The Wrath of the Space Marines

This review was originally posted on my Facebook page. I have a few more I will be moving over here in the next few days. I added the trailer to the bottom which I will be doing with all my reviews from now on. Apologies if you've read this before.

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In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war. For more than ten thousand years the Emperor of Mankind has sat in His deathless state upon the Golden Throne. Not alive, but never truly dead, He is master of man by the will of the gods and master of a million worlds by the might of His inexhaustible armies. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium to whom a thousand souls are sacrificed each day so that He may never truly die. Billions give battle in His name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst His soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, His Space Marines. Bio-engineered super warriors formed from the genetic material of His sons, the Primarchs. 

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine puts you into the Power Armoured boots of one of the Emperor's finest as you battle to save the Forge World Graia from a deadly Ork invasion. The planet is a main production hub of one of the Imperium's most important and powerful weapons, Warlord battle class Titans, monstrous humanoid machines capable of leveling entire cities. The beginning of the game centres around Captain Titus and his squad mates, the grizzled veteran Sergeant Sidonus and the recently promoted initiate Leandros as they drop to the surface of Graia and move to secure the Titan production facility. Millions of Orks have swarmed across the world, decimating the planet's defense forces and burning and looting everything in their path. Your squad must cut a hole through their ranks and move to take the production facility before the counter-invasion can begin. 

Typically, someone lost the keys to the giant murderbot.

Combat is bloody and ferociously fast passed, seamlessly slipping from dealing death with your boltgun to slicing greenskins into bloody chunks with your chainsword. Enemies range from sniveling, shrieking Grots right through to huge, hulking Nobz who take a fearsome amount of punishment before being put down. Your Power Armour will give you protection in the form of a rechargeable armour bar but your health can only be replenished by performing executions; special power moves you can perform on a stunned opponent which will cause a gory, satisfying kill animation. There is a slight problem here however, as enemies can still hurt you while the animation plays out, leaving you vulnerable for a few moments. Luckily your health bar will almost totally recharge after every execution, meaning that you're only in trouble if you have really low health.

The games controls are well done, making it easy to pick off targets and maneuver Titus across the battlefield. Your character has an appropriately heavy feel, being the power armoured super-human that he is. Surprisingly cover is a no show in this game. The Space Marines of the Warhammer universe are typically described as being able to shrug off all but the highest powered attacks, your power armour and the lack of a cover system gives you that slight feeling of invincibility as you stride through a storm of gunfire. As you slaughter your way through wave after wave of Orks you will slowly build your Fury meter. When activated Fury acts as a kind of bullet-time mechanic, slowing time and making your attacks much more powerful. Entire waves of enemies can be mowed down with your bolter or chopped into pieces with your chainsword in a few short moments, making Fury a useful when you're almost down and out. Fans of 40k will be happy to know that the game pays homage to a sizable portion of the Adeptus Astartes arsenal. Your main weapons are of course a bolter and chainsword, but plenty more make an appearance including Plasma Cannons and the Thunder Hammer.

Relic and THQ have done a good job capturing the grandiose scale of the Warhammer universe in the scenery and locations throughout the game. Towering manufactories dominate the landscape and your first target on landing is a huge orbital defense gun. Dark, gothic architecture features heavily and is rendered expertly. Warhammer aficionado’s will recognize the many and varied symbols dotted throughout the world such as the Aquila and the Cog symbol of the Cult Mechanicus as well as the haphazard Ork banners and towers. Warhammer has always been about scale. Everything is bigger in this universe, from the super human Space Marines and the mighty ape like Orks to the planet-wide cityscape you battle in and the game delivers no less on this scale. It is a pity however that the graphics occasionally give everything a cartoony look that feels out of place amidst the blood and gore. 

Ha har! Jokez on you space marine. Oi ate me muthaa!

Unfortunately there are some problems with this game that drag it from being a truly epic struggle, worthy of a place in the Imperial Archives, down to a standard battle that threatens to be lost to antiquity. Space Marine is a very linear game, forcing you along tight corridors and throwing wave after wave of cannon fodder onto your guns. Exploration is occasionally rewarded with pickups like extra ammo or a Servo-Skull (which provide some back story in the form of audio clips) but these are rarely a challenge to find. Melee fights become repetitive as you only have a small repertoire of melee moves which are all activated by the same button combo regardless of weapon and after the thousandth time you hear an Ork scream, "Waaaaaaaargh!" you'll want to tear your ears off. As mentioned the graphics are sometimes a bit on the cartoony side, detracting from the overall feel of the game. The lack of a co-op mode, either online or split-screen is also a glaring omission in a game that should be about squad based combat. It's also disappointing that such a small amount of unit classes made it into this game. There are unfortunately no controllable vehicles and only standard Space Marines make an appearance. No Terminators or Dreadnaughts or Killa Kans this time around.

However none of that should stop you playing this game. Space Marine delivers in the fun department and that's what it's really all about in the end. It has an engaging story that will hook old veterans and new recruits alike and the combat is appropriately gory and fast paced. The multi-player modes are also a great way to kill some time with friends. Classic team deathmatch makes an appearance as well as a 'horde' mode called Exterminatus where four friends can battle wave after wave of Orks for experience to unlock upgrades. This is a fun addition to the game and the ability to use the fantastic Assault Marine jetpack more (it is fairly limited in the campaign) is very welcome.

"Hey Bob, you hear a whining noise?" "Nah, it's prob'ly your imagination."

The enemies of the Emperor fear many things.
They fear discovery, defeat, despair and death.
Yet there is one thing they fear, above all others.
The wrath of the Space Marines.

This gamer gives Space Marine a 7.5/10

FTL: Faster Than Light

FTL: Faster Than Light is a game from new start up Subset Studios. It is a graphical roguelike game focusing heavily on space combat and micromanagement of your star ship's crew and systems. 

Unlike most space games FTL puts you in direct control of your crew, which you will use to man systems aboard your ship such as Helm, Weapons, Shields and Engines. Each crew member is capable of gaining experience depending on how they're used and more experience translates to more proficiency at any given task. Man the weapons system for long enough and your weapons will charge faster etc.

FTL focuses on controlling your ships systems through power allocation. Your ship has a reactor, which provides a number of 'power bars' which can be allocated to power up a system. Systems without power cease to function and at half power will only function at half capacity. The reactor and systems can be upgraded, providing and requiring more power respectively. The exception to this rule are the subsystems Helm (piloting), Sensors and Doors. These subsystems do not draw power from the reactor.

Divert all power to FUN.

The objective of the game is to reach the final sector. Your ship is carrying information vital to the success of your political faction (The Federation) in your war against your opponents (The Rebellion) and you must explore and fight through 7 randomly generated sectors to get to the 8th and final goal.

As with most Roguelike games FTL features random map and loot generation. This can make for some very frustrating play throughs if the RNG doesn't throw up a good weapon or forces you to face off against too many tough enemies early. All in all though in my many runs through this game I have found the randomness to be very consistent and well implemented. 

Each dot represents an FTL beacon. All of them have events of some type.

FTL has two difficulty modes. Easy will be accessible to most players, even those who are not familiar with the roguelike genre. Increased resource gathering and decreased enemy strength really make Easy feel quite breezy (sorry but The Robot Overlords demanded I work one rhyme into this post) while Normal ups the difficulty quite sharply. You will die and die often in FTL.

She's breakin' up Cap'n! I cannae hold 'er together!

FTL will set you back a measly $10 which is an awesome price for a game with this much 
replay value. There is a lot more that I could write on this game and I will probably do up a tips/game-play guide sometime in the near future, so keep your eyes open for that.