Recent reviews by lewislain

the single player campaign in this game would benefit from a horus heresy novel caliber writer, but it is fine and fun and accessible- even re-playable if you're feeling nostalgic. game mechanics are navigable and make use of a proper range of keystroke for the wasd player. it makes you feel like you're space marine doing space marine things. good job.
but i'm really here to talk about the pvp.
i have spent entirely too many hours in this game, playing the same four maps with the same handful on pvp players for entirely too long. why on earth would anyone spend so much time on a dead, unsupported, peer-hosted, lag-ridden game?

when you play this game, you feel like you are an 8 foot abhuman, capable of extreme speed, accuracy and violence. the sound of armor joints moving with foot falls of heavy tread sounds like a space marine. the stride and change of gait when running or throwing a shoulder barge feels like a space marine. the bark of a bolter, the boost of a jumppack, they all make sense. the gravity feels right. you are a space marine.

it appeals to broad range of gameplay with three classes(tactical, assault or devastator) with so many possible combinations of earnable (not purchasable) perks that create an incredibly wide variety of game play styles. this diversity of game play makes a 12 person lobby feel like you are fighting among heroes or primarchs, not a squad of cookie-cutter ultramarines.
the option to chose your visual style is equally impressive with earnable (not purchasable) armor sets and a color palate that can turn your standard marine into loud rainbow colored emperors child or multi black shadow ravengaurd and everything in between.
playing this game successfully in pvp requires patience with warp-storms(lag), chaos demons(cheats) and a darksouls-like penchant for running one's head into a wall until you find your playstyle. (and that's assuming you have green bars for your connection and not yellow or red because you are in the us and the host is in the uk)

pvp has a lamentably limited amount of easily learnable maps of diverse-enough, many layered environments, with built-in benefits for certain classes or weapons(long open fields for sniper, tunnel-feeling halls for close up melta).
this limited range of maps is even more limited by the only active gameplay option (seize ground) being the default option and therefore the most likely place to find pvp play.
not to disparage "seize ground," its objectives allow for a large range of gameplay. want to play with in a clan with squad tactics? you can. want to play a world eater and gather blood for the blood god with head-on charge into enemy lines? you can. camp with heavy bolter, snipe with a one shot las canon, sink the emperors justice into the the meat of your enemy with whirring chainsword teeth? yep. big balls of plasma in a game of trebuchet? sure. its all there,

the playablility of this game after a number of hours becomes almost meditative. if i am about to do some work where my hand-eye cordination needs some tuning, i can find a random game of seize ground and get those gears moving before heading to work. highly recommended, if that is a thing you can benefit from and warhammer 40k is a fun ip in your experience. they broke the mold with this game,

in the grimdark future, there is only elevators, (there should be an achievement called "activate 100 lifts")
warhammer 40k: spacemarine (one) is somehow still a superior game. everything two fails at(which is alot imo), one does better. full stop.
overall note: just because you can, doesn't mean you should. too much is too much. there is no balance in this game.
this version is too busy with unnecessary graphics and visual effects with an overly-complicated interface and over encumbered controls.
campaign "how to play" was good in concept, way too busy with unnecessary effects and non-interactive backgrounds built to suggest there's a reason to explore outside the guided path, but there is not. Only more particles and lens flairs and nonsense. All flash and fury, no substance
pvp is bad. ugh. the developers should've played space marine 1 before they did anything here.
the pvp in space marine 1 is so much better. you feel like you are an actual space marine, with the weight and gravity and size of a space marine and it makes it feel effortless to control, as if it really is your skin. the movement feels natural and responsive. rolls and barges feel like rolls and barges and not like ineffective darksouls gesture.

this game, space marine 2, does none of that. it feels like you are steering an awkward suit of musclebound armor with fancy decorations. (yes i know that's what a space marine is, but they don't feel that way to them. they move faster than the eye can see in the lore. we should feel the world like they do, not like a human in their skin would.)

this may seem contrary to what i just said, but there is no weight to the game. everything has the same intensity all the time. somehow they managed to make an 8ft abhuman feel insignificant and awkward, and when it crosses the rubicon primaris does it get faster or more agile or actually feel like it has gravity and weight? no. somehow even less so.
(side question: when a space marine becomes a primaris, do they just cut off his head and arms and sew them to a bigger body? what's up with titus' scars?)

the space marines of "one" make the primaris of "two" look like servitors. belesarius cawl needs a reboot, call the omnissiah.

also, i'd like to know who has been asking for more unnecessary interface to access game modes? one shouldn't have to navigate the entire span of an actual battlebarge and watch a 40k epic cut-scene before a static load screen to join a pvp game,

pvp is bad. it feels as if the designers thought they were making a sequel to eternal crusade.

what an incredibly disappointing experience.