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Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2Take two staple ingredients of fantasy and science fiction, namely orks and space respectively, mix in a ten foot super soldier named Titus and some bone-crushing, brutally satisfying combat with both melee weapons and guns, and you have Warhammer 40 000: Space Marine.
The game begins with a rather simple premise – the Ultramarines are tasked with quelling an Ork invasion against Graia, an Imperium Forge World, and preventing the Orks from taking control of the world’s weaponry. Even though the story is on the sparse side, this is enough to set the stage for an excuse to confront and battle numerous Orks in increasingly vicious ways.
Built to blast
When we first heard that Space Marine would mix up melee combat with guns, it brought the disappointing Too Human to mind, which implemented both in a way that felt clumsy and counter-intuitive. Thankfully, this is not the case in Space Marine. Shooting is capable, satisfying and at times the best way to handle Orks, while Melee combat is always visceral and immensely satisfying.
The game’s appeal is heightened by the fact that a new weapon or piece of gear always seems to be around the next corner. Although you start the game with the Bolt Pistol, you quickly discover the Bolter, or equivalent of an assault rifle, the Stalker Bolter, which is a long range sniper rifle and the Vengeance launcher, which shoots fusion charges that stick to walls or enemies. You also come across the jump pack, a jet pack of sorts which enables you to rain fire down on your foes, reach high areas as well as pound down onto unfortunate enemies.
Unlike the other weapons though, which are mapped to the D-pad and easy to switch between mid-combat, the jump pack only makes brief appearances.
Equally worth mentioning are the melee weapons, most particularly the gory but highly effective Chainsword (think lovechild between a sword and a chainsaw) and the bone-crushing Thunder hammer. And then of course, the ultimate weapon is Titus himself, who can sprint into enemies, barrelling through them if not stunning them and leaving them vulnerable to other attacks.
Another nifty addition to combat comes from successfully dispatching your foes, which fills up your Fury meter. Once full, you can activate special abilities or power ups, such as Fury mode, which grants you temporary invincibility, increased strength and has regenerative benefits as well. There’s also the Marksman mode, which slows time down and enables you to more accurately place your shots. This adds a certain amount of finesse to combat, because although the Orks are easily defeated one at a time, they can quickly overwhelm you when in vast numbers, which they invariably always are.
Shoes of a super soldier
Quite easily one of the most enjoyable parts of Space Marine is playing Titus. The game succeeds admirably at making you feel like a super-soldier, in the vein of Halo’s Master Chief, if not more so. Even when sprinting, which you can do for extended periods or as long as you please, you feel the weight and size of the Ultramarine, and in battle, Titus is formidable and (almost) unstoppable, which the game relays perfectly.
While Titus is about as relatable as a Sherman tank, and seems to largely have a limited range of facial expression for all situations, this doesn’t really deter from the enjoyment of playing him. This is largely due to the fact that Space Marine is so well carried by its smooth hack and slash action, and the never-ending opportunity to unabashedly blow Orks apart, who quite literally explode in a spray of blood when shot.
Despite being a super-soldier, Titus can die and he does take hits to his health. This can be replenished by stunning and then executing an enemy. While these executions are gory and spectacular, doing so temporarily leaves you open to further attack, and there is no way to stop the execution animation once it is initiated.
Titus does have a regenerating shield though, which is a great implementation, since there is no cover mechanism in the game (not that one would expect a three metre tall Ultramarine to be cowering behind a wall while numerous Orks bay for blood). This keeps the game’s battle momentum moving relentlessly forward, and resulted in our Space Marine gaming sessions being quite a lot longer than initially planned. Additionally, ammo and grenades are scattered liberally throughout the environments, although some require you to destroy explosive barrels to access.
The game does have one Achilles heel, and that is the voice acting of the Orks, who so frequently extort “It’s Space Marines! Kill the Space Marines!” that it becomes tiresome. The voices also sound far too human to be remotely convincing that they are coming from non-human Orks, which does distract a bit from the game’s immersiveness. This is a pity because otherwise, the score is actually very good, featuring the appropriate battle music as well as music that adds a sense of gravitas to one's mission.
To the Point
Kudos have to be given to the developers for both marrying a space and fantasy setting, and combining melee weapons and guns together so artfully. It is a large part of what makes Space Marine such a pleasure to play, despite its small flaws. Space Marine may not make the ranks of our top five games, but it is certainly one we thoroughly enjoyed playing nonetheless.
Pros
Well implemented weapons
Engaging combat
Cons
Ork’s limited vocabulary and unconvincing voice-overs become tiresome
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