Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor - Martyr (2017)

Beat as assault crusader. I got this free for xbox gold and it looked cool, but I was dismayed to discover that I had to sign up for an account with the developer. I almost did not play it at all. Shouldn't have to sign up to anything to play singleplayer. I was also getting a lot of live service vibes from seeing crap like seasons, cosmetics, multiple currencies, and the like. I was initially impressed by the gameplay as the areas looked great, the story was high production with voice acting and video, and the gameplay was a mix of Diablo, twin stick shooter, and tactical shooter. The game would later show how it was quantity over quality as the game dragged on and on. I quickly learned that the maps were meant to be rushed through rather than explored. Sure I could get pitiful amounts of money by destroying random things, but meaningful interaction (like the barrels and chests of Diablo) were minimal. The stages became very similar and disjointed as I moved around to different planets fighting different factions of enemies that felt the same. Not once did I see a 3 way battle with different enemy factions fighting each other. And the sheer amount of dialogue eventually got on my nerves, especially when it repeated during random missions. Double especially when it happened during combat and I couldn't even hear it over the fighting.

The best part of the game was the beginning tutorial section until you get off the Martyr. I think the game would have been much better if you were not rescued at the end of that tutorial and instead were left to fight and scavenge your way through that massive ship alone; instead of gallivanting around in a space ship like it was Mass Effect. I started on Extreme difficulty, which just made enemies 3 levels higher than me. It was challenging at first as I had to take cover and use my shield block to close in; pick off enemies at range, throw grenades, take over turrets, etc. Power sword + suppression shield was my main weapon. The sword had a basic attack, which I spammed, and a small area hit which I only used occasionally. The shield had an area attack which could knock enemies down, and the block. By high levels I would knock down big enemies over and over, and try to time blocks to mitigate some big telegraphed attacks. My second weapon set was ranged and I actually used that more than melee, only switching when enemies closed in or my gun overheated. The laser gun was my choice for the entire game. The basic shot could pierce enemies leading to massive damage if they were bunched up in a choke point. It also put a heat vulnerability debuff so I found it useful to apply that to individual targets before using the second repeated fire attack, which did the best dps but only hit 1 target and rapidly made the gun overheat. The 3rd attack was a sniper shot that did massive damage and damage over time but had a cooldown. I could also hold the button to try for a headshot in the silly minigame; that was fine for starting a fight but pointless during. The last attack was a ghostbuster style beam that pierced enemies, made me move backwards, and was free aimed instead of the usual auto aim. It was best for dealing with large groups and singling out a priority target behind minions. Later I learned the focus target button to help use the other attacks on specific targets. I tried out every other style of 2 handed gun (didn't see the point in dual wielding pistols) but none of them were as good as the laser. They either lacked range, damage, versatility, or synergy. The only flaw of the laser was that it did not have any anti armor attacks. I didn't like the plasma gun, flamethrower, gravity gun, melta gun, and whatever other energy gun I am forgetting. The auto gun and heavy bolter were ok but not as good as the laser. Ammo guns did not mesh as well with my style of front loading ranged damage followed by melee while the gun cooled. The power axe was the same as the sword while the hammer had a knockdown that when combined with the shield allowed me stun lock champion enemies. I overall found the higher dps of the sword better. At late game I tried out a greatsword and the spin to win attack was great for massive groups. I preferred demolition armor and frag grenades to provide more area damage since I put most of my points and perks into survival and did not need additional survival.

In fact the game became too easy as I was not taking enough damage to be threatened. Eventually I found an item that clued me in that there were higher difficultly levels. I found the interface for that and played the rest of the story on Impossible (+5). Now the game was challenging again though there were some dumb missions where I had to lower the difficulty. Ones where I had to protect a friendly or fail were either impossible or took multiple attempts. And the last mech mission where I had to fight a boss mech was literally impossible with it having so much better stats than my mech and no way to get away to heal. The only reason the other mech missions were doable on high difficulty was because dying was not mission failure. The mech had dumb abilities (the tank in that 1 mission was much better with a self repair) with me having to stand still for minutes on end to heal up. I didn't like how the constant beam attack was incompatible with the beam shot. It was not fair using vehicles on high difficulty when my character's stats had no bearing.

