Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 offered another gameplay trailer today as part of the Warhammer Skulls Showcase, and this one finally shows off the waves of Tyranids you’ll need to stomp through in this surprise sequel. There’s a solid view of both the shooty parts and the stabby parts of combat, as our superhuman hero rips through enemies with the mechanical teeth of his chainsword. Wholesome fun below.
]]>GOG started highlighting classic games again recently under the Good Old Games label, a nod towards its original moniker. Well, two more old-school games are releasing on the DRM-free storefront today: Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 2 and Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine. The arrival of the latter kicks off a sale on Warhammer games. While you’re deciding whether you like digital versions of the little toy troopers or not, cast your mind back to the misty days of 2004 and watch the trailer for Dark Alliance 2 below.
]]>The actual biggest surprise of The Game Awards was the announcement of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, a sequel coming a decade after Relic's chainsword-wielding action game. Spoice Mahreen was a lovely wee stompy hack-and-slash game, capturing the chunky feeling and ultraviolence of futurefascists in a way no other 40K game had. Ultramarine boy Captain Titus will return, this time cutting into the Tyranid hordes. Check out the announcement trailer.
]]>Rise, brothers, to venerate Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine as it celebrates its tenth birthday this month. Relic Entertainment and Sega have a surprise for us all too, turning the third-person ork-smasher into an 'Anniversary Edition' which includes all the DLC as well as bonuses like the soundtrack. That's all for free, which is nice.
]]>What's short, sweet, dumb as a sack of Imperial servo-hammers and free for the next 48 hours? Relic's Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, that's what. For the next two days you can grab this neat little third-person shoot n' slasher completely free via Humble, and keep it forever, although they do ask that you sign up for their newsletter in exchange for the goods.
Despite Alec's faintly damning praise, Space Marine is probably the best non-strategic Warhammer 40,000 game around. When all you've got is a huge stompy suit of power armour, a sword that is also a chainsaw and a bloody great gun, every problem starts to look like a Space Ork. Either that, or there's just thousands of the green gits to smack. Go on, then.
]]>We don’t do scores on RPS, but sometimes we mourn for the inability to deploy a 7/10. The ur-score, the most double-edged of critical swords, the good but not great, the better than it deserves to be, the guilty pleasure, the bungled aspiration, the knows exactly what it is, the straight down the line. One score that can mean so much.
There is one particular type of 7/10 game that heralds joy, not disappointment: the solid, maybe ever so slightly wonky action game with no interest in being anything more than a solid action game.
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.
I suspect but I don't know that Relic's stompy-squishy-shooty Only War third-person action game Space Marine is one that has aged rather well over the years. I base this on two things: one, occasional enthusiastic chatter on Twitter. Two: a regular, strong urge to revisit it.
]]>If we seem cynical and suspicious of the many Warhammer 40,000 games we've seen in recent years, it's because we judge them against the high-water mark of Relic Entertainment's 40k games. Dawn of War with its real-time strategising, Dawn of War II with its added action-RPG-ish flair, and Space Marine with its head-stomping are as good as we've had 40k in recent years. So huzzah! For the next week you can get the lot for just a few quid.
The latest Humble Weekly Bundle focuses on Relic, with a load of Dawn of War, Space Marine, and Company of Heroes games depending on how much you fancy paying. CoH is good too.
]]>Space Marine's recently added co-op horde mode already has additional content on the way. Latin-Dalek-impersonating Exterminatus mode originally added two scenarios for free, but THQ are preparing to release another chunk of content called Chaos Unleashed. Keeping Chaos on a leash is like keeping a cat on a leash so this is a sensible move but what does it add to the game? For the price of "800 Microsoft Points or equivalent", them being the world's major currency apparently, Chaos Unleashed let's you fight swarms of Orks and Imperial Guard as a ruddy great Chaos Marine.
]]>THQ have just announced (instead of sending me the email they promised) that Space Marine has received an update adding a co-op mode. Called Exterminatus, because there wasn't a sillier word, if you load Steam you should find it updates automagically with the new option. (And you can laugh at 360 players, who don't get this yet.)
