Space Marine - First Impressions

Hey all, The Grizz here. Since yesterday the couch and my butt have been inseparable. "Why is your posterior unable to remove itself from directly in front of your Plasma Screen Grizz?" you ask. "Two words," I utter, "Space Marine".


Words cannot describe the nerdgasm that is Space Marine. From the time I put it in the Xbox I have been hooked. The campaign is a lot of fun. You are a Space Marine captain deployed to a forge world overrun by an Ork Horde. It is up to you and your veterans to save the planet and vanquish the Green Tide. Oh yeah, and there's daemons. Take that. 

The missions are pretty straight forward, and the controls are easy to get a handle on. The Melee system is pretty neat, and allows for some Tekken-esqe combos. Nothing about the gameplay is awkward, everything flows pretty smoothly. The only thing that I have missed is the Gears of War cover style. There is no way to properly hide behind cover, but then again You are an Astartes, a Captain no less, so maybe cover isn't a big concern for you.

pshh Cover, Who needs that?

You get a multitude of weapons, each with a different purpose (wait till you vape an ork with a meltagun for the first time, nothing but red mist and a "HOLY SH---!!!!!!" ). All of the wepons save one is from the actual 40k universe, so it should look pretty familiar. 


The multiplayer is a blast. There are only two types of games thus far, Seize Ground and Annihilation (see what they did there?) , but honestly, when you play CoD or Halo, how often do you deviate from slayer/deathmatch? You level up much like CoD, to a maximum of 41 (41 levels, 41st Millenium, if you haven't noticed there is a theme here..) and gain new weapons, perks, and armor along the way. The real cool part of multiplayer, however, is the customizer. 

This allows you to make your own chapter to play with in multiplayer. And believe me, whatever your chapter looks like, you can make it in the customizer. In the paint section, all the GW paints are in there. So if you painted your Marines Mechrite Red, you go over to the colors and select Mechrite Red. Pretty cool, Right? Last night I was literally up till 2am paintin power armor. The Chaos armor is the same way. So if you can dream it, you can fight against other nerds over the internet wearing it!

Graphics = Epic

The Graphics really are top notch. Everything is rendered smoothly, the Space Marines look amazing, the world is all grimdarkly proper. Usually games like this lack in either graphics, story, or gameplay, with the company just trying to scrape as much money as they can out of the title alone. As much as we bitch and moan about Games Workshop bein too overprotective of their IP, it made Space Marine what it is -epic. GW doesn't want their IP to go to the crapper, so they made sure that everything was right and perfect. Honestly that is what made the game for me, how you can tell that GW wanted it done right.


Relic/THQ nailed it. There is no other way to say it. The Ultramarines act just the way one would expect an Ultramarine to act. The Guardsmen look/act just like Guardsmen. A bolter looks and sounds just like I always thought it would, I mean I could go on and on. This game is 100% 40k and 100% fun. As a 40k fanatic and a video game nerd, its like a double whammy of awesome. 

Oh yeah, did I mention you get to shoot Storm Boyz out of a Valkyrie?

The greatest element to this game as far as getting you into character, however, is the health system. Your health doesn't regenerate, there are no health packs. There is only one way to regain health - kill. By doing certain attacks, you regain health. And once you've killed a multitudinous amount of crap you can unleash your Fury Meter. This also fills your health, and makes you uber marine, boosting damage output.


This element is integral to this game, as when you are hurt, you aren't looking for a place to hide, nor are you running from your enemy. You wipe the blood from your mouth, heft your chainsword, and charge straight into the horde, killing all that stands before you. That is what it means to be an Angel of Death, to Know No Fear. That dynamic is what makes Space Marine great. They put you in the power armor and tell you to " 'Ave a go at 'em".

Now I know that it seems like this post is a whole lot of "blah blah awesome game blah blah cool great blah", but in all honesty, if you love this hobby like I do and are into video games, there is just no way you can pass this one up. So go out, buy the game. You can thank me later.