[the opening monologue to a different (but not too different) game] A while back, I talked about âE.Y.E: Divine Cybermancyâ. To say that game was a drug trip was putting it lightly, but it was a cool one, where you only get scared sometimes. I also mentioned that the studio had made a Warhammer 40K game, but I didnât say too much on it. With good reason, too, because, somehow, the game was even more Jank City than âE.Y.E.â They realized this too, and the base game has now been replaced with an Enhanced Edition. It runs way better now, and it looks sharper too, but just how enhanced is it really? Well, weâll see. Just keep in mind that this isnât going to be âE.Y.E. 2â or anything, so donât get too excited. [*POW*] (dying wail) [*POW*] (dying warble) Okay, there are weird similarities, but letâs start! What is a Space Hulk anyway? Well, in the real world, itâs a tactical board game that came out in 1989. They got two more editions after that, but I wonât get into it. Mostly because I donât have, like, a Viking feast table to fit it on⌠But the lore is very simple, so this wonât take long. You know how sci-fi settings have FTL travel and different âship goes fastâ ways? Well, in 40K, the human ships tunnel shortcuts. [daemonic laughter]
THROUGH HELL. These ships are old, and sometimes, the anti-Satan field stops working. They can be lost for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years. On occasion, they collide with other ships, or the warp spits them out in the same spot, and they become giant, hellish dust bunnies. THIS is our Space Hulk â a giant ball of space ship⌠stuff⌠that just happens to show up every once in a while. It could have lost technology, relics⌠Who knows whatâs inside? But it has been in hell, so probably daemons, or aliens have laid eggs in it⌠Itâs usually gonna be tyranids â theyâre hard to get rid of. So, when one does pop up, the Space Marines do too, in the fattest, biggest armor they have that can actually fit in a hallway. It keeps them slow, clumsy and vulnerable to ambush. So, off you go to find some stuff. If there is stuff⌠Okay, what does the actual intro say? BRIEFING: âCommand of the assault belongs to an Epistolary of the Librarium â a deadly battle-psyker of the Chapter.â BRIEFING: âLeading a specially assembled squad, the Librarian will investigate abnormal augur returns and psychic emanations from within the Space Hulk.â Yeah, itâs a âfind stuffâ mission. But then they twist it a bit. PROTAGUS: âPremonitions...â PROTAGUS: âThe aether gifts me visions. I see a threat far more deadly than gene-hungry tyranidsâŚâ PROTAGUS: âA scream and a dark promise⌠A ship in the shadow, a relic from our secret past.â PROTAGUS: âI feel the tightness in my gut, as I see a cataclysm as yet unseen.â PROTAGUS: âThe âUmbra Mortalisâ descends upon usâŚâ PROTAGUS: âThe shadow of death.â Alright, there could be more to it! But first, letâs start with the visuals. âSpace Hulkâ is already technically impressive, but itâs being backed up by some fantastic art direction. The stupid scale of 40K is all here, but thereâs also a sharp attention to minor detail. Because they are massive ships, but they still give you that sense of being lived in. For example, you could find a guardsmen armory with some of their equipment still there, or something like a study room in a library, or even a small officerâs room, which isnât crazy by itself, but then you get to these massive rooms, and itâs like âOh, the level of detail hasnât dropped... AT ALL.â Iâve seen big cities and outdoor areas in games, but nothing like this. At the time of this video, âDarktideâ isnât out yet, but I donât know⌠This is BY FAR the best-looking 40K game Iâve played. The environments have a good amount of variety, too. Because, yeah, you do have space ship church, and it looks awesome, but a Space Hulk is a bunch of different ships, so itâs not all cathedrals and âWorld of Warcraftâ login screens. For example, a Mechanicus ship is way more angular, and looks like it was built for efficiency. You still have the religious icons on occasion, but itâs definitely different. The Rogue Trader ship is even more extreme. No focus on worship â just exotic cargo and effects of the âI do what I wantâ contract. So, more Age of Discovery, rather than more space temples. Each of these maps are huge, too, so there is a lot to see. I have played other games where gothic architecture merges into sci-fi elements, but none do it as good as this. You can walk from a castle dungeon into a reactor, and itâs seamless. The levels arenât jarring or seem stitched together. They also remember that humanity isnât really the hero of this setting, but creepy. âQuake 4â body horror creepy. Which is great! Some 40K games gloss over how bizarre humanity is. In this game, they put that front and center. All the creatures, the equipment and weapons â they all look fantastic. Itâs a visual feast, so I donât see any problems here. But the audio is a different story. How about the music? [ambient hum] [ambient hum]
