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While its big, burly characters make it look like it wants to be Gears of War, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine‘s core tenant is distinctly un-Gears-like: Cover is for the weak.
This image arrived at my home in poster form late last week, following my gameplay impressions of the recently released demo for Relic Entertainment’s Warhammer hack and slash shooter. The game drops next week on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC, so you’d best memorize this mantra.
Surely you mean the guys in Gears of War look like the Space Marines in Warhammer 40k don’t you?… 40k has been around 15 years longer than Gears of War after all.
I feel sorry for the amount of people that are going to pan this as a shitty GoW rip-off despite it being the other way round.
Gameplay wise it is probably a GoW rip-off, but honestly I found it much more satisfying than GoW, although the terrain was just as bland!
I think the point he is trying to make is that it isn’t like gears of war. you don’t spend time running from cover to cover. You charge head first into the fray.
It’s actually nothing like Gears of War in the slightest (besides being 3rd person) if anything it feels more like Darksiders, but its purely combat and the number of ranged and melee weapons has been increased
Was very much thinking this. Ditto to your WoW fanboys who claim Fantasy rips off Blizzard. 😉
Relevant: greatest Penny Arcade strip – http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/04/10
Hilarious! it would be a little silly to be playing a Space Marine from behind a conveniently placed wall.
That only applies after their trench war has failed and their bodies may be used as such.
Then why did I find myself needing to run away and hide behind things so my health could recharge in the demo?
Your health doesnt recharge; only your shields. You regain health by (stunning then) executing enemies
Ha! Reason #28 Space Marine is badassier than Gears. You don’t recover health by squatting in a puddle behind a wall, you recover health ripping off heads and chain swording enemies in half.
What Ynefel said. Only the IG need cover. Real Space Marines don’t. Power armor and a bolter are all they need to get the job done.
While I do think we could cut back on cover based systems for games, I wouldn’t go so far as to insult this system to promote your own. Variety in gaming would become pointless if we demanded games follow a particular brand.
They shall be my finest warriors, these men who give of themselves to me. Like clay I shall mould them, and in the furnace of war forge them. They will be of iron will and steely muscle. In great armour shall I clad them and with the mightiest guns will they be armed. They will be untouched by plague or disease, no sickness will blight them. They will have tactics, strategies and machines so that no foe can best them in battle. They are my bulwark against the Terror. They are the Defenders of Humanity.
They are my Space Marines and they shall know no fear.
Actually, I found this to be a bit a problem when I was playing the demo. I like to play most games on the hardest difficulty because I enjoy a challenge and it feels good to win, in a game like this it makes you play out of character as a Space Marine.
There’s no way you can play at least all of the game on hard without having to take cover to recharge your shield or executing lone orcs to recover health when it’s safe. You even have to run away, especially from the really big orcs, because they’re stronger than you and if you don’t have rage mode active, you’re gonna die if they have any friends.
Real Space Marines play on easy. I said it.
*headdesk*
I beat it and I beat it good, I just didn’t like not acting like a Space Marine would because they’re all ‘NEVER RETREAT’ ‘COVER IS FOR THE WEAK’
I have never heard one of Guilliman’s sons say “Cover is for the weak” I like think I got a decent library of books as well. Ultra Marines are known for being tactical. They don’t retreat but they don’t walk into bullets. There is a reason they have the purest gene seed because they’re one of if not the best Marines.
Breaking News: “Playing Hard mode on games makes it extremely difficult to finish”
Pics at 11!
In all seriousness, it’s a style of playing third person shooters that we’re not used to. Too many times we’ve gotten “Regenerating health” while in this game it throws it completely out the window, you have to fight to survive, literally in this game. Rage won’t come unless you fight and kill, and executions won’t work unless you fight to stun your enemies.
I for one can’t wait to try this myself 😀
You dont hide behind cover, you get the hell in there, and when health gets low, you go rage mode on their ass!
Protip: In Rage Mode, you can one-shot Nobs by just hitting B, or F in the case of the Keyboard.
I played the demo and found it painfully terrible. No offense to Relic who can make fantastic games, and no offense to fans of the W40k IP… its simply not my taste.
Why?
Okay; the characterization of the squadmates is terrible. All of them seem to speak in this deliberately forced EXTREME GRAVITAS AND TAKE THINGS SERIOUSLY, STRONG SILENT TYPE tone… except when they run into battle and you get HAMMY DRAMATIC BATTLE CRIES! None of them have shown any differentiation in their personalities… for all its many faults, at least Gears has distinct personalities and charming inter-squad banter.
The Orks all speak in the same Cockney voices, all of them screaming “SPACE MARINES!” when they see you. As if you didn’t know what you were. They come off as more comical than threatening.
I mean… the game, its gore, its EPIC HAM!, its bad voice acting, its lack of personality… all of it makes the game impossible to take seriously.
And yet the game takes itself DEATHLY SERIOUS because IN THE GRIM DARKNESS OF THE FAR FUTURE THERE IS NO COMIC RELIEF.
I mean, if this game didn’t take itself so damn seriously, it would be pure grade-A hardcore Camp… like Bayonetta with less sexy lead characters.
I mean, given how dark and twisted the W40k IP is, making you take the game seriously shouldn’t be that difficult. Crank up the angst, the pain, the gruesome, the horror, the sufferring, etc. Make the forge world look like the Charnel House it so obviously would be. And get better voice acting. And change the Orks voices to something genuinely threatening.