]]>Speaking to Joystiq, THQ bossman Danny Bilson wasn't lending support to the idea of a Space Marine sequel, preferring to emphasize upcoming MMO, Dark Millennium. He said: "We've already announced the Imperium in the MMO as a class you can play... and if you combine that it's very active, as opposed to the more turn-based stuff. I'm not sure there's room for Space Marine."
]]>Relic's mildly disappointing orc-eviscerating game Space Marine is getting a 4-player co-op mode later this month, with THQ dating the roll out of the free upgrade for the 25th. It's called EXTERMINATUS. Which, quite coincidentally, is my middle name. There will be two scenarios in this mini-expansion, in which you can play as tactical marines, heavy-weaponised devastators or whoosh-bam marines. You'll be fighting orcs and chaos, according to EG.
]]>Time for another one of our in theory regular but in practice highly irregular comparisons of the last week's top ten best-selling PC games on Steam, and at UK retail. Obviously there are all manner of ways in which these are not fair or entirely meaningful comparisons, not least in that Steam's metrics can tend towards the cryptic, that Steam's includes pre-orders but UK retail (via Chart-Track) doesn't and that it's laughably hard to find many PC games on British high streets these days, but it's always fun/horrifying to get a flavour for the stark differences between what people are buying digitally and what plastic boxes their attention is caught by.
]]>Ticked off that you're stuck in the boring blue power-armour of a boring blue Ultramarine in Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine's singleplayer campaign? While you can't stop Captain Titus from banging on about his Chapter, thanks to one modder's hard work you can now make him look like he belongs to another, less vanilla entry in the Codex Astartes. Newly added to the mod, at last, are helmets - so you can look like a proper Space Marine, not the 40K equivalent of that bloody Stallone Judge Dredd movie.
]]>A lot of people are asking us to find out why Space Marine - and its demo - have disappeared from Steam in the UK, despite being a Steamworks game. I.e. it is not for sale on the download service that it requires in order to run. Whaaaaaaat. We've tried to get to the bottom of this, but all we can get is a No Comment - we'll update with more if we can get it. I have my theories, but it would imprudent to share them without evidence. Sorry about that: what a ridiculous and frustrating situation. Especially as the UK has already had to wait several days longer for the game than everyone else, thanks to conniving dunderheads in the retail industry.
]]>I’ve already word-splurged about Space Marine’s singleplayer, but what about its multiplayer, which I spent most of yesterday running my cursor over? Does it make Relic’s third-person 40K stompathon a fuller package? Well, yes and no. There’s things I want to whine about, but more importantly there are two very specific things that endear me to it.
]]>Hello! I've spent my waking hours since yesterday afternoon battering my way through Relic's Ork-mashing sci-fi action game Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine (which was released yesterday in most of the world but not until bloody Friday in the UK) and am now ready to empty the contents of my head all over you. This is only for the singleplayer campaign, however - I'm hoping to turn my attention to the multiplayer shortly... On with the word-show!
]]>Relic's orkshoot came out today for people who happen to live in North America, but a mysterious and intractably evil force is preventing exactly the same collection of ones and zeroes from unlocking on PCs in other parts of the world. We're not expecting Space Marine review code ourselves until a bit later this week - instead of being allowed access to the version already live across the pond - and, mysteriously and worryingly, no American reviews have been posted yet. Hmm.
]]>Relic's manly man-killing simulator - Space Marine - is but a week away from unleashing it's own brand of intense violence, blood and gore upon the world, and THQ have sent us another video to herald it's arrival. Here we get to see the "Thunder Hammer" turning orcs into clouds of red mist. Delightful.
]]>The demo for Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine is now live on Steam, unless you live in the UK, where it is mysteriously absent. I've contacted THQ again to ask why this might be.
