Orks must die (and other enemies of man)
The Warhammer 40,000K series has been around for quite some time, expanding it's universe into different game genres. First were the popular strategy titles, then came the arcade twin-stick shooter, and now here is Space Marine, an 3rd person action title released in September of last year. I've recently had a chance to play the game, and glad I'm did as it contains some intense action as well as an established story that does a nice job of informing new players of the battle between Marines and Orks.
In Space Marine you'll play as Ultramarine Captain Titus, as he and his men seek Inquistor Drogan, an agent of the Imperial Inquisition who needs help with a weapon which he suggests can destroy all of the Orks. Of course things can't go as smoothly as they would like and you'll have to fight through many enemies, with Orks being the most prominent. The campaign on Normal difficulty took me around 8 hours to complete and proved to be quite challenging.
While you'll be able to use a varied amount of impressive weaponry, melee attacks were my favorite part of the game. The Space Marine's default weapon is the chainsword, a quick and deadly weapon which strikes through enemies in quick succession, and includes some really nice sound effects to accompany the weapon. You'll actually have to rely on melee attacks most of the game, as it is the best way to regain health. Rather than have regenerative health like most games have recently, Space Marine requires you to perform melee executions to regain lost health. Most of the time during my playthrough, I would dispatch the bigger foes as quickly as possible, and then perform executions on the smaller enemies to regain my health back.
After you've enjoyed the campaign, there's some fun multiplayer to be had with a few different options.
As this is a THQ published title, you'll need an online pass to full enjoy multiplayer, but you're able to at least play up until level 5 without any codes. Game modes consist of variants on deathmatch, team deathmatch, and objective based gameplay. You can level up your marine to better equip yourself for battle, and matches seemed to play pretty well online. It was also nice that there are still plenty of players on the game, and Relic has still been supporting the game with DLC updates, which included a free co-op mode to check out.
Space Marine has some great content, and caters to both new players and those familiar with the Warhammer media. It's spread across comics, books, and games, so if you really like Space Marine, you can get more out of the story by checking out the other Warhammer products. If you only check out Space Marine though, you'll find a great action-adventure title with great single & multiplayer content.
