SPESS MAHREEEEN (3rd person shooter)

[The Other Dave]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nb50aAFi ... &index=116

Holy moley, it looks like a game got Marines right (helps that the reviewer is having a lot of fun being a marine, too, heh). Downloading the demo now.

[Primarch]

In the original version of it, bolters only stunned enemies.
I'm glad they changed that.

[me_in_japan]

that was actually a pretty well done review. Sure, the reviewer gets somewhat carried away at times, but you can tell he's having a really good time playing it, and for all the right reasons. He also seems well informed about both 40k and computer games. It makes the game look very good, too.

I wonder if there will be much in the way of DLC after it comes out? Y'know, eldar n stuff? *hopeful*

[The Other Dave]

that was actually a pretty well done review. Sure, the reviewer gets somewhat carried away at times, but you can tell he's having a really good time playing it, and for all the right reasons. He also seems well informed about both 40k and computer games. It makes the game look very good, too.

I wonder if there will be much in the way of DLC after it comes out? Y'know, eldar n stuff? *hopeful*

That was pretty much my impression - he seems a very, ah... enthusiastic fan of 40K.

I'm not too much keyed in to the grapevine, but it looks like the first few rafts of DLC will be non-Ultramarines chapter skins and Chaos Marine skins.

[Admiral-Badruck]

looks like it should I wish I could play video games I suck at them a bit too much to play them...

[job]

I'd agree with ToD. The guy sounds like he's relapsing into addiction. He speaks of 'beating you to death with 4th ed. rulebook' and explains the intricacies of boltguns and such. It really sounds like he's either an ex-40k addict or a in the closet one. But, what are we to complain of his enthusiasm, right? We too love the game and fantasy.
The game itself for me wasn't particularly impressive. It looks fun and I bet it will be every marine players dream, but there was nothing particularly surprising except they really did a quality job for once on a GW game's graphics.

[me_in_japan]

there was nothing particularly surprising

why would it be surprising? I mean, aside from the fact that it doesnt suck. 40k the tabletop game has a lot going for it - it's artistic, you have to mentally juggle a lot of stuff to be a good player, and its very social. All good things. But what it doesnt do is go "boom". Sure, you can imagine it, but it aint the same.

This video game, otoh, goes boom very well indeed. I think what's exciting about this game is that Relic, a third party games developer, seem to have really understood what 40k is about. Dawn of War was the first time I had seen 40k done well. I mean, when you play 40k on the tabletop its all very abstract. "Ok, the broadsides are shooting those Leman Russ. Right, 2 4s and a 1. reroll for twin-linked...blahblah."

Dawn of War did this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R92XuM8pG-M (its a long clip. Skip to around 4:35 for some shooty bits.)

Sure, the graphics for DoW aint so exciting, but it was an RTS, so visually it was more about having many units on screen at once. Space Marine has raised the bar graphically a hella lot.

Another big improvement over DoW is the tone of the game. As the reviewer says, the developers calmly and deliberately made an M rated game. No mucking about here - chainswords really eviscerate bad guys, bolters blow em into little gibs, and there's generally a lot of blood all over the place. Thats what 40k the table top game can never do - get visceral. And that is why this game is exciting - it fills in some of the missing pieces of the 40k experience.

This game needed to be good. The future of 40k's growth is in video games and movies. GW are sitting on a potential goldmine here. Maybe you don't play video games, and thats fine, but in recent years video games have made far, faaaaaar more money than movies have. I kid you not. You wanna be rich these days? Make a video game. Sod all that hollywood malarky.

GW are a miniature wargames company. Good for them, but to really get rich (which is not actually a bad thing, I think. Successful GW = more 40k stuff. Good for us, too.) they need to use their biggest asset: the Warhammer 40k IP. Not the miniatures - thats never going to be a really big earner, but licensing the 40k IP? Hell, there be gold in them thar hills and no mistake.

This game, I reckon, is the tip of a potentially very cool iceberg. More 40k games. 40k movies. 40k TV show? 40k books by proper authors? I dunno, but the more the merrier, I reckon

And that, in short (ok, not that short) is why this game is exciting.

[Primarch]

Space Hulk (1 and 2)
Fire Warrior
Final Liberation
Dawn of War
Dawn of War 2
40k games have a history of being good, or at least playable. (Ignore Chaos Gate though, cos that is lame).
The original Blood Bowl game was lacking in the visual department, but I still played it to death as it was a very accurate representation of the game. The new BB game wasn't bad either.
Sadly, I have yet to find a WFB game that was any good. Shoddy game design and clunky controls in every version I have tried always made me feel that I was battling with the game just to get my men to point in the right direction.
Space Marine and the other recent game Kill Team both look amazing, though sadly I have no way of playing either. Its probably a good thing, I have a lot of models to paint and they would eat up all my time.

