You're ugly, but I love you - Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine

I'll be honest with you: I never had the money, the patience or the talent to collect and hand-paint a large army of plastic soldiers. The fact that I'm still spending every minute of my spare time playing Space Marine should speak for itself. And while the game has some incredibly stupid flaws and shortcomings, I'm having the most fun with the multiplayer mode I ever had since the good old days of Rune and Unreal Tournament.

The singleplayer campaign is a matter of 6-8 mostly brainless hours with zero replay value. You hack, slash and shoot your way through the story as Ultramarines Captain Titus, who couldn't be any less likeable or interesting. The Ultramarines aren't the most interesting chapter to begin with and your little squad is composed of characters so dull and one-dimensional, you couldn't possibly care less when the story pulls off the overused and predictable fallen comrade scenario.

You will kill literally thousands of Orks in campaign mode.

Space Marine isn't about epic storytelling, though, and it's great at throwing entire legions of baddies your way. Sawing orks in half, making their heads explode with a shot of your bolter and breaking a demon's spine with your power hammer never gets old and feels incredibly satisfying. And that's good, because ultimately, this is everything this game has to offer.
You fight your way from one wave of enemies to the next, massacre melee units with your chainsword, shoot their gunners from a safe distance and hide behind crates, fences and whatever kind of cover you can find. "If I retreat, kill me!" - Remember that one? Well, better forget about it real quick, because large portions of this game feel like a cover shooter, without using any actual cover mechanism you might know from games like Mass Effect.

On top of the massive repetition (you fight the same orks and chaos marines over and over again), the inconsistent AI can cause some frustration. At their brightest moments, enemies will seek cover, fire a quick shot at you and go right back into hiding. But there are moments, where baddies just stand around like idiots, waiting for you to shoot them one after another. Some of them take an eternity to react and return fire and seeking cover is of no priority to them, either.

Goin' Peter, Paul and Mary on some chaos demons.

But all of this artifical stupidity is nothing compared to your dumber than shit squad mates. Not only are they completely incompetent at killing even the weakest, most harmless goblins, but they will constantly get in your way. I have lost count of the many times where I tried to roll to the side to get away from an enemy grenade, only to be blocked by one of those cunts, which usually ended with me getting blown to bits. Your team mates cannot die (except of course for that one scripted event where one of them MUST die for the storyline), so they don't care about evading grenades, either.

Still - firing and swinging the game's 15 different weapons is fun and the many gruesome ways you can gut and decapitate enemies make the campaign a blast, despite its obvious problems. Turning the final boss battle into a stupid and piss-easy quicktime event, however, is utterly unforgivable. Same goes for the ending - sure, the 40k universe is not a happy place and it's okay to emphasize that, but there is no sense of reward or achievement for beating the storyline. Just punishment.

Here's a fun little game for you: Can you guess who the host is?

The multiplayer mode is an equally mixed bag of awesome and utter shit. The most gaping flaws here are so unbelievably stupid, you'd think I'm making this up: There are no dedicated servers or server browsers, meaning the game creates all sessions via p2p matchmaking. So you don't get to choose what map you want to play on, you don't get to tweak any rules or settings and without dedicated servers there is no kicking, no banning and no proper cheat protection. And the host for each session is picked at random: If the game decides that some guy in Spain with a crappy dialup connection should be hosting the match for everyone else, then you get one lucky Spanish dude with no lag whatsoever and 15 people with pings of 8-10 seconds. Feels a bit like the original Half-Life back when I had my 28.8k modem.

Chainsword battle - who can click the other guy to death faster?

But it gets better: Every player has their microphone turned on by default! There is no option to disable your own microphone, no push to talk setting, no nothing. The moment you join a game you will be greeted by random chatter in Spanish, Russian, German, English and god knows what else. Some guy is watching tv, some other guy is breathing like Darth Vader, the next dude is enjoying a burping contest with his friends. The only way to stop that crap is to click the mute button next to the names of EVERY SINGLE PLAYER! And whenever somebody new joins the session, you get to mute them all over again. What the FUCK were they thinking? If Relic Entertainment had never created a videogame before, then I just *might* understand what the hell is going on here, but this isn't just annoying or a tiny flaw - it's incredibly stupid, unnerving and one of the dumbest things I ever had the pleasure to put up with in any game.