Yeah, this is the music⌠[ambient hum and clanking footsteps] [ambient hum and thumping footsteps] Now, this is atmospheric, but thereâs not that many environmental sounds in the mix. Most of the soundtrack is just background noises and an occasional, like, string sting, but nothing else. You can get away with that, like âArx Fatalisâ did, but that was incredible ambience work, and âSpace Hulkâ isnât up to that level. It also makes moments that could be exciting, dull. Here is a part where ship is exploding and you have to escape in time. There is no music, and itâs like effects are missing. [muffled footsteps and an anemic alarm] How about the campaignâs last stand? This is the final battle for victory. [sparse gunshots and enemy sounds] Itâs so empty. Not even a generic âDa-dun-dun, da-dun-dun, da-dun, da-dun-dun, da-dun-â There⌠Thereâs nothing! I thought this might be a bug, to the point where I looked up other peopleâs gameplay on YouTube, and no, itâs just like this. The sound quality is never bad, but itâs lacking in variety and impact. Space Marine Terminators are hefty boys, but so much soundâs underwhelming. [*shwoosh-shwoosh-shwoosh*] [muffled footsteps] Base those steps up, add some reverb to it! Weapons are a similar toss-up. The assault cannon is, ehh⌠ASSAULT CANNON: "BRRRRRRT..." SPESS MEHREN: âThey are coming!â ASSAULT CANNON: "BRRRRRRT..." Itâs not terrible, but the game itself shows how much better things could be. [punchy, medium-speed gunfire] Thatâs much more like it! So hereâs how all of this is a huge problem. This is a game where you gun down hordes of enemies. People compare it to âLeft 4 Deadâ or âPaydayâ or âVermintideâ. First of all, it is a lot different, but I donât want to get ahead of myself just yet. But all of these games do something very important that âSpace Hulkâ doesnât: they use sound and music to make the chaos more manageable. âDeathwingâ is a lot like those games when it comes to the horde combat. You know: managing crowd control, keeping an ideal range, targeting specials â all that good stuff. âSpace Hulkâ has several special enemies, but, in the thick of combat, itâs rare I can pick one out by listening. As a quick comparison, take ambient machinery, compared to a boss spawning. [low grunting of heavy mechanisms] [unimpressive hissing] Even in just the sounds of the level thatâs hard to pick out. Now imagine youâre fighting a dozen screaming gene-stealers when it happens. The only enemy I can reliably pick out are the exploding enemies, which are new to the Enhanced Edition. They have a weird warbling sound that makes them easy to pick out. [rapid gunfire and weird warbling] [weird warbling] [deliberate gunfire] Thatâs still only one. In the campaign, squad-mates will sometimes call out enemies, but itâs not reliable. If you play co-op, you wonât get that at all, because you canât tag enemies. The horde attack suffers a similar problem, because the other horde games might have boss themes, but they also have it for when an attack is coming. Here, you donât get any of that. You might hear them, but they donât make a lot of noise on approach, so youâll usually look at your radar, but thatâs breaking down all the time. As I said before, itâs old equipment, so, sometimes, it randomly stops working. Even when it is working, I donât get much info out of this. Motion doesnât always mean a tyranid, and I donât know what the numbers are, so⌠oh well. Iâm gonna compare the sound design. Might as well use âVermintide 2â, since itâs another Warhammer game. Just listen to the difference. [chaotic sounds of battle are punctuated by characters' callouts and comments, on top of a tense music theme] [some gunfire and enemy yelps] [insidious Skaven whispering] PLAYER: âAssassin up ahe-ead!â [character warns others of approaching enemy] [growling of enemies and clangs of melee strikes] CHARACTER: "That Pack Master will trouble us no mo-ore!" đ [dynamic music theme] [the standard affair] It takes away a lot of energy and excitement that the combat could have. Now, âVermintideâ isnât perfect or anything (I mean⌠ughâŚ), but audio alone is miles better. [*BRRRRRT*]
Also, it bugs out sometimes. [*BRRRRRT*]
Thereâs more to say on the combat, but I wanna step back to the campaign for now. [*BRRRRRT*]
