Unfinished: Eisenhorn: XENOS 04/14/2016

As a neutral viewer who doesn't know much about the 40k universe beyond the few games I've played, this looks really bad.

If you don't have the budget to make a third person story-based action game, why on earth would you attempt to make a third person story-based action game. If they knew they were operating on a mobile game budget they should have set their vision accordingly. Mass Effect on a tenth of the budget is never going to work.

This game would have been incredible as a point-and-click adventure or, better yet, a text adventure. As is, it's... something.

However, this quick look is leading to my downfall. I've already purchased this book, looking at Warhammer 40K Roleplay books to convince my gaming group to try, and generally wondering why I'm not reading more about things like the Deep Infotombs.

SPUYS MAR-HNNNNNNNNNG-S!

You made me choke on the coffee I was drinking, well played.

Good book to dip your toe into the 40k universe is Dan Abbnet's Brotherhood of the Snake. It's a fun, low stakes, standalone space marine novel. It gives you good warhammer flavor without getting bogged down in deep lore or series building.

SPICE MUHREENS

@kid_gloves: I've gone through the two first Horus Heresy books, they're pretty cool and they do a good job of humanizing the space marines. Painting 40K minis has been an on and off hobby of mine for over 10 years (I have a half-finished Riptide battlesuit staring at me) so through osmosis I've absorbed a bunch of the lore. I expected the books the be a bunch of military porn, but they dealt mostly with individual characters and their psychological struggles. If you think the general fiction is cool, read one of the fan favorites and see if it floats your boat. The Black Library is vast and the lore is as deep as it gets.

Edit: Don't worry though, there are plenty of exciting action and violence to be had in the books. And as someone else mentioned, check out the games. Dawn of War is incredible and Space Marine is an underrated gem.

Not the regular humans. A lot of their uniforms and general look pretty much out of the era you are describing. To me the design of the Imperial Guard is half Aliens, half World War I.

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Commissar

The power armor is for the Space Marines, who are basically the army of the Emperor, but there are human armies as well.

not sure if that was the best place to start the quicklook, nothing really happens for 20+ minutes.

The game looks awful.

This game looks bad. I will probably buy it.

Eisenhorn makes for a very good general introduction to the universe of 40k from the Imperium's perspective (which is the lens that most of the universe is viewed through, generally).

Dawn of War was my primary introduction to the universe (though I was already aware of the tabletop games and had an idea what the "flavor" of the setting was like before even getting that far), but Eisenhorn is where I really took my deep dive. Having some peripheral knowledge from the games helped with understanding certain things, but the story in Eisenhorn doesn't necessarily require that knowledge to enjoy if you're fine with some details and references being beyond you. Otherwise, there are excellent wikis out there for you to sink your teeth into if you really want to learn all you can.

Brotherhood of the Snake is, as @gaftra says, a good introduction to Space Marines; it's more a collection of short stories, each easily digestible on its own, though they all follow the same group of characters over a linear period of time and have a through line to tie it all together in the end.

I've also read the first few books in the Horus Heresy series, but I err on the side of it not being a great jumping in point if you're going in completely blind, since I think some basic understanding of the setting as it stands in the present (40k) universe is important to really appreciate the differences during the Horus Heresy (30k) era. Quality is also all over the place, since the series is written by a large swath of different authors. (I thought the second book did a generally poor job of continuing the arc that Dan Abnett set up in the first book, even if Graham McNeill isn't a terrible author in his own right; Abnett is a tough act to follow.)

TL;DR: All in all, I'd say Eisenhorn and Brotherhood of the Snake are your best bets (perhaps in that order), and then from there you can branch out as you see fit. Just about anything at all by Dan Abnett is guaranteed good, but go where your interests take you and find the authors that you enjoy. Also, http://wh40k.lexicanum.com is your friend.

Jesus christ, this game is so dark that I don't believe they're actually playing anything

Is this the first or the only recent WH40K game that actually follows a canonical story/character?

Bumming through the wiki I see a lot of familiar names and events mentioned in the Quick look; almost to the point where I think I have a gist of how this game would end, what happen to the characters and the state of the world. Very mixed feelings about this.

Every time I see this title all I can think about is Ace Ventura.

Man, if that's really Mark Strong then he must be a pretty big fan of Warhammer 40K to be lending his voice to a POS like this.

Yeah it's unfinished and all that... but if they're at the stage of development where they're already hiring a big name actor like Strong then it's probably pretty far along.

I keep thinking Danny is in the room, that voice actor sounds a lot like Danny.

