REVIEW: Warhammer 40k: Space Marine

from gog

Yes. I am late to the party playing Warhammer: Space Marine, let alone reviewing it.

My only real foray into the Warhammer universe prior to completing Space Marine was knowing that it has a huge fan base worldwide, notably Henry Cavill being one of them most well known. The Warhammer universe spans table top games, books, and video games with the same name.

 

photo from Wikipedia

Prior to playing the game, I had no experience with the Warhammer franchise. So it is safe to say, I was going into this with a clean slate giving me a fresh set of eyes that would not influence how I would experience the game. I only brushed up on the expansive lore, while playing the game, to fill in the gaps of the story that I wanted to understand a little more even though it is not required to enjoy the experience. I took about a month to complete the game because of the amount of time I spent catching up on lore that made playing the game more enjoyable when having context to the story as I progressed through it.

This review is NOT focused on franchise lore and ONLY focuses on the game as a standalone IP. I do this intentionally because I know I would butcher a good amount of it on top of the lore having a size and scope that would be a standalone topic much better served by someone more versed in it than me. This review is spoiler free!

I purchased the game from Good Old Gamer (GOG) and played WarHammer: Space Marine on a Steamdeck gen 1, using the Heroic Game Launcher. There were no issues launching the game, whether I played it on a television or the Steamdeck itself.

The game was originally released for PC and consoles on September 9, 2011. So, to say that I am a little behind with getting into this game would be an understatement.

PRESENTATION

"In the deep grim future, there is only war."

The presentation is just straight epic and bad-ass. You are Titus, an elite soldier of the Imperium, along with other Space Marines, responding to a distress call from a planet under siege. Despite the odds seemingly razor thin, you with the other Space Marines set forth to aid the denizens of the planet.

Moments in, as you enter the airspace, a battle is already waging in the atmosphere, cannon fire are coming from all angles, airships are exploding everywhere, and you plunge yourself onto to the enemies' airship... As you land onto the ship's deck, a number of Orcs surround you and the game begins.

Not only does this introduction set the tone and pacing of the game but it also serves as a tutorial to the game's mechanics as you progress and get a feel of the different types of enemies you encounter throughout your play through. To put it mildly, it is all done really well. While you do get the prompts that teach the button combinations with brief descriptions of your surroundings, they never get in the way because you are immediately immersed into using those button combinations to progress through the next part of the stage.

I can't emphasize enough of how they set the tone of being a badass in the game. There is no better way of doing that than mowing down a bunch of enemies. Space Marine, through the early play through, gives a false sense of near invincibility despite the odds being stacked against you.

GRAPHICS

The game was released in 2011 and despite being long in the tooth, it still works and holds up visually considering that it maintained 60 frames per second (fps) even when waves of enemies filled the screen, and there are a lot of them. Besides the wave of enemies, there are plenty of objects and action going on in the environment (coupled with the sound) so you always feel like where you are in the game is part of the world and not isolated from it. Mind you, this was running on the Steamdeck as I prefaced earlier.

The graphic style is vibrant, similar to a color pallet you would find in comic books. Even though the game has plenty of gore, the characters in the game is a mix of cartoonish and realistic; the Orcs have mostly a deep green skin tone and the Space Marine tarnished blue armor and warn-grimaced faces stand out from the background. The non-playable characters (NPC), other than the Space Marines, have a color tone that matches the background environment a little more.

The explosions and other special effects do a great job of visually capturing chaotic battle sequences. Gun fire, magic spells, splattering blood, and debris litter the environment as you rampage through each section of the game.

My only real complaint with the graphics is what looks like a screen space, post processing camera filter, shading artifact that separates foreground and middle ground areas for fog and lighting. It is a gradient line that is anchored to the players perspective, rendered on the landscape meshes, so the position on the physical screen never goes away. It is not a deal breaker by any means, but once you notice it, you can't un-see it... My apologies for bringing it up.

SOUND

The audio is one of the best parts of Warhammer: Space Marine. Coupled with the chaos that happens on screen, the audio delivers punchiness and weight to the destruction that unfolds throughout the journey. The music elevates the sense of urgency, danger, and action. Between going through each of the stages, there are moments when you have only ambient sounds, whether inside a desolate ammunition factory to corridors of an underground base, you feel ever more isolated, despair even, but ready, as you await the next onslaught.

The only real complaint I have with the audio are the voice overs where the volume seems quite low. To be honest, I could have probably adjusted some of the audio settings both for the game and the television but I didn't since I had the subtitles on anyways. If you are a person who doesn't like subtitles, this could be an issue.

CONTROLS

The controls were responsive and I had no technical issues playing the game on the Steamdeck using a generic bluetooth controller from about 8-10 feet away. The Steamdeck automatically mapped the controls to the appropriate layout. The button mapping is similar to what you find in most action games, where the left joystick is used for movement and the right joystick used for looking/aiming.

As I expressed earlier the audio and video coupled together enhanced the immersion by making weapons feel "punchie". The controls add to that immersion as the other part of the trifecta. Simple button mashing will not fire a gun passed its rate of fire. Melee weapons also have different swinging speeds and manner depending on the weight and weapon type. These different attributes either from projectile or melee weapons will affect play style and how enemies respond when hit. Combined together, the visuals, audio, and controls gives the overall feel of "punchieness" and impact.