[me_in_japan]

40k games have a history of being good, or at least playable.

Being playable wouldnt have been enough for Space Marine. It needed to be good, or better, to show the market what can be done with the IP. Playable means that 40k players will buy it. Good means that gamers will buy it. I mean, DoW won Game of the Year awards from several different reviewers. It wasnt just a good 40k game. It was a bloody good video game in its own right. Space Marine needs to do that, too, and it's up against some pretty tough competition this year (iD software release their new FPS this year).

Space Hulk 1 was pretty good, I'll give you that. I kinda count DoW 1&2 as being "current generation" 40k games, especially since theyre made by the same company as SM. It's a big shift from RTS to 3PS, though.

But what about such gems as Hero Quest and Space Crusade (for the PC). Shadow of the Horned Rat? Dark Omen? Rites of War? (an Eldar game, believe it or not), Chaos Gate and so on? They were crap, sadly.

Incidentally, I played the demo of Kill Team the other day. Didnt care for it - the graphics were very basic compared to what the PS3 can do (unlike Space Marine), and the gameplay was irritatingly simple. It was like Asteroids, but you shoot orks. Fine for 5 mins, dull for any longer. I think the graphics were the biggest issue for me - they seemed blocky and cheap.

If you look at a list of GW PC games, (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ga ... ideo_games) they basically all sucked until THQ took over. In more recent years Relic have really raised the bar significantly. Relic are known for their RTS (has anybody else played Homeworld? Bloody lovely game, so it is) so their first venture into 3PS could have bombed.

Fortunately, it didnt. *touch wood*

[job]

there was nothing particularly surprising

why would it be surprising? I mean, aside from the fact that it doesnt suck. 40k the tabletop game has a lot going for it - it's artistic, you have to mentally juggle a lot of stuff to be a good player, and its very social. All good things. But what it doesnt do is go "boom". Sure, you can imagine it, but it aint the same.

This video game, otoh, goes boom very well indeed. I think what's exciting about this game is that Relic, a third party games developer, seem to have really understood what 40k is about. Dawn of War was the first time I had seen 40k done well. I mean, when you play 40k on the tabletop its all very abstract. "Ok, the broadsides are shooting those Leman Russ. Right, 2 4s and a 1. reroll for twin-linked...blahblah."

Dawn of War did this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R92XuM8pG-M (its a long clip. Skip to around 4:35 for some shooty bits.)

Sure, the graphics for DoW aint so exciting, but it was an RTS, so visually it was more about having many units on screen at once. Space Marine has raised the bar graphically a hella lot.

Another big improvement over DoW is the tone of the game. As the reviewer says, the developers calmly and deliberately made an M rated game. No mucking about here - chainswords really eviscerate bad guys, bolters blow em into little gibs, and there's generally a lot of blood all over the place. Thats what 40k the table top game can never do - get visceral. And that is why this game is exciting - it fills in some of the missing pieces of the 40k experience.

This game needed to be good. The future of 40k's growth is in video games and movies. GW are sitting on a potential goldmine here. Maybe you don't play video games, and thats fine, but in recent years video games have made far, faaaaaar more money than movies have. I kid you not. You wanna be rich these days? Make a video game. Sod all that hollywood malarky.

GW are a miniature wargames company. Good for them, but to really get rich (which is not actually a bad thing, I think. Successful GW = more 40k stuff. Good for us, too.) they need to use their biggest asset: the Warhammer 40k IP. Not the miniatures - thats never going to be a really big earner, but licensing the 40k IP? Hell, there be gold in them thar hills and no mistake.

This game, I reckon, is the tip of a potentially very cool iceberg. More 40k games. 40k movies. 40k TV show? 40k books by proper authors? I dunno, but the more the merrier, I reckon

And that, in short (ok, not that short) is why this game is exciting.

Umm... so you agree with me! That's great.

I agree with you that miniatures are the fun hobby. I don't have any sort of game platform, but periodically I like playing games and I want a Nitendo or X-box. And GW endeavors into media and other markets tends to be cheap and not very impressive.

But, I also think GW is correct on a marketing and corporate view. Branching out into video games particularly could produce profits, win over new fans, and (I think most importantly) help legitimize 40k/Fantasy and tabletop gaming with society at large (who tends to see the whole hobby as some deranged interest of over-grown children ). With a higher profile, I think GW hopes to expand the markets limits in the long-run to people interested in Sci-fi, fantasy, video games, etc.

After all, wasn't this the way they snagged Seb? And now he's into tabletop games in general, designing his own stuff for Strange Aeons!

Anyway, Dawn of War wasn't a bad game and received rave-ratings.