["Deck the Halls" and sounds of brutal carnage] The dark chill of winter is here, so it’s the perfect time to talk about a game that takes place entirely on a factory hell planet. Good old “Space Marine” – third person shooter and home to the world’s most honest main menu. If you have any cultural or religious objections to Ork violence, well, now is the time to go. For Captain Titus here, peace on Earth comes from Ork genocide. The only Christmas treats he carries detonate above ground for maximum flavor. (off mic) It didn’t make sense… Okay, it’s not a Christmas game. In fact, Warhammer has some better candidates, but maybe another time. Now, as you know, Warhammer 40K has very rich and huge universe. So, rather than me explain it, let’s have the game do it. Yeah, the end… For being a game introducing a new audience to the series, it really does nothing at all to explain anything. You do learn that Orks are invading a planet. While normally the Imperium might just bomb them from orbit, there’s a big boxy Evangelion you have to protect down there. So what did they do? Send the Space Marines! It’s a simple setup, and you really don’t need to know the lore. You just need to be blue man and shoot green men in the face. So, really, this is the opposite of the “Halo” series. But I’m not so sure about later on… I’d imagine new people to be confused, but it’s not a deal-breaker. So just focus on this for now. I’ll come back to all that in a bit. The game is nearing a decade old now, and it certainly looks the part. Some textures are low res, can noticeably pop in, and the same could be said for things out in the distance. The lighting is still nice, and there are good little details, like the reflections on the armor. It’s nothing landmark, but not bad either. I do appreciate it more based on just the sheer scale of the environment. It sure looks the part of a planetary factory. There are some huge real 3D objects, that in most other games would just be out in the skybox. Take this crane that’s the size of Rhode Island. It’s slowly turning, doing its thing. Then, when you fight under it, you realize that the entire thing and every greeble on it is casting a shadow. So, sacrifices had to be made to give the authentic scale. Technically sound one moment – questionable in another. This game does have some bland areas, but a lot more are really inspired. Pulling off the “everything is a cathedral and a factory" aesthetic can’t be easy, but they pulled it off, and they gave this setting some strong art direction, with a lot of attention to little details. However, what you see here is what you get. There’s not a ton of variety. If you can’t stand games that are just brown or grey, then stay far away from this one. It’s not all a mixed bag though, because what really stands out to me is the animation. Relic’s reputation for the “Dawn of War” sync kills continues well into this game. They’re just as impressive as they are violent. Like “Dawn of War”, it seems like every time I replay this game, I find a couple more. [sounds of brutal carnage and screams of orkish pain] As also expected from Relic, the combat and weapons sound excellent. Some people thought the Space Marine sounds in “Dawn of War 1” were lacking, but they more than made up for it here. [mighty bashing] ORK: "Space Marines to kill!" [punchy thumping] [mighty bashing and screams] [booming gunfire] [*bloosh*] [okay, I'm out of ideas] They knew combat would be so chaotic that you might not be looking at your ammo count. So some weapons actually sound different when they’re low on ammo, to tell you that you need to reload soon. [the shots begin clicking when the clip runs low] The soundtrack is another high point. It’s not Relic’s best soundtrack, but it accents a lot of moments in the game perfectly. The orchestra music can border on being generic, but when the horns really get going, they get going. [heroic tune] [the horns get going] [the horns really get going] Honestly, I find parts of the soundtrack kind of hilarious. It reminded me of “Starship Troopers” or “RoboCop” a lot, because the music’s really heroic, but the most horrific shit is happening on screen. [really heroic music] [sounds of horrific shit] [aircraft alarms going off] Yeah, this is perfect for the Ultramarines. While the environmental sounds are okay, my biggest issue with the sound is the mixing on some of the voices. It’s odd, because the “Dawn of War” games have some of the best stuff in video games, but here it’s really out of whack. Even cranking the voice audio level above everything else didn’t always help it. LEANDROS: “…damaged, at least.” SIDONIS: “Titan Invictus seems unused, you mean. Is this invasion not enough to bring out the War Titans?” LEANDROS: “It takes hundreds to get a War Titan operational, sergeant.” TITUS: “Are you wounded?” LEANDROS: “The Codex Astartes warns against using jump packs to leap blindly into enemy fire, and for good reason.” TITUS: “Your days as a Novice are behind you. Why do you still interpret the Codex so…” So that sucks, but luckily, it’s a very small portion of the game, compared to the combat. They had their priorities in order. We should talk about that, shouldn’t we? "OHH!" “Space