I had to restart the game for this one⌠The game has a typical training level to get you all caught up on the basics. This usually isnât worth mentioning â you adjust your settings, rebind your keys â except, this time, I realized I couldnât rebind the melee key from Q. This was the first sign something was going to be very strange about the melee. So, consider that some more foreshadowing about the combat. The first map is a huge, interconnected sprawl. Every map will be like this, and knowing how your local areas are laid out will be the key to success. You play as a psychic Librarian, and can equip yourself before the mission, but you donât have much to play with just yet. With you are two squad-mates you can also re-equip. Thereâs not much more here yet, but that might not matter for one squad-mate, since you wonât ever want to re-equip him, for reasons weâll get into. The first mission doesnât have combat for a while. It lets you soak in the atmosphere and get the handle on things. For one, you can command your squad, using a radial menu. It does its purpose, but itâs not ideal. There arenât that many commands for it anyway, so you should just memorize the hotkeys. This will save a lot of clunkiness and panic-clicking in the future. The other important element is hacking. You only do it with doors and turrets, and donât need to play a JRPG this time. For turrets, you just open up the map, and, if oneâs near enough, you can hack it automatically. This wonât pause the game, so you are vulnerable. There are a few kinds of turrets, and some are much more useful than others. However, they all have to be controlled manually. To the point where, if you activate a dormant turret, it starts shooting at YOU, so you need to quickly hack it a second time. Iâd try to be careful, but Iâd still own-zone myself from time to time. It is useful for scouting ahead and clearing out a waiting ambush, but itâs not a âthick of combatâ kind of skill. Unlike door-hacking. No map needed for this one â you just use the interact key on a door. You could find a locked door that makes a good shortcut, but maybe it was locked for a reason. Now, this sounds mundane, because, you know, itâs opening or closing a door, but the swarm is relentless, and controlling the flow of enemies can win a battle before it begins. Steadying up your lines of fire and not getting surrounded is essential. So, sealing doors prevents that, but it also cuts off your escape, so, be careful. There is a little more to this, because, additionally, some doors are busted and canât be hacked anymore. After a while of playing, you get a good sense of which doors should be locked down. But a permanently sealed door needs the Emperorâs guest key⌠[*whack*] âŚwhich means thereâs no sealing up that hall anymore. You need to assess the risks of where they spawn from, and then seal those doors. Thatâs the plan for⌠every map, really. Jesus Christ, there are a lot of doors⌠Itâs methodical and tactical and not fun to engage with, because Iâm closing a door. Itâs accurate to the tabletop, and itâs fun to ollie out of a situation by breaking a door down, but you have ancient and wondrous ships, and the only way to interact with them meaningfully is through hacking doors and turrets. If you could set other traps or mess with machinery to your advantage on top of that, it could be a cool element. On its own, it seems underdeveloped for an FPS, and there is a reason for that. As far as actual mission objectives go, thereâs nothing special. âFind place to shoot thingâ, âdefend point for a whileâ â thereâs nothing standout in a good way, as far as those go. Whether youâre playing campaign or multiplayer, thereâs some collectible relics to find. In the campaign, these will help increase your score, which will give you more skill points for you and your squad to play with. In multiplayer and special missions, they give your character more XP to level up faster. Iâll touch on both those progression mechanics in a bit. For now, I can say itâs still underwhelming. I didnât feel too inspired to march across the map, looking for everything, but I went back and found them all, and there wasnât anything special. For now though, I wanna talk about the finer points of combat. Starting off with good news, Iâm pleased to announce that fuller auto has returned. [*BRRRRRRT*] [*BZZZZZZT*] You donât get the ability in campaign, but I still wanna use that on the Vengeance. [punchy, medium-speed gunfire] Here we go! [still punchy, medium-speed gunfire] Itâs bugged and doesnât workâŚ? I canât... use fuller auto on itâŚ? No, that canât be right â not after⌠not after this year. It has to! It doesnât⌠Ugh⌠When it comes to weapon choice, âSpace Hulkâ has a good variety. There is a healthy amount of ranged weapons, like the flamer, the plasma gun, the shotgun and the storm bolter, among others. From there, you can mix and match them with several melee weapons, or go full melee. In the campaign, as a psyker, you have access to powerful magic. You have an opportunity to unlock even more powers, and thatâs absolutely worth it. Some are locked to the campaign BECAUSE theyâre so absurdly powerful. [*POW*] Outside of the campaign, you can instead switch between classes. Each has special abilities to use, instead of Librarian magic. So, when it comes to having options, itâs good. There is a lot to mix and match and try out. Ranged