The rather special Collector’s Edition of Space Marine, including soundtrack cd, art book, cards & purity seal… Ah, pay day is only 22 days away now…
Editor’s progress:
Well, I’ve managed to complete one of the levels on the downloaded demo; the Inquisitor level. This level sees your Space Marines planet-side on the invaded Forge World. Captain Titus, voiced by Mark Strong, discovers a servo-skull (a floating mechanical skull) trying to relay a message in vain to fallen Imperial Guardsmen (gruesomely strewn about). On scanning the marines, the skull shows its secrets… Inquisitor Drogan is under siege somewhere within the manufactorum, where the marines have landed handily, and he needs help. He has a secret weapon that he doesn’t want to fall into the hands of the Ork invaders.
So on we go with some thick n’ fast action: Titus and his two colleagues must plough through the Ork hordes to try and find surviving Imperial Guard and the inquisitor. Not much to it – but by ‘eck is it fun. The action is superb. The marines’ weapons have been lovingly recreated for the game (plus some new varieties) – and the chainsword in particular is an absolute hoot to use. If you stun an opponent first (the triangle button) then follow through with an execute move (circle button) your Captain Titus performs a super-gory kill on his opponent, varying from stabbing an Ork through the head, to gutting him from waist to head, to simply stamping on the unfortunate Ork’s head. The blood is plentiful! I’m not usually one for gore but here it works and works well. And these execution moves do serve an extra purpose in that they refill your health gauge. A great idea. You can’t always do execution moves though as they do take a lot longer to perform, lovingly animated in slow-mo, than the average kill.
The combat is fierce and unrelenting. There is one sequence when the marines are waiting for a lift to arrive and wave after wave of Orks are charging at you. I found varying my weapons helped a bit; the heavier weapons weren’t too effective but chucking the odd grenade stirs things up, plus whipping out your bolter (a big rifle) worked a treat for the initially faraway onrushing hordes, then switching back to the satisfyingly choppy chainsword for all the close combat. No need for guns when the Orks get in close…
I like this game very much. I’m a big fan and collector of Space Marines (four armies on the go and counting) and to see them faithfully recreated in a videogame is a thrill.
Next up is the jump pack mission…
Andy ‘The Emperor Protects’ Jamieson, Editor
Space Marine is out, on PS3, XBox 360 and Pc, in the UK on Friday 9th September.
[suffusion-the-author]
[suffusion-the-author display='description']