Warhammer 40K Space Marine is one of those games that when you’re playing you wish that the developers had a bigger budget or spent just a little bit more time on this game to make it a classic. Warhammer 40K for the Xbox 360 and PS3 is a third-person action shooter that resembles the Gears of War game play with heavy gun power, chainsaw blades, and duck and cover shooting. Warhammer also adds to the mix shields and melee weapons such as a Power Axe, Chain blade, and perhaps my favorite weapon in the game the Power Hammer.
The Campaign quickly starts you off with little background information about the Warhammer world except for the fact that the only solution to an Ork invaded planet is sending in a squad of Ultra Marines. You play as captain Titus who is the typical badass hero that knows how to survive the worst situations, his right hand man Sidonus who is old and probably reaching retirement but very experienced in combat, and the Rookie straight from boot camp Leandros whose loyalty lies elsewhere.
Throughout the campaign there are a lot of dull moments and somewhat lifeless emotions that each character displays which gives you a disconnect from the storyline. The one thing this game had going for it was the amount of fun it was to blast through waves of Orks with your choice of 4 different guns carried at one time and your choice of a melee weapon. Another fun feature of Warhammer 40K is there are no health packs in the game, how do you get health you ask? Simple, rip through an unconscious Ork with your melee weapon and absorb their health! This feature was perhaps the best part of the game and will keep you entertained for hours.
There is a multi-player mode as well that is just downright boring. I’d rather be playing Halo 1 from over a decade ago then this mult-player. There is just to much of an unbalance and zero fun factor when playing the multi-player mode. The leveling system is average and grindy and I didn’t really stick around to get to high of a level to give you a full description. The mechanics in the campaign are slightly different then the way the mult-player mode plays, if the developers had more of an interest in the online multi-player mode Warhammer 40K could have been an amazing game.
Warhammer 40k Space Marine Rates:
Gameplay 7/10 The campaign is a lot of fun through the first play through but once that is over this game really has nothing left to do.
Graphics 7/10 The graphics are similar to Gears of War and Unreal Championship video games which is decent for a Xbox 360 shooter. There is nothing that you can awe at though.
Audio 6/10 Nothing really special here, just normal music/background effects for a shooter game.
Replay Value 5/10 Once the campaign is finished, you may want to check out the multi-player mode but I think you will quickly realize that there are other games that are more worth your time.