Relic Entertainment is known far and wide for its vast and superior knowledge in the realm of stratagem. With titles like Homeworld, Company of Heroes, and Dawn of War in their repertoire, few can argue the strength of their craft. However, when the studio revealed they would be crafting a third-person, combat-centric depiction of the bloodthirsty 40k Space Marine – you might see why Relic fans got a little nervous. Thankfully, Space Marine‘s departure from the standard strategy approach exceeds all expectations with an adrenaline-fueled, combat-savvy core that truly represents the dark and gritty universe of Warhammer 40,000.



Warhammer 40,000 isn’t a small, easily-understandable universe. If you know nothing about 40k, it will undoubtedly swallow you into its limitless abyss without further thought. That’s not to say that Games Workshop’s world isn’t incredibly addictive and fleshed out, but casual gamers and first-timers will have absolutely no idea what’s so special about a Space Marine or who the hell this ‘Emperor’ everyone keeps talking about is. The game is pretty lacking when it comes to explanation; but saying that, if you’re a 40k fan, you will absolutely adore the amount of detail Relic has poured into the game.

Whether you’re a 40k fan or not, the story behind Space Marine is incredibly reserved and all-in-all standard. You take control of Captain Titus of the Ultramarines, who are deployed on the planet Graia to prevent the Ork invasion force from capturing a Warlord-class Titan – a weapon of absolute strategic value. Throughout the course of the game, you’ll encounter various battle brothers and Imperial Guard, but there’s very little focus on compelling characters or dialog. The Space Marines converse every once in a while about the mission, but you can forget about getting to know the actual Marines themselves. Once again, this isn’t something the 40k universe is in need of, as the true story is told in combat, but it might put off those who are looking for something a bit deeper in the narrative department.


Guess who’s in charge here?

As far as appearance and aesthetic style, Space Marine is deceptively beautiful. The environments are torn asunder, facial features on every single model are immaculate, weapons look crazy, and, above all else, the intricacy of armour and the many details associated with it are astounding. I know the 40k universe is known for its variety and craftsmanship, but I’ve never poured this much over detail in a video game. The particle effects coming off of weapon hits, ranged weaponry shells, even the blast coming from a jump-pack as you’re taking off; it’s all unbelievable, and graphically pleasing. It also helps that the sounds your weapons make, the chink of bolter rounds off of desecrated armor, the weighted step of your marine, all the delightful noises of combat in their entirety, sound spot on. Relic has done a tremendous job replicating the tabletop phenomenon. Simply said, customization and detail don’t get much deeper than they do in this game.

Space Marine’s health mechanics are by far one of the most unique combat features that actually augment the gameplay. Like a true 40k Space Marine, these fellows rush into the midst of combat with a savage grace. To represent this, Relic has completely ditched the Gears of War-esque cover scheme and instead opted to give you health for brutally slaughtering foes. That’s right – curb stomp your enemies and it heals your wounds. On paper, this might sound contrived and stupid, but the melee combat is so sharp and the executions so satisfying, you’d be hard pressed not to look forward to your next wild charge into battle.


Hey man, that axe looks nice. Whatcha’ gonna do with...

Melee is an amalgamation of mechanics pulled from other games, and all of them are equally satisfying. The short combo system mimics that of the Dynasty Warriors series, but don’t be fooled; the targeting and overall combat movement is straight from the Asylum in Arkham. Within a split-second, you can roll away from an enemy’s attack, take a swipe at an adjacent target, move back into your first target’s face, and then execute the fool standing right next to him. Also, you can seamlessly bring your ranged weapon into the mix whenever you feel someone needs a righteous pop, or maybe that dude firing his gun at you is finally getting on your nerves. Fluid and easy as the combat is, enemy behaviour in this game doesn’t represent a flicker of the infamously awful AI from the Dynasty Warriors games. While there can be gaggles of enemies onscreen at once, these guys actually want you dead, and, unless you fight back with your health-restoring executions and evasion mechanics, you can expect to die – a lot. No mindless hack and slashing here.