Marine” is all combat. No platforming, no tacked-on puzzles, no nothing. And you know what? The combat is pure joy. You have 5 weapons at a time: a choice of pistol, a Bolter, two other weapons, and then your melee weapon. The level of destruction you unleash is just absurd. You’re like an atomic bomb, if an atomic bomb was a big metal fist. [punchy punches] There’s so much impact to the combat. Your enemies don’t just get shot and fall over – they usually blow up. You upgrade some of your weapons during the campaign, and have plenty of opportunities to switch things out. So you have a lot of room to experiment, until you find the Chosen Way. There is a great variety of weapons, and, while they’re not the most creative thing, they get more destructive over time. There’s nothing like mowing down a crowd with a Storm Bolter, or becoming a human meteor with a Thunder Hammer. There are some challenging parts, but even on Hard, this is more of a power fantasy game. You have two melee buttons – a “hit man” button and a stun – so it can feel like a mash fest, and it’s like this for every close combat weapon. Most of the thinking comes from deciding when to do an execution move. These can only be done on most of your enemies when they’re stunned. If you pull it off, you get a gory display, and you get some health back. Your overshield recovers over time. Your red bar does not. At the same time, you’re not invincible during these execution moves, so, if you time them poorly, the other Jolly Green Giants will start mugging you. So you can’t rely entirely on ranged combat to stay alive. “Space Marine” wants you to use a fine artisan blend, and that’s the strongest point of the combat. Because it controls so simply, you can seamlessly change between ranged and melee fighting. You don’t fight the camera, you don’t need to lock on – it feels very natural. When you murder enough, you fill up your fury meter. Popping this off recharges your health and makes your attacks even more dangerous. This also upgrades, and eventually lets you shoot in slow motion. And that’s as deep as it goes. This isn’t “Devil May Cry”. As much as I’d love air-juggling Gretchins, you just can’t do that – you could just slap them into the Shadow Realm. So, if you love those kinds of games, you might find “Space Marine” lacking. Even the ranged combat is simple, compared to a lot of third person shooters. The game has no cover system. That was probably part of the marketing. Maybe it’s because cats were already gonna call it “Gears rip-off”, because of the chain-sword… I don’t know. It didn’t matter most of the time, but, on occasion, and especially in the later parts of the game, I think a basic one for big objects would have helped. Because you’re still hiding behind the box and awkwardly popping out to shoot. But then again, this might just be more noticeable on Hard, because their bullets hurt you more. So, overall, it’s a simple system, but effective. The execush mechanic encourages you to be very aggressive, and also you wanna switch things up, to keep your fury meter going. I always wondered if “Doom 2016” got the idea for the execution health mechanic from this game. At the same time, enemies dropping health has been a thing forever, so who knows. The spectacle and the impact of the combat is enjoyable to watch, and really easy to pull off. I mean, I’ve replayed this game a few times – they’re doing something right. It’s an ideal system for most of the game, but it does come back to hurt it in some other ways. So let’s talk about the gameplay pacing. GUARDSMAN: “It’s quie-” The first two thirds of this game has excellent pacing. It ramps everything up just the right way. Every level there’s something new to fight, and besides them, you typically have at least one new item and upgrade. They keep things fresh – you’re never bogged down in one area for too long. Then, for one level, the new Ork enemies stop coming, which is a shame. It wasn’t like there was nothing to draw from. An enemy like Burna Boyz will make you stay more on your toes in melee. One part of this section has a huge dust storm going on. This would have been a perfect opportunity to bring in some stealth enemies, like Ork Commandos. Unfortunately, the only trick the Orks have left at this point are numbers, which they always do. Then, right after this, is a level of fighting turrets, and… that’s it. But they are scary. Then, holy shit (!), Chaos is here! A whole new faction to fight! Well, I guess they’re on the cover… I was surprised. I went: “Wow, these demons can dodge my ammunition!” But could they dodge ALL my ammunition? [sound of Titus sharing all his ammunition in holiday spirit] No, they can’t! [no one will go without] The game doesn’t have many Chaos units. They’re treated as an elite group. Their entrance is great, and heralds the way for a three-way war, but fighting Chaos itself isn’t as fun as fighting the Orks. The game’s strength is mixing up styles to fight hordes of enemies, and Chaos boys are bullet sponges. Their weapons are also accurate and hit hard, making you shuffle around cover more. This is where you really start to notice the shortcomings of the combat system, if you haven’t already. Now I’m playing