The release of Space Marine was a very intriguing event. It’s been a long time since anyone has done or tried to do good action games. But many had high hopes for the quality of THQ products. The trailers were intriguing, the gameplay videos looked very tasty… and what did we get in the end??

The plot of the game is not very good. The Orcs decided to fly down and knock on the Mechanicum on the planet Graia. Paratroopers from the Order of the Ultramarines arrived to help. Well, then according to the standard scheme: Guard, Inquisition, Chaos, Titans, Warp… in short, not impressive. Closely related to the plot is such a thing as entourage. Did the developers manage to convey the spirit of the world of the distant future?? Yes and no.

First of all, I don’t understand why the main characters in the Warhammer world always end up with the same faces. If the paratroopers are the Ultramarines, if the Guard are the Cadians… does THQ really not know that there are many more orders here?? They should have taken the Dark Angels or Salamanders and made them the main characters. Although, it’s probably worth saying thank you for not highlighting the Bloody Ravens, who had imposed themselves on everyone. Secondly, we are fighting on a forge world. Let me find out where all the Adeptus Mechanicus went? Or do you want to say, a hundred Skitarii died from the clutches of orcs faster than some Guard?? And this, for a second, is the world of Gray, and the troops of this world have always been famous for their stamina and inflexibility. Well, okay, let’s put them down and really suppress them… but then where did the corpses go?? Why are there no traces of them left at all, as if the orcs simply evaporated them??

But otherwise, the screen is indeed a Warhammer 40 setting.000. The environment is impressive, the spirit of the world is conveyed quite well… in a word, apart from my minor quibbles, the game at this level left me quite satisfied.

Let’s move on to the more important thing – gameplay. Space Marine is a completely classic third-person action game. Is that, in addition to shooting games, there is also hand-to-hand combat and in this regard the weapon system is quite interesting.

The hero always has a pistol with an endless supply of ammunition (but this does not mean that it does not need to be reloaded). Complete with a pistol, the hero takes a one-handed melee weapon. In addition to the pistol, Titus can carry up to three special guns. And the variety here is quite considerable – bolters, plasma weapons, melta, and laser cannon… very rich. And, most importantly, most of the weapons are quite usable, just for different conditions and enemies. I can probably name just a few completely meaningless trunks right off the bat. Well, a couple will be replaced as the game progresses with more advanced options (for example, a basic bolter). In addition, from time to time we will come across stationary heavy guns on carriages. It’s quite possible to tear them away from these same gun carriages and drag them along with you. In this case, their ammunition suddenly becomes finite, but the destructive power of such a thing – God forbid everyone. But with such a bandura in his hands, Titus will move somewhat slowly. At worst, there are also grenades (not the most valuable thing, but let them be).

Besides all this, there is also the Storm Hammer, a two-handed melee weapon. It has enormous power, but allows the hero to carry only one barrel in addition to the pistol, which can sometimes be very critical.

The combat system in Space Marine https://noverificationcasinos.co.uk/review/tikitaka-casino/ is pretty ordinary. There are ordinary enemies, there are “fat bastards” (sort of mini-bosses) and a couple of bosses. Everything seems simple. But everywhere there are nuances. The enemies in the game are very diverse and capable of various dirty tricks. Some will roar closer to you in order to set poor Titus’s jaw, others, on the contrary, will prefer to scream harder and finish you off from a great distance. This is where most of the guns in the game make sense. For some it will be very convenient to kill fat enemies at a long distance, for others it will be very convenient to get rid of crowds of small items, and so on. But there is no need to talk about any complex and well-thought-out combat tactics here – just know, sit in cover and shoot the advancing enemies in time. That’s all. However, as we progress through the game, the gameplay will still change somewhat – at the beginning we will mostly be with a saber drawn and screaming “FOR THE EMPEROR!» chop everyone into cabbages in close combat, then, when more cunning enemies appear (for example, squigs with bombs, some kind of local kamikazes), you will begin to behave more carefully and use small arms more often. Towards the end, when the orcs are replaced by chaos, you will increasingly have to sit behind the barricades and conduct short and furious firefights, hoping to take down the most dangerous enemies. Of course, no one limits you. If you like, you can at least play through the entire game exclusively with a chainsword and faith in the Emperor. Yes, it will be more difficult, but it is quite possible.

In view of the large number of shootings, the question probably arises – what about in the game with cartridges?? And with this… it’s strange. Sometimes you will come across some kind of “universal refills” that will replenish the ammunition of all the hero’s guns. Sometimes you will come across just lonely barrels lying around, designed to replenish a specific ammunition. According to my personal feeling, there are a number of problems with some guns in the game, since they have little ammunition, and it is replenished very rarely. So, the use of some guns needs to be thought out in advance, and not wasting all the volleys of a laser cannon on the first squig that comes along. This is why melee combat until the very end of the game will be a more than meaningful choice.