combat keeps you playing a lot more tactically. You need to set up a good line of fire and be aware of the map positioning. The bugs will EAT YOU ALIVE up close. Staying as far as possible to slap them from range is the ideal. If ranged combat has an issue, itâs that there is some lack of feedback, which will start to show itself more and more on harder difficulties. Sometimes, enemies will stagger or fall back, but usually one of two things will happen instead. One is that they explode into red mist and die, which⌠thatâs good. The other is that blood flies out of them, while their animation continues as normal. The blood is a ridiculous amount, so, ironically, I donât know how much Iâm damaging them. Sometimes, they stop in their tracks, but the animation jitters and freaks out. They go back to what looks like an idle standing animation, then fall over and die. Itâs somehow being stiff and weightless at the same time. Ranged weapons can feel more like theyâre stun-locking the enemy, rather than impacting them in a meaningful way. Itâs hard to put into words. Uhm⌠It feels more like Iâm⌠tazing enemies? They occasionally go âAH!â and stop, but then keep running. Itâs not horrible, but it gets noticeable, because youâre doing this over and over again. What is horrible is going full melee. I was going to say that itâs decent with a few enemies, but itâs not a game that only has a few enemies, but itâs not even that. If they die instantly, you might think that, but beyond that, it falls apart. See, thereâs a block move, but thereâs no cancelling a swing (not even a little bit). For example, the Lightning Claws. Here, I am mashing the block button after taking a swing. Itâs bound to Mouse 2, so Iâm clicking fast. Thatâs your response time up against this. You swing like a drunk bear, and itâs unbelievably clunky. Just to make it worse, you canât use a class skill or a power while swinging â like a shield or something that could save you. Range has the same issue, where you canât use a power while shooting, but it is so much worse in melee. Thereâs so little power to it â thereâs not even a running charge attack. You can sprint up, stop, then swing. Itâs ironically better not playing a close combat build. Youâre likely to have already wounded them from range, so, when they get that close up, you just smack them and they die (which is the one way to make it satisfying here). [chaotic sounds of battle] PLAYER: âOh, thereâs a big oneâŚâ [chaotic sounds of battle] This is the Enhanced Edition. What the hell was it like before? Oh, yeah, thatâs right â Enhanced Edition added suicide bomber enemies! Donât play melee. âRipped my fucking pants!â Oh, right, did I mention that ranged weapons can jam? At random? So hereâs what I think happened⌠This is a game where you could be four lanes of fist. Why is everything so off? I thought a lot about this, and I think I understand what they were doing. I said I wouldnât talk about the board game much, but I will talk about the video game adaptation of the board game (which you canât buy anymore, which is a shame). The original âSpace Hulkâ is a tactical squad game. You fight gene-stealers in cramped hallways and the restriction is the challenge of the game. Terminators canât shoot past each other, but gene-stealers melt. At the same time, theyâll rip your Terminators apart in melee, and fast. So itâs all about keeping range and good positioning. Also, smashing through or sealing off doors, and clever use of choke points. You might have to take actions to fix a weapon jam or another unforeseen disaster. Sound familiar? They didnât just say âLetâs make a âSpace Hulkâ-themed FPS.â Nonono: âLetâs convert the tabletop ruleset for âSpace Hulkâ INTO and FPS.â This is the exact kind of experimental, weird idea Iâd expect from the people who made âE.Y.E.â But âE.Y.E.â wasnât about shooting four-armed monsters with a big gun in a hallway over and over. [rapid fire in controlled bursts] Okay, it was partially about that, I admit it, but itâs not a restricting game. [dying wail] Levels are more open, with verticality, and you can move all over. There is a huge amount of powers and weapons to choose from. âE.Y.E.â is Jank City, but it can be a blast. âDeathwingâ is so restricted, and by design. I guess they successfully converted the board game. As it turns out, the result isnât very fun. Imagine if someone did that to, say, âX-Comâ? Your gunâs shots will randomly miss way off course. Sometimes, your character panics and runs off to the side, or does something out of your control. It would be like that. However, itâs possible that this formula still could work, but the game is so clunky that I canât tell. Iâve only mentioned it a bit up until now, but there are so many bugs. So many times a screen was stuck for a while, or a squad mate got stuck on something. One time, I loaded a mission and instantly won. Again, this is the Enhanced Edition â I have no clue how bad things were before. There are flashes of cool gameplay, but everything else is so clunky and unpolished that it weighs it all down. I knew things were bad when I was looking around at the levels and going âWow, this would be great if it was a⌠different game.