Review
By Tom Hoggins, Video Games Editor The Telegraph
The Gears of War boys have had it their own way for too long, swanning around as if mile wide shoulder blades and carving aliens into giblets was their idea. This is Warhammer 40K, and the original space marines want their chainsaws back.
Space Marine is a simple game for simple tastes. Take control of a hulking great Ultramarine called Captain Titus through a human forge world –a planet dedicated to making huge war machines– under attack from filthy orks. Turn filthy orks into claret smears across the wall, under your boot or on the business end of a really big hammer. And that’s about it. The good news is that the ork-splattering Space Marine provides is a little bit delicious.
While the Gears comparisons are certainly apt on the surface – Titus moves with real heft and is followed by an intimate over-the-shoulder camera – Space Marine does things a little differently in a few key areas. There’s no cover system, for a start, with the logical reasoning that a man who wears metal shoulder pads the size of Wiltshire doesn’t need to cower behind a flimsy wall. Space Marine also has a strong focus on melee combat, with most skirmishes throughout the game beginning with a firefight, before you wade into a sea of ugly greenskins and bash them around a bit.
In truth, neither the shooting or the melee combat is class-leading, but both are solid, satisfying and, perhaps most importantly, fit together rather well. Up close and personal attacks are simplistic light and heavy whacks, which can be chained in a handful of combos, and there is a brutal finishing move for each weapon you can administer to a stunned enemy. It’s pretty basic, but being able to slice through a squad of gretchen in a hulking yet graceful ballet, before spinning around, drawing your bolter and putting a round through an onrushing ork boy’s melon has its own thrill.
It works largely because of the excellent feedback Space Marine provides. Bullets shred through orks with tangible ferocity, while a smart mix of rumble, blood spatter and slow-motion finishing moves give the melee combat real heft. There is a little bit of tactical play at work in that your shield recharges over time, but your health doesn’t. But in order to regain some precious health, rather than finding a health pack, you must dish out one of those vicious melee finishers. The bigger the foe, the more reward. You still take damage during the finisher animation, so there’s a neat risk-reward element in wading in to desperately claw some health back, or trying to fall back and recharge your shield in an attempt to isolate an enemy ripe for the picking.
It’s a good job that the combat strikes such a satisfying chord, however, as Space Marine’s rhythm is decidedly one-note. The forward tilt of the game is so bloody-minded that variety can’t help but suffer. You’re constantly pressing on through unimaginative corridors, often ballooning into simplistic arenas, where you methodically pick off the horde of orks before moving out. Set-pieces are too few and far between. Which is a real shame, as on those rare occasions when Relic decide to change things up a bit, it’s usually successful. A thrilling rush through a train under attack from an ork gunship, or taking the turret of an airborne Imperial Valkyrie as orks with jetpacks cling to your allies’ ships like vermin. Best of all is when Titus has access to the jump pack and power hammer, allowing him to fly across the arenas before smashing down to earth sending orks scattering. A third act twist does supply a subtle shift in the routine bloodletting at first, but as with the other set-pieces, the game quickly falls back into an overly familiar pace.
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