it really works.
Oh, and charging through the sandbag cover is fucking awesome. Didn't realise I could just run up and barrel through them for a while.
Edit: They've made some of the orks soak up exactly the right amount of bolter fire before coming apart in a bloody shredded mess. I love that you can see the Choppa orks glow red as their armour starts to fail.
For anyone who hasn't started playing multiplayer yet, sticking with a controller is totally viable. I can't actually imagine playing assault with kb/m controls, the analog movement feels so critical.
To geek out a little bit. Of all the Space Marine Chapters they included I was surprised of the lack of the White Consuls and the Flesh Tearers as well as the Aurora Chapter, reason being those are chapters that are actually known enough to be covered and included in the fiction even recently. Super puzzled why the left the Thousand Sons as a DIY build for chaos as well.
I have no idea why the Knights of Gryphone and like the Storm Giants are in there, those are chapters that are so random when you look them up half there info is listed as unknown.
I played the demo last night and really enjoyed it, but ill be spending so much money on games this fall I dont know if I can swing buying it full price. Ill probably wait for it drop a bit. I hope the MP is still a active if wait =/
It's so satisfying to pick off gretchin with the bolter, too.
See them running away, and splat. Bolter is still probably my favourite gun, though I'm only about halfway through, I think. Others are more powerful or more precise, but bolter fire feels right.
Powerfist is not in, but they have said that a heap of shit is possible in DLC. Probably for the horde mode, because they don't have to balance that.
Finally got to play it last night. Multi is fun but I got my butt annihilated like a Saturday night. Single-player is neat, I really liked the "swarm" feeling the Orks give, they were able to make that feel really unique and gratifying.
One thing that surprised me was how, well...nice the Ultramarines are to that cowardly IG scum. I guess it's because they're one of the more "chivalrous" chapters but I was waiting for one of us to smack that female IG lieutenant around for being inferior. Didn't see it happen.
Have you guys been playing multi on the pc? Because I've played both and the 360 was much worse. It doesn't make sense to me, I thought the matchmaking on live would be much better but it's horrible. I started keeping track after I bitched about it last night. Out of 20 matches after that post, not one didn't have a host migration and not one match had all players with 4-5 bars. Every game had at least 2-3 and sometimes up to 6 people with 1-2 bar connections, who were absolutely running the table. Every match was dictated by the people with the highest amount of folks with 1-2 bar connections. Whoever had the most 1-2 bar connections won, every match. Without exception.
Sure it could be coincidence and it's hyperbole, but damn if it wasn't enough to turn me off to the xbox version when I can just walk upstairs get on the computer and have it look much better and none of the connection issues (with the same connection no less).
I love the pure joy Ryan gets from exploding orks.
Sunflower said:
Finally got to play it last night. Multi is fun but I got my butt annihilated like a Saturday night. Single-player is neat, I really liked the "swarm" feeling the Orks give, they were able to make that feel really unique and gratifying.
One thing that surprised me was how, well...nice the Ultramarines are to that cowardly IG scum. I guess it's because they're one of the more "chivalrous" chapters but I was waiting for one of us to smack that female IG lieutenant around for being inferior. Didn't see it happen.
I know this. They let the guys have pinpoint accuracy with those rockets from half a mile away and I'd rather not ever have to use one of the sniper type weapons in this game. The shooting in general is not particularly great in this game. It would be better though if I was playing on my PC and could use a mouse but I opted to rent from gamefly instead. :/
