Space Marine is a third-person shooter based on the 40 000 Warhammer role-playing game. The gamer plays Captain Titus as he lands on the Forge World Graia, a planet infected with Orks.
His team of space marines realise that things are not as simple as they seem, and trundle off to find the nefarious forces behind the invasion.
Enemies in the form of Orks and chaos marines are numerous, and Titus spends a lot of time mowing down wave after wave of thousands of Orks. The player is able to use a combination of melee weapons (oversized hammer, chain-sword or axe) or ranged weapons (machine guns, sniper weapons or explosive weapons), and, at certain points, can use a jetpack in combination with the hammer to smash down large groups of enemies.
The game looks and feels like Gears of War (GOW), from the look of the characters, to the movement and combat dynamics. For example, using the chain-sword to execute someone is similar to using a lancer in GOW. The main difference in the gameplay is that the player trades the cover system of GOW for a more involved melee system.
Unfortunately, the combat dynamics do not change too much as the game progresses - players get more effective melee and ranged weapons as they play, but these don't fundamentally change the way the game is played. Similarly, the bad guys don't really advance, and the bosses can usually be defeated with a simple strafe-and-shoot technique.
In summary:
Overall, this is a fun but simple hack-and-slash game that would appeal to a wide audience, despite its simplistic gameplay. Even though the story is not terribly engaging, it held my interest for most of the way, and I recommend Warhammer 40 000: Space Marine to anyone looking for a filler game.
Pros: Mindless slaughter, captures the spirit of the Warhammer mythology, decent 12-hour campaign
Cons: More of the same throughout the game, poor Gears of War imitation, very little weapon and enemy progression
Rating: 6/10
Time to completion: 12 hours
Moment of the game: Going into the slow motion 'ranged fury' mode and performing 13 consecutive exploding headshots
Achievement difficulty: 7/10 (big contingent of multiplayer achievements)
Price: R505
Contact: BT Games - www.btgames.co.za
Combat dynamics add some interest to the game. Activating 'fury mode' gives the player a damage boost, recovers health and generates slow motion aiming. And, even though the shield recovers automatically, the player can only recover health by performing executions. This mechanism forces the player to switch between using ranged- and melee-based attacks.
The multiplayer option has only two modes: a team death match mode called Annihilation, and a king-of-the-hill mode called Seize Ground, and there are only a handful of maps.
At the beginning of the multiplayer game, the player chooses from three character classes (a heavy gunner, a swordsman and a mixture of the two), which offer different advantages and disadvantages; but unfortunately, they are completely mismatched, and the melee combat is clunky.
One aspect that would appeal to Warhammer fans is the ability to paint and customise the characters. Unfortunately, the immaturity of the combat dynamics makes for a poor online experience.
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