I decided to purchase this game when Steam was having a sale. I had overheard coworkers talking about it back when it first came out, but not being a fan of Warhammer 40K I did not think this would be a game for me. I was wrong.
Story Line
You are the leader of a small unit of Ultra Marines who are sent to a planet to take care of an Ork invasion. As things escalate it becomes clear that there is another more pressing, and deadlier force to deal with. Having stated I was walking into this storyline blindly I never once felt out of place, or left asking questions. I strongly wish they had advertised this as I think it would have helped sells tremendously.
5/5
Gameplay
I am breaking a part of gameplay off for a (nonspoiler) rant about the ending. The mechanics of this game brings combat to the forefront which I can gather is a major theme with Warhammer 40k. The only way to regain hit points is to wade into melee combat, which is a trick to do sometimes, and pull off a special attack on a stunned enemy. Most of the guns in the game use limited ammo, which you would think you would be constantly out of since they throw tons and tons of things to kill you at a time. However only in a few rare instances was I forced to use my pistol because I ran out of the cool bullets.
5/5
Difficulty
This is where the game fails, and fails hard in my book. After a certain point in the game the enemy starts using guys who explode on contact. This would not be a problem except for two things. First they are tiny things with huge guys all around them making them hard to spot. Secondly you must wade into combat to heal, and often have one of the little guys going off at the wrong time… over, and over again. That is something I could handle however the games major draw backs are in the two boss battles. The first I was only able to get through because the game would let you restart after death at each of his ‘phases’. I cannot understand how the battle could have been set up with the hopes of beating the boss on the first run through, and it looks like the game designers planned it not to be. With the last boss they ramped up the difficulty so hard that I can say I will never be able to beat him. I have went at it from many different angles, I have watched videos, and I have tried many times. No game should make its players quit out of frustration at the last boss. While many could point and say I lack skill, and I am a ‘noob’ I can point back and say I did not really have to much trouble getting to this point. If the whole game was this challenging I would not have invested my time getting to this point.
1/5
Multiplayer
I stepped into multiplayer with dread after learning that it has a leveling system where you only gain access to high end weapons after you gain experience enough to unlock them. I do not enjoy these kinds of games because it puts people who are already at the disadvantage of being new not having weapons the better players have. Am I the only one who thinks there should be a game that as you gain experience you are limited to worse and worse weapons? Anyway after my first embarrassing death I found I could copy the weapon load out of the dude who killed me. I went from my level 1 guy with standard pistol to a level 1 guy with a jump pack, and big murdering hammer. While I did not play for long I was able to test out every combination of weapons at level 1, and this system is how online first person shooters should be.
5/5
The Skinny
The good: Great immersive story, interesting and new way of handling healing, and multiplayer. This game is full on contact fighting at its best. There is always a ton of things to kill, and plenty of ammo to kill them with. I had a blast playing this game right up until the…
The bad: Ramped up difficulty on the final boss. This is one of the few games that have only one flaw that brings down the score, and brings it down hard. I don’t mind hard fights, but this is flat out ridiculous.
3/5
