Ordo Mediocritus
Neocore Games could learn a thing or two from the Imperium of Man; the way it matches vast technological prowess with ostentatious design is to be applauded. That the universe has descended into endless war is no excuse to abandon style and one’s artistic ambitions. But whilst there is little doubting the developer’s desire to turn the 40k universe into a great galaxy-wide ARPG adventure, there comes the small matter of making the bloody thing work properly. Bugs and glitches are to be expected; nature doesn’t deal in perfection so it seems absurd to expect it of our fellow creatures, but there comes a point where you can only scratch your head at how such a unique set of issues could be created.
Where to even start? Aside from issues surrounding the frame rate, corpses will hang in the air, radial menu selections will randomly take you to the map screen, dialogue audio is distorted beyond human hearing, audio cues repeat, audio cues don’t correspond to the text displayed, weird collision detection for certain objects, gameplay obscuring fog, incorporeal scenery… suffice it to say the Omnissiah would not be impressed.
As makers of the Van Helsing ARPGs you would expect them to have some notion of good ARPG design, but ever since the first game in that series their efforts have become ever more compromised by some inexplicable need for novelty, introducing more and more mechanics that only serve to dilute the elemental pleasures one gets from the likes of Diablo and Path of Exile, games that recognise that the classic ARPG formula is more than capable of standing on its own.
So where before the fad was tower defence, here we find that someone on the management team was clearly a fan of Dawn of War II, as Martyr introduces a cover mechanic, suppression, and many small visual cues found in Relic’s 40k titles. It kind of works; you can hide behind bits of scenery and fire at your assailants from a greater position of safety but often enemies will either just run up to you or otherwise stand in a position you can't really reach. It can be useful at times when injured but certainly found limited use from me, and given my sniper rifle fetish it doesn’t speak too highly of its utility.
In fact, the knock-on effect is that the environments become frustratingly cluttered and with the visuals being so murky at times it’s almost guaranteed you’ll spend a decent amount of time getting stuck or in my case finding out you only died because you ended up dodge rolling into some unseen debris. The idea isn’t a bad one, the opportunity for some more tactical gameplay in an ARPG would actually be quite welcome, just that here it doesn’t have the sort of intuitive elegance needed to make it all feel natural next to the classic mouse button abuse.
Yet, despite all this and a number of other baffling deficiencies Inquisitor Martyr can still actually be quite fun. A key element of any ARPG is loot, and here things are much more satisfying. Each mission yields its own box of stuff, enemies drop items and a few chests are dotted around to further satisfy one’s kleptomania. There’s the usual rarity colour coding and deluge of item stats with the ability to tweak and modify them to suit your playstyle. Crafting turns up too, as does the much appreciated appearance modifier so there’s lots to entertain and engage lovers of progress quest and Warhammer’s gloriously absurd fashion design.
The basic combat also does enough to give this girl little shrieks of glee as running around turning the enemy hordes into a kind of extra-terrestrial slurry holds an instinctive if not entirely wholesome appeal. Hearing the thud of gunfire followed by the explosion of flesh never gets old and tearing through mobs like some mobile abattoir is the gaming equivalent of popping bubble wrap. It’s psychotic and so fits perfectly within a universe for which planet-wide genocide is the local past-time.
There is allegedly a story, but it’s one of those stories where the one set goal is simply held back from you whilst you complete a number of incidental missions where humourless charisma vacuums explain the plot to each other. There was room for characters, but what few attempts are made at developing them get lost within the mess that is the voice work. The script is merely bad, full of unwieldy sentences and dreary exposition, but the dialogue recordings all seem to have had only one take as very few lines ever feel natural or suggest the voice actor understood the character or context in which the lines were being said. It’s charming in a way, but like a dog that gets stuck in the cat flap.
There are also plans for the future; the story doesn’t end but rather stops, and the campaign design is setup perfectly for new missions to be slotted in as time goes on. The other giveaways are the implementation of ‘seasons’ with their own special campaign along with the weekly reward stuff that every game seems to have to have these days. The implication of this then is that Neocore are going to support Martyr for the foreseeable future which offers some hope that many of the issues currently plaguing the game will be dealt with. However this is a game that was clearly released too soon. There remains a concern that it will forever be in a state of perpetual construction, not to mention that the need for a constant connection threatens all this work to a virtual dustbin once the server gets shut.
Such demise would be a shame, because despite itself Martyr has enough positive points to make it worth a look. Probably not at the date of this review but with the promise on ongoing support there is no reason why it can’t be improved significantly and its machine spirit yet appeased. As it stands however it is the game for which the term 'euro jank' was made for; a mid tier developer tries its hand at making something close to a AAA title and only succeeds in reminding everyone why it is a mid tier developer. Oh well, grandescunt aucta labore.