â Maybe an ARPG, like âHellgate: Londonâ, but less of an MMO? The multiplayer stuff has a ton of customization stuff in it. The bayonet there doesnât even do anything. Okay, so how about the campaign specifically, and the story for that? There looked to be SOMETHING going on there. BARACHIEL: âWe have to quickly destroy the archeotech engine!â NAHUM: âNothing can be done hastily and prudently, brother Barachiel.â BARACHIEL: âSo answers an Apothecary!â The story is so⌠nothing. âSpace Marineâ is a Scorsese movie, compared to this. The story doesnât respect your time, so Iâm gonna gloss over it. You shoot gene-stealers, they want to get the Chapterâs gene seed, but they donât. Thatâs it. The worst part is they have these surreal vision sequences that hint that something more is going on. There were only two or three, but then they stopped, because the tyranids want the gene seed. I actually thought it was a dropped plot point, because the reveal was so mundane I didnât know it was a reveal. You can play the campaign in multiplayer, but there are missing cutscenes and story elements, because it doesnât matter. The final cutscene is a minute-long explosion, with nothing else. Not even a voice-over or text box â you just watch an explosion. Honestly, I wouldnât care about it that much, but they pad out the campaign. There are nine missions, but the last two are the same maps. They donât even bother to move the relics around, so you find new relics in the same spot. Well, itâs not all the same â they do spice up mission 8 in a very⌠different way. An escort mission⌠Itâs so slow⌠Remember when I said how big the maps are? This guy goes the long way around. Cover the C.A.T. while it hacks this door. Again, and again. Please, hack it. Come on, youâre here, hack it! Oh my God⌠Itâs been a while since Iâve seen a game with padding this blatant. If this mission was cut entirely, the game would be better for it. The final mission is another reused map. The objectives are far apart from each other, and timed. When you get to the goals, they spice things up by spawning big nasty monsters on them. Itâs not AS terrible as mission 8, but it adds nothing, except to my misery. [Marv scream] I wonât think about that anymore, but I will touch on the campaignâs mechanics just a little bit. I might as well, since some of it does feed into the multiplayer. One aspect of combat is that you never run out of ammo â you just got to reload sometimes. Healing is another story, as, in the campaign, you have to rely on your Apothecary squad-mate. He only has a limited number of healing charges. However, you have a limited ability called a Psy-Gate. This lets you teleport home, automatically heals you up, refreshes your squadâs healing charges and lets you rearm. It also takes roughly 10 seconds to launch, so, if you slam it in a panic situation, itâs likely already too late. Not the most abusable of escape plans. This gives an opportunity to rethink your plan and switch out weapon throughout the level. Which is cool for you, but your squad will be limited. For one, their weapon variety is extremely restricted, compared to your own. Itâs also locked off by skills. The most you can earn is 4 points after a mission, and youâll never max out the whole thing in a single playthrough. The bars between the skills do nothing â you just have to put points in them to get to the next skill. So⌠more padding. But there are skills like âsquad-mate can now equip a plasma cannonâ, â10% extra armor for alliesâ, âallies can now use a Thunder Hammerâ, âput points in to reduce hacking timeâ or the ultimate skill â âfor your bravery and fervor, a holy relic which makes your weapons immune to jammingâ. The only real game-changers here are the new psychic powers you can unlock. Some of the squad weapons stuff is baffling. Because, if you equip your medic with anything outside of the default loadout, they canât heal you anymore. You will not survive the death march without a healer. Your chances are better in multiplayer, but you should really have a healer there too. That means you have a line of progression, which actually means regression, if you use a skill in it. Compared to banishing people to the Shadow Realm or using the âPrince of Egyptâ fire tornado, I donât see the point. The system seems like a clunky afterthought for the singleplayer. Luckily, in the Enhanced Edition, multiplayer is very expanded. Each class has several different powers to play off your strength. Whether itâs a melee frenzy, or summoning a skull probe, there are a lot more options here. The Librarian is also around, but he just doesnât have all the big powers you have in singleplayer. Cosmetically and mechanically, there is a ridiculous amount of stuff to customize. All the upgrades have a model on the character â itâs promising. The single- and multiplayer special missions actually work identically to how it does in âE.Y.E.