]]>Hot damn! Now that did the trick. I'm prone to worrying about what game I should play right after finishing something great. It's a science, like which album or song do you play right after something that's lifted your spirits or got you in a singin' mood. You don't want something that's going to shut you up. It's the same with games: picking the wrong bet as a follow-up can sour the experience, or at least fail to take advantage of my mental momentum. My mood could be ruined. I could be left adrift for a few days, every game seeming strangely unappealing. Last night, I got it right - following up Deus Ex: Human Revolution with the Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine demo. Hot damn. Aside from the whole machine-assisted warrior element, these are two very different games. After some 30 hours of sneaking, hacking and pondering in DX3, mindlessly eviscerating Orks by the dozen with a Power Axe was exactly right, exactly the coda I needed.
]]>Somewhere. I am presuming North American Steam accounts can see it and download it and play it, if they have pre-ordered, due to this post on the main site. The Space Marine page is not visible here in the UK at all. I contacted THQ to ask why that would be quite some time back, but we've yet to get a response. Our guess is that it's related to a retail distribution deal in the UK, but we're just speculating. Anyway, Relic have announced that signing up to this Honor Guard thing will give UK users access to the demo on August 22nd, somehow. The demo apparently gets a general release on the 23rd, but I am not totally clear about that.
]]>The chaps at Gematsu have posted four new Space Marine trailers, via THQ, and I've reposted them below. They all basically have the same message - "I AM WAR" - but in delivering it they show a lot of varied game footage. It really is looking rather handsome.
]]>But not as shiny as studio marketing man James McDermott! Look at his beautiful face. That is a man who knew his immaculate beard was going to appear on a video watched by thousands that day. He's no Servo-Skull.
Anyway, this trailer talks about the production of the game, making it all look and sound spectacular. There's loads of cinematic footage - because Relic learned stuff from the movie industry, apparently - and a bit about the general environment and ambience. I think anyone who isn't excited about this is probably not taking care of their inner Space Marine, and need to think a bit about how he's feeling right now. Poor guy. He's all alone in there with your inner child, your inner 1980s Wall Street banker, and your inner Credible Adult. And they all need to learn to get along. They really do.
Okay, go watch the video. You are ready.
]]>Hmm, this is a bit of an odd one, via ShackNews. This Space Marine forum post, which has subsequently been deleted, saw a THQ community manager claiming that the co-op aspect of Space Marine would turn up 30 days or so after release, but as then clearly been redacted. Since then THQ have released a statement saying: "Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine will have co-op and we look forward to announcing more details later this month."
]]>Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine is a brilliant name for a game. It is about Space Marines. Done. Coming from Warhammer regulars, Relic, the third-person actioner we've been discussing for nearly two years is due in a month already. Gosh, September's getting busy. Today the pipes have produced a multiplayer trailer for your eyes. It's below.
]]>Following our hands-on with Space Marine yesterday, I now spy a cinematic trailer, which I've posted below. It is unlikely to surprise you, since it shows the usual spread of orks and chaos minions getting slaughtered by space marines wielding chainswords and English accents. I do like the look of the Warboss and the Chaos chief executive, though.
The game is out September 6th.
]]>Multiplayer, eh? Bit of fun! Having a laugh with friends. Persistent unlocks. Leaderboards. And all I can think as Relic demo Space Marine's multiplayer component to me, is this: Frivolity! The Emperor would not approve. My tune was, however, changed slightly following several hours and a dozen matches of hands-on.
]]>Heretics! Blood Letters! Chaos Space Marines! And Orks. Always with the Orks. (The Orks need their own game, really: they get such a bad rap, treated as idiots and fodder). Here's the Chaos-centric E3 trailer for Space Marine, a game I am very much looking forward too, albeit with the concern that the lone hero thingy might not entirely sit well my own vision of Space Marineyness. Still, I love the 40K universe as much as any poorly-shaven man of my generation, so the opportunity to get all first-person on it makes me tremble like a tiny rabbit.
]]>You want to play Space Marine. I want to play Space Marine. We all want to play Space Marine.
But what if you want to do more than play Space Marine? What if you want to pre-order it for trinkets and exclusive crumbs of content? Relic has you covered. They're even giving away hardware, for goodness sake. Thanks to RPS reader Mondo Mau for sending this in. Details after the jump.
