Review: Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine (Steam)

by Jim Smale · August 5, 2020

In Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine you are Captain Titus, a Space Marine of the Ultramarines chapter and a seasoned veteran of countless battles.

Pros:

Really good high detailed graphics.
9078mb download size.
Steam achievements.
Steam cards.
Controller support.
3rd person shooter gameplay.
Graphics-aspect ratio, resolution, shadows, visual FX detail, post-processing, v-sync, ambient occlusion, and gamma.
You play as an Ultramarines captain and are aided by Blood Angels and face off against Orkz, Chaos, and chaos space marines.
Collectible audio logs.
Controller settings-on/off, 3 button layouts, 2 stick layouts, aim assist on/off, invert axis, and sensitivity sliders.
Online-Vs/exterminatus/private/customizer/leaderboards/challenges.
The campaign has five acts.
Level select. Can choose an act, level then checkpoint.
Can replay levels.
3 difficulties-easy, normal and hard.
The Space marines and enemies are highly detailed.
Takes a lot of inspiration from Gears of War. And a little of Halo what with the way the shield works and the noise it makes.
Strong voice acting talent.
The really good story accompanying the cinema level cutscenes.
Weapons-you unlock them over time and get alternatives for each slot (four total).
Toys-you get to use a jetpack and can do ground slam moves, or get a huge Warhammer (pun) and can do amazing levels of damage but lose the ability to use guns.
Finishers-stun enemies and press a button to do an execution move which heals you but is also done in the pure slow-mo badass set piece. Each weapon does different executions.
Quick weapon select with the d-pad.
Pick up ammo and grenades from boxes.
Aim down sights has a cool feature whereby when scoped on an enemy you see a skull icon, this is dab handy when your sight is compromised.
Boss encounters.
Impressive enemy numbers on the screen, a lot of set pieces play out like a Left 4 Dead set piece with the screen filling with enemies.
Some environmental destruction.
Very satisfying and fun end of game boss fight.
The shooting just feels really meaty and punchy, from shotguns to snipers every gun is fun to use.
For a lot of the game, you have AI partners with you.
Mounted guns that can be ripped off.
Great locations.
Brutal melee combos.
So much fun to play.

Cons:

No cover system.
Few instances where the button prompt wouldn’t come up.
Had it where my gun wouldn’t fire at the start of select levels.
You can still get hit and even die when doing the execution kill.
Difficulty spikes with huge mobs appearing out of nowhere.
A lot of grey, black, and brown colored environments.
Can only get health from execution kills.
Ammo can get quite sparse later on especially with shotguns.
Only one grenade type.
The last act minus the boss fight is just a case of the game throwing everything at you over and over.
Levels can feel the same with a lot of empty corridors and obvious encounter rooms.
No FOV slider, it can feel very close at times.
The camera can go crazy in tight spaces.
Bad checkpoint ING and restart points.

9/10

Graphics - 9/10
8/10

Sound - 8/10
8/10

Accessibility - 8/10
8/10

Length - 8/10
9/10

Fun Factor - 9/10

8.4/10

Summary

I find myself still awaiting the delivery of the new Warhammer 40k Indomitus box to drop through my letterbox, and to get me in the mood I am going back through my enormous backlog of Warhammer games. First up is Space Marine, I only dabbled lightly on this back on release so I relished going through it with new vigor. Within one level I was hooked, the graphics, especially on the Marines, were so good and the way blood splatters on it during battle is just so badass, another winning point is the game plays just like Gears Of War minus the cover system (shame as it could use it) and I mean ALOT like Gears of War down to the same control layout and reload button, enemies I’m glad to say didn’t stick to one type. I thought it was just me vs Orkz but no, Chaos turns up and the totally awesome looking Chaos Space Marines! Now I love me some variety and the story was captivating and really good at introducing these factions and giving them a reason to exist in the game. Weapons wise it also doesn’t disappoint, at regular intervals you would unlock access to a new gun or melee weapon which meant at checkpoints you could swap weapons around. OK so for melee you can use your chain sword, that’s fine but then you can use a power axe and shit goes up a level but man I ain’t finished yet! Get your hands on the Warhammer thunder strength thing and boy oh boy you have a riot on your hands! The gunplay from snipers to pistols to bolsters felt really meaty and had a lot of weight to it, they made every enemy encounter insane by adding Left 4 Dead enemy numbers, you just get swarmed and it’s so much fun to blast through. Aside from that, you will have boss fights which are self-contained arena type deals, and a lot of walking through dark corridors and for me that’s the one thing I didn’t like, walking through endless corridors with bland colors and nothing to look at or fight it sucked the fun out of the last encounter. They use the Gears of War technique of having you use the radio and whilst in use you can only walk, this again drags the game back. Couple that with a few random glitches and enemy spawns it can have sticky moments but overall I found it to be a lot of fun and with it taking under 10hours it fit right into my schedule, it has aged really well and is still worth playing to this day, I never got to the multiplayer but I hear it is somewhat active. In short Warhammer 40k, Space Marine is still a great game!