something that feels much more like a cover shooter, without the cover mechanic. Until this point, Ork weapons were comically inaccurate. You still get hit, but most of their shots go all over the place, because they’re just excited to be shooting a gun off. These guys are the exact opposite, so you have to change your mind and your loadout to be more range-oriented. It’s still fine, there are good fights here, but it’s when things start feeling off, and it perfectly foreshadows the end of the game. I’ll just say for now: the final boss is a Quick Time Event. The story itself is difficult to talk about, because it’s so straightforward. What do I say about the “Cover Me, While I Hack This Door” mission, or the “Blow This Thing Up” mission? I think I got more out of world-building moments, like Guardsmen revering Space Marines when they see them. Or the announcements. “An alien invasion is no excuse for being late to work!” ANNOUNCEMENT: “Quotas must be met, despite alien incursion. Delinquency is an affront to The Machine God.” Oh yeah… The Orks are having a fight club in the loading bay, but don’t worry, we’ll make those pipes just fine! Also, if you’ve played this game before, the collectible audio logs don’t return to the game. You can listen to them when you pick them up, and walk around, but if you already have one, you have to listen to them in the menu, and you can’t listen to them while walking around. LOG: “Experimentation with the warp-” LOG: “Experimentation with the warp ener-” LOG: “Trans-mechanic second class pat-” Yeah, so get used to some quiet hallways on another playthrough. So now I’m gonna get into the story spoilers, and honestly, there’s not a whole lot here. I’ll still leave a courtesy code to skip to. Okay, they’re gone. I really don’t know what they’re trying to save themselves for. So, the game starts with “We Need To Murder Orks”, and that’s how it stays most of the way through. We have the titular Captain Teetus… fuk… Captain Titus, grizzled veteran friend Sidonis, and Matt Ward stand-in Leo. Leonidas…? Leo… Leonardo…? I don’t remember… (snaps fingers) Leo-o… Leandros! Okay. He’s the new guy still clutching his Blueberry Boy Scout menu. Many Orks die, and then you meet an Inquisitor, who has a plan to kill even more Orks. He wants to use a warp-powered device to obliterate all of them. Hm-m, I don’t kno-ow… The real Inquisitor was killed by a daemon, and you got tricked into bringing Chaos into the world. So we were fighting boss Grimskull and the Orks the whole game, but now we have a new bad guy. So this Chaos Lord is the main target now. Even before this, Leonard is giving Titus a bunch of shit, because he can resist the warp for some reason. He can’t see beyond his own stupid book, so grizzled old Sidonis has to calm him down. LEANDROS: “Codex Astartes warns that those in league with Chaos can withstand the warp’s touch!” SIDONIS: “You forget yourself, Ultramarine!” "A-AHH!!" Then Sidonis dies, so Leopold is even more suspicious now. So then Titus goes to beat up the Chaos Lord, while he’s actively ascending into a daemon. This is a good way of showing loyalty. Also, it is really strange that the boss fight is a QTE, because there were two other bosses in the game, and they weren’t good. At this point, they may have realized that combat wasn’t ideal for these kinds of fights, so they just said “Forget it…” Anyways, Titus caves his skull in, and then it’s all “happily ever after” from there. MIRA: “I see the Ultramarines ARE human, after all.” TITUS: “More than you know, lieutenant.” [dramatic music] Nope, the Inquisition is here to ruin everyone’s day. Again. INQUISITOR: “His injuries appear Chaos-inflicted. You are certain of this charge?” LEANDROS: “Captain Titus has been corrupted by Chaos, Inquisitor Thrax.” CHAOS TITUS: “I am no heretic!” LEANDROS: “You lie!” So he gets arrested. What was the warp thing all about? How could you resist it? We’ll find out in game 2, but… now we’ll never find out. The game doesn’t have many characters, and it doesn’t develop them out either. I kind of like some of them, but I don’t really know them. Even the squad-mates you’re with the whole game talk about nothing else besides the mission. This is no “Bad Company” or “Republic Commando”. I wish the conflict between “by the book” or “interpret the Codex” was fleshed out more. It could have made the position Leeroy is in more sympathetic, and there was opportunity to do this. I wish that, instead of just talking about the mission, they talked about each other more. There are plenty of places to put stuff in. SIDONIS: “…though he is trapped on this world.” TITUS: “And all the more desperate to recover the power source. We must get it to safety, old friend.” LEANDROS: “Good news on that front. Lieutenant Mira reports that the Liberation Fleet has entered the system.” LEANDROS: “The Inquisition will surely have sent agents with the fleet, Captain. Perhaps we can-” ANNOUNCEMENT: “Hard work occupies the body and…” Do you have a concern you’d like to share? It’s underdeveloped, and it ends up being dull. It’s not written badly, just so pragmatically that it’s not very memorable. Of course, for many, the meat of this game was the multiplayer. It