â You pick a map or a playlist to load your group into, and it chooses objectives randomly. So, in theory, this should be highly replayable. However, remember how bad I said the bugs were in singleplayer? Those were NOTHING compared to the multiplayer. TIM: âBabyâs first Unity gameâŚâ MANDALORE: âIs he, like, charging up something, orâŚ?â TIM: âNo, heâs justâŚâ TIM: âOh, heâs dead.â [*ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding*] MANDALORE: âTheyâre behind you.â DIMITRI: âWhat do you mean behind me? I havenât spawned in yet.â NIKO: âOh, this is weird, because youâve spawned in front of me, and youâre just standing still and being killed.â SPESS MEHREN: âBrother, I am pinned here!â Donât use the proximity mines â Iâve had them stuck forever before. Try playing the game when you canât shoot. Yeah, Iâm stuck teleporting in again... I donât think this is happening. Despite the clunky combat and everything else, thereâs still fun to be had in multiplayer. But itâs still horribly, HORRIBLY unpolished and buggy. Game-breaking and crashing bugs. I checked multiple times and settings, and I never saw more than two games going â usually itâd be empty. After all Iâve played and seen, that checks out. If you wanna play game like this with friends, you could play âDeep Rock Galacticâ or a ton of others. When you level up and gain a random item, itâs so uninspired. Like here: âRanged damage boost 10â, which increases ranged damage by 10%. Itâs so uninspired and boring. You play on the same 8 maps, doing the same thing. A few enemies might have a different re-skin, but thatâs it. There are enemy recolors, but exclusive to a Twitch integration voting system. I canât describe how much that blows my mind. Such a simple parameter to add a little bit more variety, and itâs locked into Twitch. Iâm gonna end things here, before I go crazy. Second only to âFire Warriorâ, this is the most frustrating 40K game Iâve ever played. Itâs not the worst by far â itâs just so agonizingly, tauntingly close to being good. The polish is so bad that I canât tell if the concepts would work. The art direction and environments are amazing, but thatâs what youâre getting the game for. Everything else is way too scuffed. Itâs not deep enough to be a good tactical game, and the combat is too clumsy, and youâre too vulnerable for it to be a good power fantasy game. It should be about $7 on GOG by the time this video goes up, but Iâm not even sure thatâs worth it. Every other Warhammer game is on sale there. In fact, every game should be, because itâs the Winter Sale. I still wanna see more from this studio, whether itâs another 40K game, or an âE.Y.E.â game, or something new, because they do have interesting ideas. This game feels too restricting for what I know they can do. I would love a surreal 40K game from them. Do the weird parts of the âAstartesâ short! Because, ultimately, I think âSpace Hulkâ works better in its original intended form â an overhead tactical game. Still, next time weâll see what these ships were like when they were functional. See you next time! Live mas! [*DONG*] Piotr Zawadzki: âConsidering there is a Warhammer marathon, will [you] cover some of the older games?â It wonât really be a marathon this time. I plan for one after this one, and then Iâll wait for âDarktideâ. I have âMark of Chaosâ in mind for around then, but Iâm really realizing how many horrible Warhammer games there are. Iâll wait until things have calmed down in my life, until I subject myself to them again. matrix_909: âWhich game company do [you] think has fallen farthest from grace?â Iâm gonna say BioWare, and far before âMass Effect: Andromedaâ or âAnthemâ or anything like that. Iâd guess the most popular answer for that would be Blizzard, but I didnât get into their games that much, besides âDiablo 2â and âWarcraft 3â, so I didnât get to see that rot-away firsthand. Logan: âAny plans for a âPhantom Painâ video this coming year?â Maybe. Because I do wanna do some longer games in 2021. The âKingdomâ and the âKingmakerâ, some âDecadenceâ and âATOMâ in there maybe⌠With âPhantom Painâ, I need to figure out how to backup my save properly, because I donât even want to say what my staff levels were at. I played A LOT of FOB missions. I honestly wish that more games had that âbuild up a baseâ thing in the background going on, but most of the ones Iâve played are very surface-level. Including âPhantom Painâ, but thatâs all for now. RIMINAH: (gives marital advice in divine cybermanese)
Oh Mandalore, I can tell you how it was before with an old post I made on this topic...
