A First Review: Space Marine

Hello fellow gamers, I will preface this article with a solid recommendation for this game.

So after waiting and waiting I've finally gotten to play, beat, and love this game. Ever since it's announcement, I've been drooling and fervently praying to the Golden Throne it would come out sooner. Well the wait was most defiantly worth it. The game has just about everything going for it. Like everything new it has one or two things that it needs a tweak on, but I can't really complain about them.

So I wanted to look at some of the pros and cons as well as some interesting thoughts and speculations. WARNING SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!

Pros

1. The Scale
The first thing I noticed about the game was not only was the aesthetic perfect, but the size of everything was unbelievable! I walked out of the first building, and looked up, and up, and up. The environment is full of Giant Gothic towers, and huge manufactorums. Even one of the first missions has you push giant planetary defense projectiles into a huge cannon! Just awesome.

As you progress through the game more and more of the classic forgeworld look is visible, and I loved ever part of it.

2. The Battles
I have to quote Corvus on this one. "Everything you do just feels... epic." This is true Literally every battle is a fight, and on a huge scale. Hordes of orks, packs of deamons, and the foul forces of chaos tend to make everything a challenge... Hell even walking outside to take a piss would probably end up being a huge ordeal. That's exactly what the grim darkness of the far future should feel like.

3. The Space Marines
Now with the exception of my natural dislike for the sons of Rowboat Girlyman... the marines were fantastic... cept Leandros... The character models were very beautiful, and felt like they had a real bulk and weight behind everything they did. The voice acting was exceptional, and the characters themselves had great character.

My only real issue was a general lack of helmets, as well as the ones who did wear helmets didn't have that metalic vox sound to their voices. Would have loved to see this. I would have also enjoyed a little deeper pitch to the volume of the non-captain actors.

4. The Suspense
Now I do enjoy a good plot, which I'll get to later, but the game kept me wanting more. Even the ending had the added suspense of making me want more! Now that' a well done finish to make you want more.


Cons

1. The Plot
It seems to me that a long time ago when the original Dawn of War was released... this plot line had seen it's debut. Now it is a good plot... no qualms there, but I was a little bummed when I felt like I had done a lot of this before. Some things were a little different, but on the whole it felt a little copy pasted to me.

2. The Boss
This fight let me very underwhelmed. I expected a hardcore fight to the finish with a daemonprince. But what I got was a falling sequence with quick time events... wtf?! Come on! After the complete success of everything prior, I get this! I could barely watch the fight as I was to busy watching what button I had to press next. Bleh. Next time give me a boss I can actually fight.

3. The Ending
Ok, so while the ending left me wanting more... I feel it might be more or less because I hated the ending. Now I want to see what happens to Captain Titus, and hope Leandros gets hit by an intergalactic Mack truck, but after everything I went through... I felt cheated.

But beyond anything else what bothered me the most was truly because I'm a fan boy. MY TEMPLAR! I was so excited when i heard that the Templar would finally be in a game! I was ready to see them kick ass and then I got... well a very disappointing appearance. First, they all had the same character model (had to show off their custom skin instead of a little customization to the squad), they all carried bolters, and they were escorting a PSYCKER! WHAT THE UNHOLY FUCKEDY FUCK IS THIS!?! The absolute last chapter to have escorting a psycker inquisitor is the Templar! Uhhg.

Was not pleased by that fluff wrenching appearance. I'm expecting somewhere in the development stages of this game, Ward found his way into the room and planted another one of his "hey... wouldn't it be cool if" ideas into the team's fragile minds.


But I do have a puzzling thought. All of the pics released prior to launch have a squad of guys who do not seem to be in the basic game. Could this be the coop play they have talked about releasing next month? I'll bet it is. Notice that Deff Dread that was rather absent in the campaign?

So how again, if you havent played the game, I urge you to at least watch it. For the most part, everything is darn near perfect!

Cheers!