has good character customization, a lot of things to unlock, and plenty of game modes. But you can’t search for every mode at once, which means a fractured community, which means not-so-active multiplayer. You can still find matches for the wave-based Exterminatus going, but for regular multiplayer, you need to find a Steam group. There are some popular ones, so the game isn’t dead just yet. In fact, in a way, the multiplayer kind of lives on in another game, called- You know what? It’s the holidays, I don’t wanna think about it for now. “Space Marine” is a short game, but it’s worth your time, and it goes on sale often. This was gonna be a trilogy, but it came out in a very saturated year. It came out 2 weeks before “Dark Souls” and 2 months before “Skyrim”. So it wasn’t winning any headlines, and, arguably, wasn’t even the best ork-killing game that came out that year. It’s a tragedy. I always thought a sequel might be a kind of opposite to this game. It would be on a big jungle planet of Tyranids. Well, for the time being, I don’t think any of us are seeing that. But wait, that are other Warhammer games! Sure, some are unbearable shovelware, but there are some good ones too. Some great ones, even. I’ll look at some of those in the new year. After a return to a remake and an adventure game. For now, have a wonderful Christmas! Even if it’s just us tonight. Could be worse. SANTA MARINE: “Die, scum!” There won’t be much of a January break, like there was 2 years ago. I have a lot more time, so let’s move on to questions. Matthew Simmons: “Do you consider going back to do videos on games after they’ve been updated?” I thought of it. There are just a lot at this point, and I don’t even know where I’d start. I’ll think on it more. Big Guy Liam: “What do you think of the Slaanesh rewrite in “Age of Sigmar”?” Sorry, I, eh… I don’t know what “Age of Sigmar” is… 1upist: “Does The List keep you up at night?” I try not to let it. I think of it more like a suggestion list than a “to do” list, because if I start thinking about it that way… yeah, I’d go crazy. Drunk Uncle Pete: “What is your favorite JRPG, and are any video-worthy?” “Lord of the Rings: The Third Age”. It’s the battle system from “Final Fantasy X”, without… a lot of other things from “Final Fantasy X”. It’s a very strange title, and it got heavily reworked in its last year, so I wanna do something on it eventually. I actually talked to one of the people who worked on it, a year or so ago, so he might be able to shed more light on it. Hugo Prevost: “Do you think there will be an official and good 40K 4X game one day?” It seems inevitable, and I know “Gladius” is out now, but I haven’t played that one since beta testing. So I wanna play that one again, because that might be good. I hope. Alright, have a wonderful New Year! BLOOD RAVEN: “Blood Raven squad Corvus reporting in, Captain Titus.” Don’t touch my artifacts!!
It sucks this still the only good action/adventure 40k game. I'd love another one like this or maybe even an RPG
This game has a really fun multiplayer mode. Its an escalating horde mode that eventually gets insane with Chaos Daemons ripping through portals to attack your marine squad. I also liked how I could customize my guy into more of a machine gunner.
Anyone know which game is shown at the 15:00 mark?
Who's dick do I have to suck at Sega to get a Space Marine 2?
It's probably my most wanted sequel for a game that I know will never get it. Hell even just a rerelease would be good, there are still people playing this game on steam, the love is still there, so if they bundled all the DLC together, merge down the playlists and maybe even gave it cross play, they could keep the community going for years to come with just that, and it might even hopefully show that there could be enough interest for a sequel.
Totalbiscuit got me into 40k lore and Warhammer in general due to his obsession with this game.
Watching this review filled me with melancholy as I miss TB to death. Still no youtuber has been able to come close to filling the hole in gaming critique and consumer advocacy that the biscuit had.
I thought the campaign was great until the last third, when you get to the Chaos enemies. Instead of fighting hordes of fun Orks, you’re stuck fighting these Chaos Space marines who’re just slow plodding bullet sponges with nonexistent AI. And the final setpiece of fighting onboard a Warlord Titan is amazingly dull and boring. Feels like they just ran out of time, enthusiasm, and budget.
Relic should also be given a lot of credit for coming up with the glory-kill-health-regen mechanic that would later be used for Doom 2016.
Great two thirds of a campaign.
PS: Lt Mira was hot.
Now that's a proper christmas episode/game. I hope we get a sequel one of these days. Though, seems like it's time for another playthrough. Love Mandalore's videos
I still really wanna know how/why he was warp-corrupted. Would it leave him down an even darker path? Was that how he could kill a fledgling chaos prince?
Answers NEVER
8 years old. Good grief. What an amazing game but I can’t believe it’s been that long since its release. I used to love the multiplayer even if it was a bit rudimentary and prone to hacking.