But… I can say exactly one thing about melee combat in the game – boring. There are no special tricks or combinations, just know, click everything with the mouse until you die. At first, the somersaults that Titus performs in battle with enemies will be impressive… but they quickly become familiar and boring. Therefore, close combat is needed, but, alas, it is nothing special.

Oh yeah, melee has another fun feature. The fact is that the hero’s health is conventionally divided into two bars. If you look at his health bar, you will probably notice that initially he is surrounded by a golden aura. So, it’s not just like that. The hero is protected by an energy field and the first thing the enemy will do is break it. If the field’s health reserve runs out, health begins to be removed. And the thing is that the field recovers itself over time. But health – no. But it can be easily replenished – during the battle, a button will light up above the heads of wounded enemies, which must be pressed. If you do this, Titus performs a spectacular finishing move and restores some of his health. While Titus is busy with this fascinating process, he receives temporary invulnerability. But all this beauty only works in close combat.

In addition, a couple of times during the game you will be given the opportunity to jump on a jump pack. By the way, handling this thing within the game also infuriated me – Titus jumped to his heart’s content and threw the backpack anywhere. And this, for a second, is quite a relic of the Order, a piece of ammunition that you just can’t get. Why he throws away valuables so easily – I don’t understand. But okay, these are minor things and in general I digress. The jump pack is a funny thing, actually. The maps suddenly become multi-level, and you can crush enemies with your weight… but alas, despite all this, the maps are rather empty. Their open spaces are often not occupied by anything special – no enemies, no special secrets. The only thing that is scattered throughout the locations are audio diaries and servo skulls (which are also audio diaries). They won’t give you anything special, they’ll just allow you to immerse yourself a little more in the atmosphere of the Warhammer world. But we will return to the issue of cards later. As for audio diaries, I have something to say.

The thing is that in the game itself, no one will ever explain to you what the Codex Astartes is and why you need to obey it so much. That is, for beginners the plot will generally look like some kind of deranged nonsense, in which not a damn thing is clear. And, according to the developers, Vakha’s world will be revealed more fully through diaries. Wonderful, but that’s why they are then turned into secrets that must be tediously and carefully sought out? Not everyone will do this, and without looking for them, a beginner will not learn anything from the game at all and may consider the world of Warhammer to be some kind of delirium of a madman.

Finally, Titus has just one ability – Fury. It opens during the game and improves a couple of times during the game. The idea is simple – while you bludgeon enemies, the energy scale gradually fills up. As soon as you fill it out, you can turn it on. In rage mode, the hero restores health, receives an increase in damage dealt, and in aiming mode, a slowdown is activated. By and large, nothing revolutionary again.

It should be noted that Titus is accompanied on missions by two partners. But they don’t carry any meaning – they don’t even take much part in battle.

And in fact, there’s nothing more to say about the gameplay. In general, the developer has something to praise for – we are constantly being put in new conditions. Either you fight in city ruins, then inside factory complexes, then you fight off orcs from the insides of a landing shuttle, then you find yourself in a sandstorm… so during the passage, you will not be completely bored. And different types of weapons can have completely different mechanics: plasma can overheat if you shoot too much from it, an assault bolter spends ammo twice as fast as its fellow, and so on. But with all this, the gameplay of Space Marine is quite monotonous and is not capable of giving something fundamentally unprecedented. The maps here are terribly linear, and periodic “multi-leveling” is not really implemented. This is a solid third-person action game in the Warhammer 40 setting.000, quite interesting, but nothing more.

The game also has an online mode. By the way, it still works and the servers even have their own regulars. And here again everything is somehow ambiguous..

Here you are allowed to play only as Space Marines – Imperial and Chaos. But they don’t have any fundamental differences other than appearance. There are three classes of heroes – tactical paratrooper, stormtrooper (chaos raptor) and devastator (chaos devastator). In principle, everything is simple (and even backwards). Tacticals are armed with bolters or special weapons. This is a kind of “average” Titus from the campaign. Stormtrooper is a guy with a jump pack. That is, he has a one-handed weapon and a pistol. Jumps, catches unwary tacticals and, especially, devastators. Ravager – slow guy with a big gun. Stands and showers everyone with heavy fire.

As the game progresses, you gain experience, which you then spend on improving yourself and customizing your heroes.

I confess – I don’t remember how many online game modes there are in the game. Initially there were two, later the developers introduced several more (in particular, in one of them they let you play with a dreadnought). But all this is not particularly important due to two critical shortcomings that practically put an end to the network mode. Firstly, the game as a fact does not have an enemy selection system. So the newcomer is dashingly thrown towards the veterans, who have the most advanced weapons in their hands. And secondly the cards. There are few of them and they are too huge. You will run long and hard from the respawn point to the place of the mess, which completely discourages any desire to play at all. Most of your time will be spent not on combat, but on trying to get to it. I need to clarify how “interesting” this is?

In short, Space Marine turned out to be a pretty average toy. Linear, monotonous, sometimes ill-conceived. Not the worst entertainment, especially for fans of the setting. But it’s unlikely to keep you busy for long..