But so far… yeah, I just can’t enjoy this game at all.
No offense intended to fans of 40k… its just not my thing.
More than that though, the gameplay felt bland and repetitive and I can see it becoming extremely frustrating down the line as far as health regeneration is concerned. If you’re going to make players go through a lengthy execution animation to recover health, it’s really unfair to let you take more damage during that time. I don’t know about the rest of you but I barely used my guns in the whole playthrough, it just wasn’t worth it.
Spot on about the Ork voices though.
I can’t comment too much having not played the demo. But I am a previous 40k player. From that perspective the very serious but a bit bland space marines is actually very accurate to the 40k universe. They are raised to never question anything and to kill. That is all. They are like priests with machine guns. They don’t enjoy killing orcs it is something that must be done, for the emperor and humanity… Like cleaning the toilet. The Orcs on the other hand are menat to be just a few steps above animals and not very smart, but love to fight and kill and smash and dakka dakka dakka etc.
So form what you said it sounds exactly like 40k to me. But that doesn’t mean it has to be your thing as you rightly pointed out.
Just my 20c.
Palstran,
I’ve read about the franchise, and you’re correct. Especially the Ultramarines who are meant to be, well, kind of dull.
But from what I know (I’m going from a friend who’s read the Ultramarines books) there’s at least some room for varied characterization. The Ultramarines series at least had one character.. a Techmarine called Sevano… who was quite snarky and sarcastic. He was a minor character that got quickly killed off, but the point still remains there is at least some room for varied characterization.
And that’s really my complaint… the characters seemed to have the same personality and/or no personality. They might be priests with machine guns, but priests can have varied personality and not all of them are CONSTANTLY TOTALLY SERIOUS THEOLOGICAL GRAVITAS about everything.
But even still, the problem I had was how the game wanted me to take it seriously, but I found several aspects of it too comical to do so.
If the Ultramarines books can introduce some variance in characterization, I don’t think its a big stretch for the games to be able to do so.
That said, this is my reaction to the game and I can understand I’m probably not the target audience for it. W40k is clearly not an IP that will fit everyone’s tastes.
Glad everyone else thought the same as I – 40k been around for thirty years and it’s taking after GoW…..? Yeah, right.
Space Marines have cover. It’s called power armour >.<
Chill, StudiodeKadent. There's plenty of humour in 40k. Why do all orks speak in Cockney voices….maybe research what the entire race was based off.
And go read some Commissar Cain novels.
And a lot more 40k Black Library novels. A lot of them, aside from Cain, have humour.
CadianCommander,
I know W40k has its share of humor. I also think the IP has a lot of humor and satirical potential. I also know that the Caiphas Cain novels are apparently quite funny.
My criticism of the game isn’t “lack of comic relief.” My criticism is that the game itself wants me to take it deathly-serious… but it keeps being unintentionally funny. i.e. the Orks voices are laughable rather than intimidating. The sheer blandness of the protagonists makes it hard for me to identify with them in any way or get emotionally invested (plus, their monotone gravitas itself is funny).
Should I take it from your name (“Cadian” as in “Cadian Gate,” right?) that you’re a big fan of W40k? I’m not trying to criticize either you or the W40k IP itself. I’m simply saying that how Relic have portrayed it in this specific game, on the basis of the demo, generates a wildly inconsistent tone. The game wants me to FEEL like humanity-is-on-the-brink-of-extinction-and-the-galaxy-is-burning-and-war-is-eternal-and-death-is-an-ominpresent-fog-in-this-grim-dark-era but it keeps undermining this by surrounding my comically bland protagonists with green English Soccer Hooligans.
I’m not saying 40k, you, or other 40k fans and players suck. I’m simply criticizing what I’ve played.
@ StudiodeKadent
Ppl like you won’t get it despite multiple attempts to explain. You’d better go and visit your nearest Games-Workshop store. We’ll sort you out and put you on side! 🙂
In fact, I have been to a Games Workshop store. I even purchased a box of six-sided dice there!
What can I say? Tabletop wargaming just isn’t a hobby for me.
If the first thing you think of when you hear Cadian is the Cadian Gate, then I’m more than happy enough to leave you in the seemingly capable hands of thehornedrat until you can learn a tad more about the 40k universe.
I was making a speculation as to the origin of your screen name on the basis of what information I do have on W40k. I never claimed to have a deep knowledge of the IP in the first place.
I’m simply explaining why I found the game demo I played underwhelming.
To be honest, I don’t see why you seem to find my reaction to a game demo offensive or something.
I never degraded your hobby of choice. I’ve got nothing at all against it. Its simply not one I share. “The inconsistent tone of a video game demo set in the W40k Universe made it harder for me to enjoy” is hardly some sort of hate-filled blasphemy against an entire intellectual property that you clearly care for.
Interesting spin for the games lack of a cover system. Space Marines take cover in the novels all the time.
This game feels nothing like Gears of War (which I don’t really like), it feels closer to Dynasty Warriors.
As for power armour, it’s stupid that their suits are all they need. In a world of constant warfare, the arms race between arms and armour would logically mean that at some point, someone would come up with a gun that renders current body armour useless > and vice versa.
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