This game is pretty fucking awesome. You are chunky and weighty but with that chunk factor comes great power. This is a power fantasy through and through and it really nails it. You are an unstoppable force of death as you would want to be as an Ultra Marine. The weapon arsenal is varied, and while there are objectively better weapons over others and some just get permanently replaced, the early phases of the game do a great job with pacing in terms of enemy variety/introduction and weapons. The game will often present you with weapon stashes that allow you to both ammo up and also swap up weapons as you see fit. You're not always presented with all possible weapons, which may be a subtle way the devs tried to encourage and design encounters with specific weapons in mind. That said, you can always hold on to the weapons you like since the game provides "general" ammo crates that will refill all weapons types.
There is a clear inspiration from Gears of War. Both in the chunk factor of the protagonist but also in the muddy and drab brutal industrialist aesthetic of the game. The main difference being the removal of cover based shooting. This is great for the first half of the game where you are fighting Orks. They have a tendency to charge at you with reckless abandonment and try to bonk you on the head. Those they stay back and shoot are often quite inaccurate and it's easier to dodge. This design allows you to seamlessly transition between melee and ranged and maximize your carnage which feels very satisfying. The boss fights in this game honestly suck. Though I do like the elite Orks. Chaos Space Marines can eat my shorts. Fuck those guys.Pro tip, 3 quick shots from the Lasercannon will kill them. Once I figured that out, I always kept that gun strapped to my back. Really trivialized these bastards.
Where the combat starts becoming a bit tedious and less enjoyable is the second half where you are being bombarded by Chaos. The fodder ranged units are so frustrating to fight. They fire rapidly and precisely and will tear you into ribbons in a matter of seconds. While I always like to see game devs design encounters, the issue here is that these later ranged enemies feel more in place with a cover based shooter than a melee/gunplay hybrid. They force you to basically play a cover shooter without a cover mechanic to support it. So you will awkwardly hide behind boxes/crates and pop in and out to pick these bastards off one at a time. Fortunately they die very quickly. Though the Chaos Space Marines are as chunky as you and include regenerating shields to boot. Then there are the weird Eldritch mages who are THE WORST. If you are in their line of sight, your health evaporates in seconds. Likewise with the Chaos Space Marines, the Laser canon makes quick work of them. Only 2 shots. And the first will stun them.While this shift in enemy design can be a bit frustrating, it was still fun overall. With only a hand full of encounters that felt mean spirited. Including the final encounter right before the QTE final boss.
Melee combat isn't particularly complex. You just mash one button over and over again and will automatically combo. You have a stun attack and an execute. The execute is one of two ways to get back your health, and leaves you vulnerable to attacks. So it's possible to start an execute and die during the animation. Which honestly is a good design decision to keep it challenges. Still, as the game progresses to droves of ranged only enemies, suddenly this mechanic is no longer viable. Another mechanic, which gets upgraded over the campaign, is Fury Mode. This will regenerate your health and became my only way of healing from the midpoint forward. In addition, while in fury mode, you also eventually get bullet time. Which is quite useful in the bullet hell sequences with the forces of Chaos.
There are also 3 set pieces where you get the iconic Space Marine Jetpack and it's fucking awesome. You go from being a slow chunky bro to a deadly jet fighter. Flying up in the air then divebombing into the enemies creating explosive gib pinatas. For two of these sequences you get the Thunder Hammer which feels amazing. This hammer is balanced by preventing you from using any of your special guns. So you probably won't use this outside of the jetpack sequences since the Laser Canon becomes pretty essential in the ranged focused enemies of the second half. These set pieces weren't particularly challenging, nor were they designed to be, so I understand why they restricted them to a handful of set pieces. I wouldn't have been upset with a few more of them though. Or maybe replace that crappy QTE final boss with one more fight with the jetpack? You're already midair for the whole thing!
I honestly think the game looks good even by modern standards. The dynamic lighting goes a long way to elevate the visuals and honestly shows us how little games have developed graphically. Running this game at 4k only looks slightly worse than a contemporary bloated AAA game. Don't get me wrong, modern game engines are objectively capable of rendering more complex worlds. You can now render significantly more enemies on screen at once (something the sequel to this game is leaning hard AF into). But aside from those gimmicks, the quality of what's rendered is honestly not that much better from what you see in this game. Dynamic lighting really hasn't evolved much since 2011 and it just goes to show how much impact on a sense of realism dynamic lighting can have and when done artfully. There are lots of invisible walls and often times how they game prevents you from going a direction is through a comically low wall or fence. The limitations to the jetpack sequences I would also bet were a result of engine limitations. It's easier creating high vertical space for a few hand picked arenas than it would be for the full game. Still, this limitation does make the jetpack sequences stand out more so it's a good compromise. I am curious about the sequel to this game, though the multiplayer does the whole CoD progression thing that I don't find remotely appealing. To be fair, that was present in this game too.
One major criticism I will levy against the level design is I found myself often getting turned around and going the wrong direction. While I don't think the art direction is bad and sometimes it can look pretty damn awesome, sadly apocalyptic brutal industrialist buildings all kind of look the same. They do include a function to occasional place a marker of where you need to go. While I'm glad they included it, better level design to effectively direct the player would have obviously been better. The band aid solution worked, but not a seamless solution.
I guess the only other commentary I have about this game is in it's themes. While I don't think this game is trying to make any philosophical commentary beyond "Green is dead," Space Marines are a clear representation of Fascism. You can look at this in one of two ways. 1.) a satire of the ideology in a similar vein to Star Ship Troopers/Robo Cop 2.) Romanticizing it. I think there's merit to both arguments. I personally fall under satire because of how absurd, over the top and silly the Warhammer world is. The creators of the tabletop game certainly were aware and had their tongues firmly pressed against their cheeks. Given how faithful the devs were to the Warhammer lore, I have to imagine they are in on the joke too. But in case you have any doubts about the symbolism, you have the prominent skull on the armor. You have the removal of the individual in favor of the nation (this is expressed in almost every line of dialogue/mantra in the game). You have violent and fervent suppression of any ideology that is deemed deviant (Chaos as heresy). War and death for your Country is considered the greatest honor an individual can pursue. You have the cartoonishly evil enemies that have no semblance of humanity (propaganda from these types of regimes always dehumanizes anyone deemed as opposition to justify political violence against them. Using the word "vermin" often to describe any dissenters). The main difference is Paul Verhoven very clearly communicates his satire through the use of the hilarious propaganda videos/ads in both movies. Not to mention it's no coincidence that Neil Patrick Harris is dressed as a Gestapo officer for most of the movie... that still doesn't stop people from loving the movie for the very wrong reasons (being the very thing the movie is making fun of). But like both of those movies, there is a contrast between gratuitous violence that is grotesque with heroic and triumphant music blaring. You are meant to have fun with Star Ship Troopers and Robo Cop. They are gleeful yet incisive political satires. Likewise, this is meant to be fun like Helldivers 2.
This game is certainly flawed but honestly is pretty underrated. It's fun and the Warhammer Lore/world is popular for a reason. It doesn't overstay it's welcome though the transition to ranged combat focused doesn't leverage the game mechanics effectively. I'm very curious about the sequel but will not pre-order it. I've been betrayed by AAA releases far too many times. Still if it's good, I'll def check it out. In the meantime I will play Boltgun.