GAMEPLAY

Warhammer: Space Marine, is a single-player, 3rd person, high octane action, wave shooter with linear progression with a strong narrative that expands the Warhammer universe. At first glance, the game feels like it is going to be a button masher but there is a quite a bit of strategy involved when playing. The game never really takes its foot off the gas. The only moments of reprieve are during the transitions from stage to stage usually coupled with the cut scenes after of which, where the next way point is clearly marked to progress. Each section typically introduces new and more enemies or obstacles. Often when completing a stage, each area often rewards the player with new weapons, upgrades, or buffs. Different combinations of weapons and strategic methods need to be used/implemented to progress further, building on previously completed stages.

The action in the game is very fast paced. The feeling of not having "breathing room" to collect yourself, does feel as though you are part of the battle that is being waged on the planet. You as Titus, with the other Space Marines are the only force that stands in the way of absolute collapse where everything feels epic and heroic (I had a buddy who played it after me and he physically sweat playing several sequences).

Warhammer: Space Marine is mostly a 3rd person action wave shooter with the narrative focused on Titus's story. Each stage unravels context to the overarching story and the immediate obstacle of enemy waves that need to be overcome. There are varying enemy types, with varying degrees of difficulty to defeat, where the player gradually builds on skills learned from previous stages. Again all of this is within the context of the lore, but not requiring any prerequisite to get familiarized with the main character and the inhabitants encountered in the game.

Jumping and climbing are omitted from the game. These two mechanics limit traversal through the levels and once the end of the stage is reached, there is typically a spot dropping the player down that prevents backtracking. Some stages have a jetpack, with a limited ability to fly and hover, that you must use to progress; once the end of that area is reached the jetpack is automatically ejected. Besides the cut scenes, dropping off a ledge, and automatic ejection of the jet-pack indicates the end of the stage to help keep the game moving along.

After completing most stages, the player is awarded with weapon upgrades, albeit with a limited number of slots available to carry in the inventory. These upgrades can be different types of guns along with a melee weapons. The player has a default gun that has unlimited ammo but requires a cool down to "recharge" to allow it fire again. Other weapons require ammo but need to be reloaded. Every weapon possesses different attributes that include but not limited to hit damage, speed of fire, close or far range, etc. Once you progress enough in the game, the player has the choice to decide what weapons they want from the weapons cache available to carry in their inventory before starting each stage. This allows the player to determine for him/herself the play style of how to complete an area.

The linear format of the game works well to manage action and pacing where some areas have unbalanced difficulty. From a narrative standpoint this makes sense; I would even argue that this game design is more realistic... Let me explain. Every encounter does not need to continuously aggregate difficulty, effectively adds variety to the progression. Yes, there are new enemies that are introduced but not each enemy shows up at every stage. Some areas are easy and can be played through once, others, require different strategies to pass and may require multiple attempts to complete. These ebbs and flows of difficulty restructures the approach for the player, where sometimes the game encourages the use of weapons that the player might not be comfortable using (sniper rifle to shotgun) however, can increase the chance of completing an area if used. Despite the difficulty swinging from easy to extreme throughout the game, this design results in a balanced game experience equal to the narrative that it is telling.

CONCLUSION

Warhammer: Space Marine II was released on September 9, 2024, 13 years after the release of Warhammer: Space Marine. Considering the hype that surrounded Space Marine II, that also piqued my interest, I found it necessary to play the first rendition as a prerequisite should I decide to play the second in the series. Needless to say, playing Warhammer: Space Marine, succeeded flawlessly and I am eager to starting playing the sequel.

Playing the game is not going to get me into table top gaming or collect figurines to enjoy Warhammer however, the rich, intriguing history, and lore captured my interest. I am definitely going to play several of the video games already available along with the sequel, while loosely keeping up with the lore. I am probably not going to be a fan at the level of Henry Cavill but to talk about the Warhammer universe is pretty fun, and to a lesser degree, I am casual fan.

Catching up on the lore while playing the game made me appreciate the Warhammer universe, considering how vast it is and understand and why it is so popular. Without going into detail, the Warhammer universe is about a "far distant and grim" dystopian future combining elements of science fiction and fantasy. Again, this isn't a review of the Warhammer universe, however it does add to the experience of playing the game knowing the context of the characters and the setting.

Despite the game's age, Warhammer: Space Marine still holds up as an enjoyable experience you can have today. The runtime is about 10 hours of action and narrative. Warhammer: Space Marine fully satiates the action genre craving and can be even more immersive should you decide to jump into the lore.

SUMMARY

• PRESENTATION: [😄😄😄😄😄] Bad-ass opening, sets expectation of action
• GRAPHICS: [😄😄😄😄] Comic book style, vibrant color pallet, smooth framerate, plenty of on-screen activity
• SOUND: [🔈🔈🔈🔈🔈] Great mix of ambiance and high tension music with some parts having low voice overs
• CONTROLS: [😄😄😄😄😄] Standard action game mechanics and responsive control
• GAMEPLAY: [😄😄😄😄😄] high octane action game, great narrative, encourages investment into Warhammer ecosystem
  • single player
  • 3rd person perspective
  • action focused
  • wave shooter, melee combat
  • linear progression
  • mixed difficulty
  • rich narrative