In the beginning I went around to each planet doing random missions, until I realized they were pointless and probably infinite. Later I learned the button to open the mission list so I could skip the stupid animations for traveling around in space, and focused on the story. I finished just under level 60. The final boss took forever to kill and I dared not melee him. Then I had to talk to the girl but the game bugged out and would not show the press A to talk. Seriously after that long gruelling fight I have to abandon and restart? But turning on tactical mode fixed the problem as I randomly mashed buttons in frustration. Then I poked around at what else there was to do; random missions with the silly Uther's tarot random penalties. I did 1 priority assignment and liked the choose your own adventure style choices, but they were few and far between. It was just more random missions. Void crusade was interesting with some risk vs reward choices for how to progress. It was of similar vein to the dungeon delving in Mechanicus but with less depth and risk. Worst case you do too many missions that up the enemy levels until you make them too tough to beat. Otherwise the missions were the same random fare. I was unable to beat the wave defense mission at this cathedral being sucked into the warp because the enemies got higher level with each wave. It was not long until they were too high to defeat. Maybe I could beat that at max level. Then I did warzone which was even more boring than random missions such that I stopped after part 3 of 5.

The very last thing I did was try out the other 2 classes, completing just the tutorial. Subclass only seemed to affect starting gear and order of unlocks. I played a sniper assassin and tried out a few new weapon types. The sniper rifle had a basic shot with knockback, an explosive area shot with cooldown, a big damage aimed shot with cooldown, and a faster firing mode with less damage per shot. There was also a laser sniper rifle with basic shot, rapid fire similar to the laser gun, a cooldown sniper shot, and the last was a massive shot that put the gun into overheat. I could see switching back and forth between the 2 being a good strategy but it annoyed me that pressing weapon swap did not interrupt reloading. Well if I wanted to wait for the damn guy to reload I would not need to switch weapons. I also found a regular laser gun and found it better than both sniper guns. Maybe it was just me, but perhaps the game needed better weapon balancing. The 2 handed sword was interesting when things got close range. I suspect this class would end up playing similarly to the crusader. There were 1 or 2 new rifles unlocked at higher levels that I did not get to try. Then I did an empyrean psyker to go full mage mode. I felt like I was missing some mechanics on this class as there was talk of warp heat, warp rifts and blessings but I did not see any of that. I just shot stuff. The force staff fired a penetrating shot like the laser gun which seemed to have no reloading or heat to limit its use. The 2nd attack was a lightning bolt that functioned like a shotgun. 3rd was a fire vortex that moved around after enemies on its own and was sweet. Then last was a manually aimed beam. There was a focus item that could be equipped in the grenade slot that gave a short range fire shield but I doubt that would be better than grenades or personal force field. The fire staff had the same abilities except the first was a slower explosion that had a small area effect. I switched it out for dual wielded force rods which had a rapid fire single target shot. It was a lot of fun switching back and forth between the staff and rods.

Overall the game was fun with good weapon combat, though I would much rather play with a mouse and no auto targeting. I loved the Guild Wars 2 style weapon abilities and the sheer amount of lore and world building. The main story was decent enough but it sucked that it ended on a cliffhanger to continue in the expansion, which I am not inclined to buy. The game did a lot to get on my nerves and waste time: ridiculous loading times, incessant audio dialogue and exhausting loot. I dreaded going back to the ship to sort out my loot after every mission because it was such a tedious process to examine each item to see if it was an upgrade or not. Most items had several stats to look at, and rarity color and level requirement were no guarantee of good stats. There was a crafting system that I never played around with and it had options to salvage all gear by rarity, but that did not address the issue of having to examine the stats on every item to see if it is an upgrade or not. I miss the good old days of Diablo 1 where the stats were simple and you could tell stuff at a glance; unidentified blue bastard sword: yes please. This was the single worst part of the game that would deter me from playing through again as another character. I did like how different characters share the same currency pool and unlocks though. I never did unlock the suppression tree from sidequests and would probably need a second playthrough to get that.