And all that should be reason enough to just not bother with this game at all, if only it wasn't so damn FUN! Space Marine only offers a team deathmatch mode and a domination mode (aka Annihilation and Seize Ground) and an unimpressive five maps, but that's all it takes. You will be randomly placed on the Space Marines or Chaos Marines team, people fight 8 vs. 8 and with various classes and loadouts. You'll start out as a lowly level 1 tactical marine with only a bolter and a combat knife, but you gain new classes, perks and gear as you level up, just like on Modern Warfare or every other god damn shooter out there nowadays.

Tactical marines are your typical run & gun guys. They're jacks of all trades, who can be effective at close to medium range with bolter and melee upgrades. They also make talented snipers, given the right guns and perks.
Then there's the assault marine, who gets to use a jump pack and whacks away at enemy players using melee weapons such as the chain sword, power axe or power hammer.
Devastators, on the other hand, get the heaviest armor upgrades and use the really big weapons. Watch that plasma cannon!

All three classes have their own distinct style and you can customize and upgrade them as you progress through the levels and unlock more and more stuff. But customization doesn't end there - you'll unlock tons of helmets, chest plates, pauldrons and other armor pieces, which you get to decorate with your favourite paint job and emblems. Alternatively, you can pick pre-made colour patterns, which resemble the chapters and warbands from the 40k universe, such as the Space Wolves, Blood Ravens and so on.

Honouring my German heritage with this paintjob. Nah, I just think it looks cool that way.

Despite the huge amounts of whining on the official forums, the weapon balance in multiplayer is actually pretty decent. A point blank hit with the melta gun will instantly toast an opponent, but first of all, you actually gotta get close enough to the other guy without getting shot first. Sniper rifles like the stalker bolter might seem overpowered when a single headshot can kill you on the spot, but these guns suffer a massive drop in accuracy when fired from the hip and at close range. Besides, each shot leaves a clearly visible trail, so if you miss the other guy, he will instantly know where you are and seek cover or come right after you. A power hammer with the killing blow perk might insta-kill you, but it takes forever to actually swing the damn thing, leaving you lots of time to evade. Each weapon and each class comes with their own strengths and weaknesses and figuring out the right strategy against all of them is equally fun and rewarding.

Sure, the melee combat could use more combos, special attacks, maybe some more active dodging and blocking, but it's not as simplistic as some make it out to be. Tenderizing an opponent with your plasma gun or a hand grenade before rushing in for the kill or using your jump pack to confuse the crap out of them is that much more effective than simple button mashing.

The one thing the multiplayer mode lacks is the actual squad feeling. You never feel like you're part of a team, because everybody just fights for their own score, their own experience points and their own K/D ratio. In fact, you will sometimes get messages such as, "You have been moved to the opposing team for balancing purposes." I don't know whether the game does so to even out player counts or because one team is scoring much higher than the other, but it hurts the atmosphere. There is no loyalty here, just "balance".

Killing Spree! Bashing six guys in a row means massive bonus experience. It also turns all your squad mates into selfish assholes.

The co-op multiplayer patch, which is supposed to bring two massive 4 player missions in early October will probably help fix that problem a bit, but right now, winning or losing doesn't really matter online, for as long as you rack up the most kills and gather tons of experience points for bragging rights.

Orks vs humans: 4 players will fight their way through 2 massive co-op scenarios in the free October update.

The solo campaign of Space Marine is something you will most likely beat in a day or two and while it leaves a lot to be desired, it's a great ride. The multiplayer mode is flawed by a horrible p2p matchmaking system and open mic night with Darth Vader, but creating and customizing your own suit of armor and finding those perfect weapons and perks to match your play style is incredibly fun and addictive. Of course the game gets that much more entertaining when you're familiar with the setting, but it's by no means a requirement.

-Cat