@kid_gloves: One thing about the Space Marines (the dudes in the power armor) that isn't necessarily clear in the games, but very important in the books, is that they're not just dudes in big bulky power armor. They're engineered/enhanced/modified to the point of not even being considered human any more. And by "enhanced" I don't mean "they're somewhat stronger than other people", I mean "they're like 9-12 feet tall, can live thousands of years, and have two hearts (you know, just in case something happens to one of them)"

God, Warhammer is stupid/cool as hell.

@cikame: Glad someone else picked up on that voice. it's unfortunate that they're using the same guy doing the same voice for two entirely different characters, but it is a damn good voice.

Fish eggs is the best supporting character of the year!

For real though, this game looks pretty bad haha. But man, Vinny always talk about the lore in a way that intrigues me and makes me want to learn about it but it just seems so daunting and seems like it would take far too long to penetrate.

Man what the hell is up with the text in this game. At 43:40 the description for Uber Aemos reads "At the age of 24 Savant Uber Aemos contracted a meme-virus, causing an unquenchable thist for knowledge. A devoted follower of Eisenhorn, and previously Eisenhorn's tutor Hapshant, Aemos collections information and researches topics of interest in Eisenhorn's investigaions."

thist?

investigaions?

I will proof read for pennies on the dollar developers!

@ravelle: Thanks for this! I'll definitely check some of these series out, too.

Considering how monolithic Warhammer is in the traditional gaming space it's easy to forget Games Workshop doesn't actually have an infinite budget until you see something like this so clearly hamstrung by budget. I'd murder for a Dark Heresy video game and I am so glad people are trying but this seems a bit of a whiff.

The Chastener makes it through the initial Eisenhorn trilogy and while he's around after that it's more in body than spirit if you get my meaning...

He ends up being the host for the Charubael daemon.

Honestly, even though this looks fairly janky, all the heart and effort that's been put into it, and the fact that the visuals were actually kind of nice in a lot of places, means I'm still probably going to get it.

Oh man. I can tell the developers are really trying to make something that is interesting and fun but it just doesn't look like it comes together. As others have said, this game has a lot of heart, but the gameplay, graphics, level design, combat and voice acting all say this should have been released on the original Xbox in 2003. Shame this couldn't get a larger budget.

This game looks like it has a lot of passion poured into it, and that might be enough for me to look past a lot of flaws.

PS - I could watch Austin and Vinny play this type of game for hours.

Very brave not having "Warhammer" in the name.

looks pretty rough:(

@nonesun: I think they're trying to have their budget games like this and Armada keep the Warhammer name off just in case people think all warhammer games will be low budget.

So y'know when Austin asked "those weren't real people were they?"... Well they were.

Ultra-dorky bit of 40k trivia here, but instead of robots they use Servitors, which are effectively lobotomised people who follow simple programs in order to do menial tasks. Nice right?

Man, wish this had some budget, seems cool.

A+

Thank you, sir.

Gallery

I believe they came in different types as well, some are zombie looking dudes with mechanical limps and modified hands and such, and sometimes it's just a floating skull.

I get it's unfinished but wholly molly that game looks rough. Reminds me of a PC game from 2000.

A port of a mobile game? N-no thanks.

I wonder how well they'll handle the slide Eisenhorn makes from a decent man to a bad man, it's the coolest part.

@kid_gloves: Get anything written by Aron Demski Bowden and Dan Abnet. Ignore the rest until that is done.

It's a shame Games Workshop refuses to license 40K to good developers. Outside of Relic and Fatshark, I don't think there's been a single good Warhammer game, fantasy or 40K. Hopefully Total War will change that.

Spiced Terrine.

To Vinny, the voice actor for Eisenhorne is Mark Strong. He was the main bad guy in the Sherlock Holmes movie with Robert Downie Jr., he was the narrator in Rock N' Rolla, and he was Merlyn in Kingsmen. I love his work.

This looks like a game with lofty aspirations and a lot of heart but without the budget to make it all truly shine. What a shame.

Seems way too dark at the moment. I'll check this out when it's finished.

this just makes me just want Relic to be doing 40k content...

I'd totally be down for a Vinny & Austin podcast/livestream, talking about WH40K. I'd like to hear about Vinny's take on like the Horus Heresy series, what's his favorite legion or whatever.

man that's a lot of facist stuff

good lord, that was painful to watch... = (

"This area is lousy with laser traps".

Line of forever.

Looks really rough. Makes similar B-tier / euro-jank games like Mars: War Logs look like a masterpiece (I thought Mars: War Logs was alright) in comparison. I was hoping it had another 6 months in the can before release.