Gory and fun as it may be, I did find Space Marine’s weapon selection to be a little on the sparse side. In total, there is a plethora of ranged weapons, but only four melee weapons you can choose from (three if you don’t count the knife). Every single melee weapon is good fun to use, and contain unique executions dependent on the enemy type, but they can grow tiresome. The same can be said of the very basic combo system, à la Dynasty Warriors. Each weapon has four different combos you’ll quickly get accustomed to, but you never unlock greater chains or anything else that could spice up the same drab combos. Being a 40k game, I find it hard to believe we couldn’t have seen a little more effort go into the melee combat variety. Where the hell are my Lightning Claws, and I have to pay to use a Power Sword? C’mon man.


Customization is truly a thing of beauty.

Space Marine’s online component is surprisingly addictive and easy to jump into. Chaos versus Space Marines and Annihilation or Seize Ground is the name of the game. Each game type is composed of two teams of eight; Annihilation is your standard team deathmatch (up to 41) and Seize Ground is a take-and-hold type. Unfortunately, there are only five maps to play on, but the gameplay itself might help raise your spirits. There are three classes in the game: Tactical, Devastator, and Assault (Chaos uses different titles). Each uses a very basic form of the Call of Duty perk system, as well as different weapons. While I’m a bit sick of the perk system being implemented into multiplayer games, this one – being more reserved – actually works well. You can unlock various perks and weapons by completing standard challenges (kill "X" amount of Orks) to further customize your soldier, but the actual customization is the true star here.

As I stated above, Space Marine’s attention to detail is immaculate, and that goes double for its online component. Not only can you fully customize your man, but you can colour and detail practically every single piece of armour on your body, and earn more through the challenges. This gives team appearances a healthy dose of variety, and puts an emphasis on making your soldier your own. Quite honestly, it’s refreshing to see this amount of customization in a multiplayer mode, as there aren’t twenty schmucks running around in gunmetal grey attire with hats. Sure, the multiplayer is not going to be your end-all answer to the heavy-hitting multiplayer juggernauts like Gears of War and Call of Duty, but it’s a nice substitute to pass the time.


Hey you! Yeah, you with the face!

40k vets will easily sink their putrid claws into the flesh of this supremely detailed game, but not everyone will understand the robust, yet convoluted, universe. Relic’s restless adventure will only take you around seven hours to beat, but couple that with a decent online component and the upcoming four-player co-op "Exterminatus," and you’ve got a very worthwhile title.

8/10

Labels: 2011, Andrew Whipple III, PC, PS3, Relic Entertainment, Review, Space Marine, THQ, Warhammer 40000, Xbox 360

Before its September 6th release date, we thought it'd be nice to show you a little gameplay from Relic's latest baby. Space Marine is a mix of Dynasty Warriors button-combos with God of War-esque executions along with Arkham Asylum fluidity. It all comes together in a violent concoction that's more than suitable for Warhammer 40,000 fans everywhere. So what are you waiting for? Let us show you how to kill some Orks!



Gamer's Guide to (insert game here) is a brand new feature we're trying to showcase with more relevant games. We hope you enjoyed it and feel free to give us some ideas and let us know how you feel in the comments below!

Labels: 2011, Andrew Whipple III, Relic Entertainment, Space Marine, THQ

Metro: Last Light officially stumbled out of the crumbling Russian tunnel into the dazzling post-apocalyptic sunlight yesterday, with previews, screenshots and a particularly interesting teaser trailer whetting the appetites of fans. Not only was the minute-long trailer a lesson in how to perfectly edit video to music, but the pounding beat of Portishead's 'Machine Gun' meant snippets of gameplay were hidden beneath plenty of evocative artwork. This analysis rips open the pulsating mutant flesh of the teaser trailer, slicing through artwork to get to the juicy, vital gameplay shots. Eat up.



Click the images to see them in their fullscreen glory.


0m 10s Our first look into Last Light, and it's bloody. A shotgun pistol, seemingly with only a single shot left before the need to reload, takes down a mutant with brutal efficiency.


