Space Marine

The Christmas Steam Sale has begun in earnest and in response a few threads have arisen asking whether games such as Space Marine are worth buying.

For the price of £14.99, you'd get about 4-5 hours of enjoyable single-player experience (with a campaign that is 8 hours.) My currency of leisure time is one pint of beer an hour. This rather conservative method of drinking equates, in Hull prices, to £2.50 an hour. So, in terms of the single player experience, it's rather steep.

However, the game manages to sell on its cultural capital of the 40k universe. True to its 1980s indie gaming roots, the 40k universe is brutal. There is no righteous battle for good, or even for bad; only imperialism. There is no war-weariness; billions die on a whim and countless more step forth to replace them. I even read recently of the suggestion that the messiah-figure of the Emperor (who is supposedly guiding humanity during its struggle for survival) could just just a lifeless husk kept as a trophy so mere men can play out the empty fate of humanity.



Graphically the game is able to portray some of this brutality: your chainsword satisfyingly crunches arms off orks; the landing-smash of a jump-pack propelled marine turns heretics into fine red mist; and the game contains an impressive plethora of weaponry.

However, the marines speak, and argue, in British public school-boy accents.

Still, the game is meaty enough. It's just that it's more of a grind in some places than others. After three hours I thought "Gears of Warhammer (but not so well-paced.)"

An immediate sequel is unlikely as I believe PC-Gamer ran an article on how the upcoming W40k MMO precludes one. There isn't much in the way of modding for it, so in the meantime I see Space Marine as equivalent to a limited version of Mount and Blade as Dawn of War's is a limited version of Total War.