7.0/10

My guy ended at level 64 with 22 toughness, 10 warfare, 5 virtue.

My perks were: artificial organs 2 for health and regen, augmented body 2 for suppression and damage resist, and attack anchor which gave up to 60% boost to damage for standing still. If I wanted more survival I would swap out anchor for eternal warrior for a free life. Or I could swap out the 2 survival ones for damage: designated marksman and heatsinks for a total of +75% ranged damage. I found the damage setup better for regular enemies and survival important to handle the biggest enemies.

I put my passive points nearly maxing out the Health and Defense trees. 5 points in movement to get immunity to slow, stun and shock while exposed. Holy rage and daemonic lore in the Puritan tree. 16 points in ranged combat to get sniper’s mark 20% damage boost. Then 4 points in single target damage to get the 8% damage boosts. At this point I have 3 unspent points and don’t know where to spend them. I want some extra survival from the suppression tree. Heat damage would improve my laser gun while melee combat would require a huge investment of points to get the capstone.

Gear:

Orange power sword: level 63, 93 damage, 8 deflect, shock on crit, +7% stun on crit, +11% shield drain, +13% damage bonus to next attack on deflect

Orange suppression shield: level 63, 89 damage, 23 deflect, chance for attack to become armor piercing equal to deflect (like 60% based on my total stats), +9% physical damage, +15 loot quality, +11% damage for assault skills (sword has none so useless)

Purple signum: level 59, 22 damage, +7% physical damage, +11% damage bonus while protected, useless poison damage buff

Green signum: level 62, 18 damage, +10% damage while protected, +10% physical damage, +6 crit strength, +13% damage for fleshbane skills (sword has none so useless), +11% damage vs champions

Purple lasgun: level 58, 164 damage, 30 overheat, +27% effectiveness of vulnerability debuffs, +49hp on crit, +23% chance to shock on crit, -35% overheat, -17% supreme cooldown for short burst (which is irrelevant because the cooldown is low enough to be spammed anyway)

Purple signum: level 59, 20 damage, +4% crit, +9% ranged damage, +11% damage for fleshbane (which lasgun has), +15 loot quality

Purple signum: level 47, 21 damage, +10% damage when protected, +10% crit damage, +8% damage vs regular enemies

Purple inoculator: level 60, 20 capacity, +3 toughness, +331 hp, +35% medical supply charges, 15% chance for champion and elite enemies to drop a supply charge. It has 2 red slots and I like using the big complete heal and the small 20 seconds of regeneration. The green slot boosts capacity while the yellow slot gives 20 seconds of +10 supreme damage reduction. I found I rarely needed to use healing because I was so tough, and when I did need it I was then good for a very long time.

Purple demolition armor: level 61, 28 damage reduction, 11 resist all, 312 hp, +12 heat resist, +7% damage reduction while protected, +307 hp, +12% suppression damage reduction, 3 empty sockets

Gold purity seal of wrath: level 56, 400 suppression, fear enemies while enraged (which I don’t have), +6 resist all, +12 physical resist, +44% hp from attributes, +3 toughness

Green frag grenade: level 61, 477 hp, +12% effectiveness of vulnerability debuffs, +307 energy shield, +16% damage bonus for frag grenade (the only stat I really care about here), +29% damage bonus for burning

Orange eye implant: level 57, 19 focus, +16% damage bonus for next attack on taking a hit, +6% damage bonus and resist all when no nearby enemies, +10% to slow on bleeding

Purple main implant: level 60, 528 hp, 301 suppression, +364 hp, +13% damage vs slowed, shocked and stunned enemies

Purple neural implant: level 57, 496 suppression, +7 heat resist, +5% movement speed, +10 warp resist, +4 hp per hit, +20% chance to resist knockback and knockdown