Customer Review
- Reviewed in the United States on October 4, 2011I thought about purchasing Space Marine (SM) for a month or so. I've played several fps (e.g. Red Faction, Halo, Gears of War, Call of Duty) and pegged SM as a product at the mid/lower end of the spectrum. Fortunately I was wrong. First I'll discuss my thoughts on the campaign, then I'll address multiplayer.
Normally, I don't care for the campaign aspect of fps, but I could picture myself replaying it after beating it. Some fps games are quite tedious at the hardest levels in terms of remebering to be at a certain location at a certain time with a certain weapon in order to beat the few enemies that prevent you from reaching a checkpoint. SM does a good job at not putting players through this. Instead, success is more a factor of managing larger and larger hordes of enemies rushing you. I prefer this because there's a greater adrenaline rush...the more traditional design feels like I'm playing chess which I find boring.
Multiplayer is always the determining factor on whether I deem a game a good purchase. SM has two game types: annihilation (like 'team deathmatch' in COD) and seize ground (like 'domination' in COD). At first, I thought this was a liability. Then I realized that +90% of online players play these game types anyway. Not only that, but other game types (e.g. Headquarters, Demolition in COD) tend to require higher tactical skill levels, which most players don't exercise, and that results in blowouts more often than not. Getting spawn trapped is mitigated by giving each team a protected respawn area; players have an option to spawn next to other players or at controlled points on map (seize ground only). Weapons have sufficiently large magazines such that in a 1v1 engagement, reloads really aren't necessary before one player is killed. Grenades can't be "cooked", which ends up being a good thing if you don't like to play in a map where you spend most of your time getting killed by grenades...players are typically forced to finish an opponent in a more manly way (shots, or melee). The melee system is good because it isn't "one hit one kill"...also, with the lunge and dodge capability of players, quite a bit of technique is involved in a straight-up melee engagement...also, several melee weapons with various performance parameters are available. Tracking while scoping is also smooth. The perk system is kinda-sorta like COD. However, certain perks are only available for certain classes (3 class-types available, which can be used to create 9 customized characters). I think this is a clever way to ensure that each class type is meant for specific styles of play...otherwise, players could get away with using a "master class" that basically works all then time. Game tempo is great because you have the option of instantly respawning...also, players have unlimited respawns...unlike Gears of War (what a snooze-fest). Maneuver is a big part of the game (thank you!). I think this is the first fps that really got this right. They do this in two ways: 1) players have unlimited sprint capability, 2) jet-packs enable players to cover huge distances. This is fantastic because now every map (big or small) plays with the action of a smaller map. Furthermore, the maps allow many ways to approach an enemy...so campers typically don't last very long as long as players are willing to execute flanking movements.
I could go on, but this is already too much. Overall, great game.