0m 12s Three enemies - I'm placing my bullets on them being Fourth Reich Nazis, from the Hansa line - take cover on a station platform as all hell breaks loose. One seems to have an exremely long sniper rifle of some sort, and the direction of the ribbons on the right indicates strong wind. Look out for the headshot towards the end of this segment...


0m 15s Fifteen seconds in, and all we can make out is an enemy firing his machine gun right in front of you. However, around the seventeen-second mark, Artyom lunges down, to stab something with tentacles. The resulting splatter of goo shows that gas marks will make a triumphant return.


0m 20s Turns out, dark tunnels play a big role in Metro: Last Light. A pistol seems to be enough to take out a whole cave full of mutants, so here's hoping that the guns are a lot more powerful this time around. The mutant, however, does have a swipe at you, making the camera sway and the screen go green.


0m 21s He looks like he's seen a ghost. Probably because he has. Eerie shadows can frighten even the most manly of players and characters alike. The player seems to be helping this poor soul up onto a railway carriage, but it could be that he is trying to stop Artyom from falling.


0m 26s Up to the 26-second mark, we've seen very unclear images of the player shooing something, but here we get the full view. A monster playing carelessly in a puddle, happy as can be. Until you plug it full of lead. There seems to be a crossbow with a sniper sight attached at the 23-second mark, and the wide, open, slightly rural setting means we'll be seeing a lot more of the Russian countryside this time, compared to Metro 2033.


0m 27s "I am 12 and what is this" seems like an apt phrase when we hit 0:27 - a mutant that appears to spurt from the ground gets the front-row view of the barrel of your AK. Some beautiful lighting illuminates the horror when fire spits from the gun like poison.


0m 29s Mutant jumps at you. Mutant screams at you. You stab mutant. You win Nobel Peace Prize.


0m 31s Assorted shooting gameplay, with some lovely reload animations. We're hoping the 'military grade' bullets as money mechanic is still in place, making every miss the stuff of nightmares.


0m 33s Stabbing someone in the back never produced so much blood. Or looked this good. Stealth seems to be a key part of Last Light, and so long as 4a Games fix the issues where AI magically knows you're fifty yards away because they can hear your heartbeat, I'm very happy to see it return.


0m 35s These agile little freaks of nature will pester you no end, a bit like a needy child. Still, they drop dead after a few bullets from your assault rifle. A bit like a needy child.


0m 38s No one likes spiders. Spiders are devious and untrustworthy little buggers. So, when they spill out of a sack of flesh in the heart of the Russian metro? Yeah, best run away.


0m 40s Much as I adore the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series (another gritty survival-horror from a Ukrainian studio), there's nothing quite as haunting as this. Note the lack of ammunition in your gun. Metro: Last Light certainly isn't for the faint of heart.


0m 43s Kill it. Kill it with fire.


0m 45s It's a bit hard to tell - this is either an explosion, or a train hurtling towards you at full speed, swatting soldiers out the way like radiated flies. Cue end of trailer. 'Coming 2012' is the only hint at a release date.

See? It might all be pretty lights and loud noises to some, but teaser trailers hold some grubby delights. Stick around for more awesomeness from Gamer's Guide to Life.com - in fact, follow our Twitter to never miss a beat ever, ever again.

Labels: 2011, 4a Games, Analysis, Chris Hawke, Metro 2033, Metro: Last Light, THQ, Trailer, Video

Destruction is a beautiful thing. Whether it be by rocket, crazed mech, or old-fashioned sledgehammer, there's nothing Red Faction is afraid to present in pieces. In just about a month, Volition is taking us back to Mars to begin the demolition anew with Red Faction: Armageddon. Though the last Red Faction title, Guerrilla, was a fantastic return to form for the dormant series, there are a few key matters that Armageddon needs to focus on in order to surpass its predecessor.

Many dicey things went down last time we controlled Mr. Alex Mason. now that he's long gone, things have become far worse. With life support running out and the surface of Mars once again uninhabitable, the cavernous depths of the Red Planet are the only sanctuary left for humankind. Of course, it won't be easy; with fanatic humans and all sorts of angry beasts present they'll need both new equipment and augmented features to emerge victorious from such a debacle. Let's delve deep, and take a look into...

