ROCKETSHIP75

In-Progress Thoughts on Space Marine

Initial reaction: love it. I’m pretty happy with the campaign thus far, and the constant gory killing hasn’t gotten old yet, even though that’s all you really do. It’s pretty satisfying actually, running into a group of orks and laying waste. The weapons feel great, and I have no complaints about the heft or aiming mechanics.

The health regen system is also implemented pretty well. You have to keep an eye on it, especially when running in to the mass of orks, and plan a bit for that one ork you need to stun and bash to regenerate health. I’ve been near death so many times and have had to quickly pop an ork in order to keep going. It’s a refreshing change from the automatic, stand back and wait for a few seconds approach.

The overall character design is great. Sound design is great in every regard. The environments do feel a little bland. They definitely don’t look horrible, but it feels like the devs forgot to turn on that last layer of grit at times. Totally small complaint though.

Multiplayer is a mixed bag. I’ve been generally enjoying it, even though I’ve never been very good at the third person MP perspective. I’ve been having the most luck sitting back and scoping, which is funny because I never play (hate even) the sniper in MP games. The sniper in Space Marine isn’t so much a true sniper, more like a single shot battle rifle. It’s immensely gratifying when I’m able to hack down the players with jump packs, whose main weapons are the melee weapons, with my crummy battle knife in close quarters. Everyone loves the jump pack. The devs need to look into connection rates, as they are all over the board.

So should you get it? I say yes, but if you don’t have anything invested in the 40K universe, I think there’s little here that hasn’t been done in other games you’d probably like better. It’ll be an easy game to overlook, especially with Gears 3 right around the corner, which is a shame.

However, for those who have an investment in the universe, Space Marine is a dream come true. Being able to take control of a Space Marine and see the slaughter you can wreak (and not just imagine it on the table top) is immensely gratifying. I really hope this game does well and that the devs are given a chance to play in this universe again. It will be interesting to see how the community holds up once the big budget titles start dropping in a few weeks.