I really wish Space Hulk: Deathwing wasn't a horrendously broken mess at launch - still could be for all I know; as I never returned to it. This was a prime example of a game that could have finally been an amazing Warhammer 40,000 FPS if it had only been pushed back another year or so.
As I mentioned above, some of this might have long since been addressed and patched; but that doesn't change the fact this was a broken mess at launch that no amount of incense or prayer to the Omnissiah could save. Maybe one day we will get a good Warhammer 40,000 FPS...but Deathwing certainly isn't it.
All they had to do was make left 4 dead 40k. It always amazes me how people fuck up so bad with the 40k license. Well at least we have darktide coming up and I trust that to be decent.
I knew this game was a disaster on launch and I stayed far away from it. I heard this review was coming up and was curious if it had gotten fixed. It somehow has very positive reviews on steam.
But no, it still looks like things are pretty bad. Doesn't help that it seems very few other people are playing it to play with.
Its a real shame with how nice the environmental work looks.
Long story short: Its not good.
Its repetetive, unintuitive, buggy, glitchy, badly implemented in general and just plain not fun.
I got it free through Humble Bundle and still regret wasting the 12h it took me to complete it.
Unless you really love Warhammer 40k or dont mind glitchy messes, im sure you wont enjoy your time.
Any recommendations for someone who digs the aesthetic and lore but will be passing on this particular game due to reasons stated in the video?
I find it hard to disagree with Mandalore's very critical look on this game...but I still kind of really like it. Not in a "this is an amazing video game" kind of way, but in the same way that I love all those games I play for 20 minutes each that I end up with after a buying a big bundle of weird games at a market. The act of actually playing Deathwing is not good at all, but it just absolutely NAILS my personal fantasy for how a Space Marine game is supposed to look and feel - Heavy, hulking walking tanks. Its like, for that one thing alone, it redeems itself. I just wish that it had more for me to recommend it on
If anyone cares like any game this is much more fun with friends and the campaign really isn't worth it. I'd recommend picking it up on a hefty sale which is a shame because I want to support the game but it really isn't worth more than like $10 right now unless you're okay with the grind
I enjoyed my very slight time with this game. I have such a baseline understanding of 40k but this game truly was really cool to me. I might just redownload it. I donât have anyone to play it with though but oh well
The one thing I may have to disagree a bit is with the call-outs/cues for some of the enemies. There are a few more that he glossed over.
Stalkers, or stealthed Tyranids cause your sensors to go to static. They do have a unique sound about them too, but it can be hard to miss in the fray. Your NPC team-mates call them out when they are nearby. I seem to remember there being a call-out for some of the larger enemies too, but it wasn't anything too obvious. I think it was something along the lines of "atypical warrior detected" or something kind of innocuous sounding like that. Apparently they don't always do it either.
There might be a few others. I seem to remember a call out for some ranged attackers, like gene-stealers with missile launchers, or the psychers.
I can't blame Mandalore for missing that too much though. The vast majority of the babble that comes out of your teammates is useless. Often you will have a few tryanids pop-up only for your teammates to say "they are overwhelming us!". On the plus side, the voices do sound like they belong in 40K, so they got that piece down atleast.