The Underground

According to THQ, around 80% of Armageddon will take place in the bowels of Mars. That's a pretty long time to spend in a single area, and it might become a little boring to look at. This brings us to goal numero uno - make the environments varied, not at all like those found in Guerrilla.

With a setting as alien as Mars is, there's an infinite number of ways to craft meticulously detailed environments for gamers to fawn over and explore. We've got to be able to stay interested as look for things to blow up. Guerrilla had some interesting locales, but the game was in large part completely brown from top to bottom. Volition, here's your chance to give us some shiny, crystalline caverns that just weren't possible in Guerrilla. We're tired of brown.

High Profile Targets

One of the best things about running about in Guerrilla was finding all the EDF's important buildings and structures, and leveling them. We aren't sure who the real threat is going to be in the new game, but I'll be damned if they don't have any important buildings down there. Allow us the freedom to move about and tackle these puppies once again and you'll gain some points with the crowd that really matters - the people reading this article.

GeoMod destructibility

Guerrilla was criticised by fans for the fact that its environment could not be altered. To me this is a minor feature that, while not essential, would be nice to have. What's more important is how the structures we attack come apart; we need more consistency. I can't tell you how many times a giant structure, after its architectural integrity was compromised beyond repair, would be standing up on a single beam of steel. It would eventually fall over, but this happened far too often to be considered acceptable. Make it more reliable Volition - this Red Faction needs it!

Missions

Remember those race-type missions in Guerrilla that would have you cross a large area? Remember how many times you got right to the end to have the timer run out on you? These missions need to vanish into the dark recesses of Mars, never to be seen again. Tie something more interesting, like high profile buildings and targets, into the mission structure. Rail-shooter sections in Guerrilla were tons of fun, and Demolition Master and Heavy Metal missions practically made the game. I am expecting some new ones, but damn you, Volition... damn you to hell if you rid the world of these excellent pieces of digital crack.

Co-op

Initially I thought for sure that Armageddon would incorporate some type of story driven cooperative play. I was wrong. Infestation mode is just like Halo's Firefight, or Gears of War's Horde mode, but it needs to be different. I'm not against components like Infestation, it's just that a lot of the time waves of monsters become repetitive, and therefore becomes a mode no one cares about. This is especially true now that Armageddon will be missing the multiplayer component Guerrilla had. No, it wasn't the best multiplayer by any means, but it was silly fun. With that said, Infestation has some rather large pressure behind it now. If it fails, the replayability of this Armageddon will tank significantly.

Red Faction is a great series, and if its latest incarnation resembles anything like Guerrilla, it will be a ton of fun to play. With some small tweaks and minor changes, Red Faction: Armageddon could very well become the definitive game in the franchise. We only have to wait another month to find out.

What changes would you like to see to the game? Let us know in the comments section below!

Labels: 2011, Andrew Whipple III, GeoMod, Red Faction Guerrilla, Red Faction: Armageddon, THQ, Volition

Stacking is a simplified and more casual version of the adventure games of yore. To me it was particularly evocative of the Monkey Island series, titles known for their quirky, humourous stories and esoteric puzzles. Despite only being Double Fine’s second foray into the downloadable game arena, Stacking is a delightful game for anyone pining for a classic adventure game.

The player controls Charlie Blackmore, the smallest (and perhaps most adorable) doll in a family of Russian nesting dolls. Charlie can stack into, and 'unstack' from, larger dolls to solve puzzles and save his family, who have been captured by the evil child-labour propagator, known as the Baron. Charlie explores a larger-than-life, early 20th century Britain, as he quests to save his family from the Baron and undo nasty child labour laws once and for all.