]]>Last month we had Relic talking about the universe of Warhammmer 40,000: Space Marine, putting a positive spin on the fact that Space Marines are basically one-ton fascists who can survive by eating dirt.
This month Relic are talking about combat. What's the quickest way to regenerate your Marine's health? By pulling "over the top execution moves", of course. This builds "fury", which... ah, I don't want to give the game away. It's all waiting for you after the jump.
]]>This is a bit "some men have paid some money to some other men", but given the general tendency towards 40K gonkery around these parts it's worth a nod. THQ have just announced that they've arranged to hang onto the rights to Warhammer 40,000 for a few more years yet. This means we'll see more Only War-based games from THQ (including social and mobile ones; let's hope the former doesn't mean TyranidVille) after the upcoming Space Marine and the MMO Dark Millennium have been and gone. Licences for the licence god!
]]>Those feisty fellows at Machinima.com went and scooped a Space Marine diary from Relic, and - thanks to the internet's smelly hippie ethos of sharing - you can see the first instalment below. There is grimdark, there are squigs, there are chainswords, there is compellingly ludicrous evisceration, there is epic futuristic gothic architecture, and - ultimately - I would say there is awesome. Go watch.
And then read Quintin's impressions from playing the game.
]]>Do Space Marines go on dates? "You have the most gorgeous geneseed." "If I said you have a beautiful flamer, would you let me burn the heretic with it?" "In the grim darkness of the 41st millennium there is only war, and your eyes."
Anyway! Relic's upcoming orkshooter Space Marine has finally been granted something like a release date. It's been on the horizon for about 40,000 years already, but now all of a sudden it's turning up in August. This August, that is. So just five months until the Ultramarine's Captain Titus sticks his Power Fist into the maw of various non-human scum (which were earlier this week confirmed to include the forces of Chaos). 2011 sure is a busy year for expensive-looking video games.
Space Marine trailer (albeit an old one) below to aid with your remembrance.
]]>The good news about Relic's upcoming Warhammer 40,000 manshoot keeps on getting gooder. First, THQ reversed their decision to not release it on PC. Then Quinns came away from an early preview with a much bigger spring in his step than we expected. Now we hear that it won't, as had previously been hinted, be merely a matter of bashing/stabbing/boltering Orks until they're all dead. The Space Marines' gnarly arch-nemeseseseses Chaos will be showing up too. Nicely-rendered blood for the blood god!
]]>About five minutes into my demonstration of Relic's Space Marine I realise what I'm looking at is a 3rd person shooter that draws heavily from Gears of War, so I ask an obvious question. "Is there some kind of cover system?" Relic man grins. "Actually, the team has an internal line about that. We say, 'Cover is for Pussies.'"
I don't take my eyes off the screen, but my ears do a double take. "We do have this though," says Relic man. With the press of a button he sends Ultramarine Captain Titus running straight through a low wall of cover like a wrecking ball, and begins hacking apart the orks on the other side with his chainsword. "Oh," I hear myself say, mesmerised. "Right!"
]]>"The loyal PC audience is incredibly important to us here at Relic," says a guy. Or, to put it in other, MORE EXCITING words: the Warhammer 40,000 third-person action game Space Marine is coming to PC, despite formerly being pitched as console only. Oh yay! Oh yay!
And the screenshots? The screenshots look great.
]]>Online petitions! I love the way they don't ever change anything. But still, let's give it a shot. There's an online effort to convince THQ/Relic to release their upcoming Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine shooter on PC as well as on console. It makes sense, given I'd guesstimate there's a bit more commonality between PC gamers and Games Workshop players than between console gamers and the latter, but then that is an entirely baseless sweeping generalisation.
And, as it turns out, Relic aren't dismissing the idea of a PC version out of hand.
]]>Via VG247 we discover that a couple of Czech sites are hosting the first footage of THQ's third-person action title Warhammer 40k: Space Marine. The piece seems to narrated by someone from the dev team, who shows off a load of in-game footage, and employs excessive use of the word "cinemaction". The game is reportedly coming out on PC and consoles, and we think that's a fairly safe bet. Only War, after the jump.
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