Space Marine: A Video Game Review

So, I found myself having a lot of time lately, and having only a handful of things to do in a day, I decided to get a new game. At Gamestop this game, which was $60 around Christmas, was down to $20. I heard it flopped, but I figured that people couldn't get into the backstory because there's a lot of content in that universe. There's a lot that a space marine can and should do for a cool video game, and I figured that with as much money as Games Workshop brings in (from me, mostly), they should have a pretty solid game.

Now comes review time. My vengeance!

Ok, so first off, I was expecting something maybe a bit more tactical. Like, maybe you could take cover behind things, or order your guys around some, because that's the kind of thing that people who live through wars tend to do. No. You can't. And, in fact, cover will catch your bullets if you want to shoot over it. Even when you miss it. Or maybe you could jump. And I know that armor looks like it weighs a ton, but those guys are supposed to be genetically engineered for maximum size and strength. They're supposed to be like, seven feet tall each. Also, that suit looks like it has a teeny-tiny rocket pack that might allow that. But no, you can't jump. They give you a rocket pack for one level (so far), but the rocket pack is confusing, doesn't work right, and is unnecessary for that level. It ended with me shooting in any direction, screaming "FLY ****ING STRAIGHT OR DON'T FLY AT ALL!" to my television while people hacked at my ankles.

You have a lot of health, and damage is a set amount, but they mob you with orks, which is cool, because that's a legitimate ork tactic. In fact, its really the ONLY ork tactic. And that gets old after ten minutes. I mean, the enemies are aggressive as hell, but they only do one of four things: shoot you, chop you, move closer TO chop you, or throw grenades. That's it. They have some beefy enemies, like the nobs (I assume they're nobs) which you can only kill by grenades, special kills (which are a huge pain in the ass), or by using enough bullets to shoot five guys in half. But with so damn many enemies in the game, you'd think they'd give you a variety. And I guess you get to shoot chaos space marines later on. Lazy damn developers.

You have a set limit of health, which sits in the middle of the screen, and some health that regenerates over time, but never much. And you can regain health by going into Fury mode, which is something no 40K content I've read has ever mentioned, so I think they made that shit up for the game. That's probably why it seems tacked on and (to be perfectly honest) poorly conceived. You can also gain health by executing people, but the executions aren't as cool as they make them out to be, because there's only one that I've seen per melee weapon, and the first time you feel like a bad ass, but after the fourth time, its like "Oh, that again." And they take time, and while you're performing the execution, you'll be choppd into ribbons by his friends. So health regeneration is a huge waste of time, unless its literally the last guy. That time could be spent better by hacking and slashing, which is really the only thing this game has in abundance. There are an assload of enemies to kill, regenerating your health is not worth your time, and you'll run out of ammo quickly because you don't get as much as you need and each of the billions of orks that somehow fit on these really small ships requires about four to down...provided they're not special in any way, because then they take like, minimum twenty bullets.

Right now, I'm entirely stuck on a train level, because there is some kind of ship flying around, shooting at me, that drops WAY more guys than it could EVER realistically hold, takes way too many plasma caster rounds for easy mode (I don't do first-person shooters...but I'll play through them if the plot is even remotely interesting), hides behind cover, and has a tendency to fly RIGHT ON TOP OF ME when I'm hiding and then shoots me to death. Every time. And if that doesn't work, it drops a dozen ax-wielding orks who hack me to bits while I try to drop my non-responsive gun that has shitty damage in melee. They gave me a pair of friends, but they have as much personality as linoleum and somehow do LESS damage. I think one of their names is Sidonus, which I remember because its the exact same name used in Mass Effect 2, which came out a couple years ago.

The plot is...a thing...I guess. You're a space marine and you have to prevent orks from looting some giant mech, because that makes more sense than just turning the damn thing on remotely or whatever. I mean, heaven forbid your weapon of absolute superiority is unavailable because there isn't someone RIGHT THERE WITH IT. There's some imperial guardsmen, which are just normal human soldiers, but I'm incapable of caring about the furniture in the room. I mean, they have a lot of "wounded" guys, but they're white noise in the background. When I can, I make an effort to walk on them so they know just how pathetic the game perceives them to be. None of them says anything, none of them can die, and none of them even have a damn name tag. For that matter, what's my guy's name? I think my two side-kicks said it a few times, but I made a point to actively ignore them once I realized that their more realistic names would be "Vanillian" and "Beardicus." My guy's just a guy who has a handgun, heavy weapon (a rocket launcher in this case), machine gun, sniper rifle, and melee weapon, just like any character from any first person shooter ever made. Wouldn't you know it? Same weapon set-up as Mass Effect 2, except that Mass Effect also has a shotgun.

Also, no co-op multiplayer. What do I have to do to make that happen in games again? That was what made games worth getting.

Warning: EXTREMELY accurate.

The game rewards the guy who chooses to hide like a coward and punishes the face-kicking space marine who plays like a space marine is supposed to...by kicking faces off. The controls are mushy, the story is lame (so far), the gameplay is weak, my allies have less personality than their armor, the enemies are generic and WAY too hard to kill, the gore is cool, but lack of diversity makes it old hat really fast, there is zero openness to it, so it probably has virtually no replay-ability, there is no character customization in campaign mode (so far), and the enemies are aggressive and literally nothing else. They're not even interesting. At least Kill Team (the ten dollar XBOX download) was fun at times. This one felt like a worse version of Kill Team that had better graphics, cost me more money, and somehow was a huge downgrade.