In the same way that Monkey Island was about finding and combining items to solve puzzles, Stacking is about applying the correct item to the correct situation. The only difference is that your items are characters, the dolls, spread out across the environment and full of such personality and quirkiness that they colour the game a strikingly unique, enjoyable puzzle-playground. What would be static, menu-based inventory items in most games turn into a circus of charming dolls scurrying around the playable field. Each doll has one ability that it can perform, ranging from generally useless actions (breakdancing and flatulance) to uniquely applicable ones (vomiting cookies and playing pied piper). The flavour provided by these character-items makes puzzle solving much more visual and friendly to those not well-learned in the obscurity of adventure game logic.


Stacking actually does a lot to circumvent much of the frustration which adventure games can inspire, most notably the tendency for visual puzzle-solving to become repetitive and irritating. Take Monkey Island, or even more modern adventure games, like Sam & Max; it’s easy to get stuck or lost in the game’s language, which is often impractical or humourous rather than logical. Who knew that a rubber chicken could be used as a zipline trolley? A pot can double as a helmet? There’s a certain out-of-the-box abstract logic to adventure games that takes a conditioned mind to recognise, and that invites some negative frustration. Being able to see the dolls' abilities in Stacking helped me to understand how a particular doll could aid in a situation. Even though the puzzles are rarely brilliant, elegant, or even all that complex, the impressive visuality of it all is a nice design choice that cuts through a lot of that nebulous misunderstanding and frustration that adventure games have forced players to wallow in for years.

Every puzzle has multiple solutions, but usually it only needs to be solved once to proceed through the game. If you were to just go find one solution to every puzzle, Stacking wouldn’t take you very long to complete, but there’s fun to be had in discovering every solution: they’re usually clever and make use of an unfamiliar doll. The real upside of multiple-solution puzzles is that, chances are, you’ll be able to figure out at least one of the solutions without much trouble, which goes a long way in removing the dissatisfaction of getting stuck on a particularly tricky riddle.

A trend in modern iterations of adventure games that I really appreciate is the hint system, and Stacking has a three-step hint system that begins vaguely and ends by directly outlining how to proceed. This mechanic can help anyone along at any time, during any puzzle, only augmenting how ideal Stacking is for adventure game fans of any calibre.


Stacking bookends puzzles and levels with stylised cutscenes that mimic the silent films of the game's era: bouncy piano music plays whilst the dolls bounce up and down to indicate who's talking to whom, and after a second or two the screen shifts to text and dialogue. It's part of the charm, but the scenes come up often and run slowly, and none are skippable. If anything, their use highlights how antiquated the idea of a cutscene can be in a game, but given Stacking’s late 19th/early 20th century motif, the antiquation feels almost appropriate.

There’s a strong aesthetic in Stacking that’s both charming and cohesive. Dolls scuttle and wobble about with an almost stilted animation that feels very appropriate for they way they look. The garbled grunts and chubby faces of the dolls provide just enough enjoyment to make me fine with being stuck in puzzles momentarily, because at least the experimentation was still visually fun. Environments in the game range from a high-class train, to a cruise boat, to an ominous zeppelin. Each feels decorated and is populated with a cast of new dolls and puzzles that fit the setting. In one level of a train car I found a crowd of humongous dolls wearing monocles and top hats, feasting on piles of golden coins served to them by lowly child labourers, as a fire - fuelled by hundred dollar bills - roared behind them. Much of the reason to play this game is to enjoy the art style and the embedded humour.

Adventure games are definitely a 'certain type' of game, one that hasn’t changed much since their inception. Stacking is fun, and its design breathes some simple ingenuity into the concept of puzzle solving in game design. Fans of adventure games will certainly appreciate Stacking, though it is slightly skewed to be more accessible and inviting to the young or uninitiated. It works perfectly as a downloadable title, with satisfying length and plenty of replay value for those who like unexhaustive solutions. In short, Stacking is no breakthrough, but it takes the adventure genre and gives it its own unique twist. I’d be remiss to not encourage the unique.

8/10 [?]

Labels: 2011, 360, Double Fine, Parker Scott Mortensen, PlayStation3, PS3, PSN, Review, Stacking, THQ, Xbox 360, Xbox LIVE