Review: Space Marine by THQ

Giant super human guys running around in power armor with chainsword and bolter, firing explosive rounds into the heads of orks and violently decapitating demons while stomping on traitor humans all in the name of the Emperor sound interesting?  Well if it does then you should check out the video game adaptation of Space Marine by THQ.

Space Marine is the third title in video games based on GW’s tabletop miniature wargame, Warhammer 40,000.  Dawn of War an RTS, and the recently reviewed co-op overhead shooter Kill Team, were the other two games.  Space Marine does an interesting job of blending visuals from both into the game.  SM is a third person sandbox shooter.  In general it is very straight forward, reasonably challenging (meaning I did actually die a few times on the normal play through), with decent weapon options.

Graphics were really great, and there were some fantastic panoramic shots that the designers made, but they would get lost in the background if you weren’t taking the effort to actually look up and around.  That would be one of my gripes about the game, but we’ll get to those later.  The game used a fun slow-mo “execution” ability or “sharp shooter” skill that refueled health, and was the only way to get it back as a matter of fact. The execution type depended on which weapon was being used, and how tough the opponent was.

As to the weapons, there were enough to be interesting, but only barely.  Some of the weapons were designed to be very niche weapons others were actually pretty useful.  If you’re a 40K player or you read the fluff, then there might have been a couple of things that bothered you about the weapon interpretation in the game.  You can carry five total weapons: a Melee, a Pistol, Bolter, and two slots to swap out as you see fit, but only other ranged weapons.  Let’s run them down:

Melee

• Combat Knife – beginning close combat weapon, basic knife, once chainsword becomes available you won’t have access to this weapon again
• Chainsword – first close combat upgrade, coolest sounding, fastest of all three upgrades but least powerful, has a really nice AoE sweeping strike at end of long combination
• Power Axe – mid power weapon and potentially most useful, still fast but not as fast as chainsword, big overhead slice AoE strike is good but least useful of CC weapon AoE strikes
• Thunder Hammer – high power\slow speed weapon, crushes or explodes most weak enemies in one hit, huge AoE slam strike that stuns a bunch of enemies, biggest drawback is it denies you use of anything other than pistol and bolter

Ranged

• Bolt Pistol – beginning pistol, decent but very limited ammo, feels underpowered
• Plasma Pistol – slightly stronger and only pistol upgrade, have to vent or take damage from overheating, can limit usefulness due to only getting about 5-7 shots before having to vent, can do a single charge shot that overheats gun
• Bolter – beginning gun, can never be swapped out, pretty good strength and RoF, medium reload time, sound nice when you shoot it, good at all ranges, again feels underpowered
• Plasma Gun – bigger version of pistol with all the same drawbacks, still only get a handful of shots before having to vent, perhaps more powerful but could barely tell
• Melta Gun – shortest range of any weapon, unfocused fire, interpretation in terms of fluff, powerful, low ammo capacity, few reloads available in game
• Stalker Pattern Bolter – early extra weapon, great range, semi-auto RoF, strong when paired with headshots, single zoom scope, all around solid
• Lascannon – Two shot kills on almost anything, first shot stuns, second vaporizes, low ammo capacity, no backpack like in fluff, double zoom scope
• Storm Bolter – Basically two bolters strapped together, low to mid range, gun walks up when shot due to high RoF, bursts are best, seems stronger than bolter but may only be due to volume of fire, wish the bolter could be swapped out for this, very slow reload
• Vengeance Launcher – New weapon to the 40K universe, allows good range launching sticky bombs that can be detonated later, not a currently existing weapon in the 40K fluff, allows for a very different application of force
• Heavy Bolter – Turret weapon, awesome, great Rof, powerful, limited ammo, no reload
• Plasma Cannon – Turret weapon, okay, same issues as other plasma weapons, better range and power

Hands down my favorite weapons were the stormbolter and lascannon with the striker pattern bolter a close third.  I did prefer the thunder hammer and plasma pistol when I had the jump pack on, but otherwise I constantly changed between the hammer and axe depending on situations.

As to the gameplay, it was fun if you’re a fanboy, and I am.  Problem is it doesn’t warrant a second play through unless you just want to beat your head against a harder setting.  The story line is good and classic 40K.  Ork invasion, creepy inquisitor manipulated by chaos, chaos invasion, at the end a lone marine to fight for the emperor.  While I haven’t messed with multiplayer I have seen it being played.  It looks okay but the appeal to me is about as high as Halo, which is to say there isn’t any.  The reason CoD has the market on multiplayer right now is speed of engagement.  No shields, no armor, fast kills, fast respawn, realistic, greater tension.  This and Halo don’t offer that.

Two really big complaints I have about this game is the lack of inclusion of geo-mod and the sandbox issue.  If you don’t know what geo-mod is, it’s been around since early 2000’s, Red Faction I think.  You shoot a hole in the wall, it stays there and if you shoot enough it falls down.  There’s no reason everything shouldn’t be destructible in the environment.  None.  As to the sandboxing, it may be unrealistic in this instance, but the depth and expanse of the world presented in the background of the game begs to be explored.  Make it multi-disc next time, please.  Especially when you strap a jump pack on my back, all I want to do is go find hidden places.

Overall the game is a fun play but I feel it has little staying power.  Personally after a few rounds of multiplayer so I can unlock that powersword I earned when I bought Kill Team, this games getting traded in.  And I am a fanboy.