Warhammer 40K: Space Marine
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine is an action adventure game created by Relic Entertainment and published by THQ in 2011. This is one of those games that one plays the hell out of when released and then collects dust in your bookshelves or cabinets for a few years until you have an epiphany and decide you want to… have some high octane, Ork-smashing, bad-guy eviscerating fun! We at 30 Inch Reviews decided to throw this game in the Uber Rig and cranked up every setting under the sun. The results, in terms of graphics, audio fidelity, and overall experience are captured succinctly below.
Gameplay:
The premise of the game is unequivocally dense; subhuman Orks are taking over an alien planet called Graia; a planet solely dedicated to developing military weapons and vehicles. One such weapon AND vehicle is the Titan which is considered a WMD. That’s right! A “weapon of mass destruction”. That phrase gives rise to rolling eyes and blank stares for some. For others, such as the uber-soldier Space Marines, it is a calling that is bound by duty but full of epic moments with the blood and guts of dirty, green Orks all over the planet!
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine takes us right into the action on planet Graia with a handgun with infinite ammo, a melee weapon such as a “chain-sword” that can be periodically swapped for something better like a blue-glowing axe, and two more slots for some awesome high-powered weaponry such as a “Melta Gun”! The combat system in Space Marine is incredibly fun. In fact, as a big fan of action-adventure games despite their poorly designed combat systems, Space Marine is a breath of fresh air for combat lovers world over. With the added bonus of the sheer brutality in the game and the copious amounts of red mist, anyone who likes God-of-War-esque slaughter will love Space Marine. The game progresses quite linearly in Campaign mode while you are tasked with completing various missions but is filled with relentless streams of Orks to dismember and bludgeon. The melee combat system is quite rewarding at times as you are given a choice of ‘stunning’ the enemy and then quickly executing them in order to regain health or to keep attacking them until they are finished off in epic style. Of course, with the use of the Xbox 360 controller on the PC, the combat system along with the movements and combat make for fluid gameplay while maintaining the highest visual stimulation possible (I mean the game, nothing else of course).
The Multiplayer is an interesting experience because it allows you to customize your Space Marine with an assortment of colors, armor, and weapons. The gameplay in Multiplayer is similar to many FPS type games where the modes such as Team Deathmatch and Capture the Flag have clear objectives but allow some freedom for the players to achieve them. Overall, however, we found ourselves coming back to the Campaign mode to bash, slash, and destroy more Orks as it was just a pleasure sitting back and watching these green uglies getting eviscerated by the Space Marines in pure 30″ glory with the highest settings possible in the game.
Although the combat can get pretty repetitive, Space Marine makes for some really entertaining Ork-bashing on a rainy evening with nothing to do.
Performance:
2560×1600:
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine just does not have the cojones to challenge the Uber Rig even slightly. With everything set on “HIGH” and Ambient Occlusion turned “ON”, the GPUs rarely saw more than 50% usage even in the most action-filled sequences of the game. What surprised us the most was that the maximum VRAM usage during even the most intense action sequences was well under 1GB! This, when compared to VRAM-hogging games like Battlefield 3, should be good news for PC gamers with entry level GPUs that may be a few years old. In addition to the relatively low VRAM usage, the GPU usage was rather tepid. The game saw usage swing from 18% to slightly over 50% on one of the GPUs. However, the overall stress on the cards were next to nil. At a resolution of 2560x1600px (1600P), it was rather disappointing to see the Space Marines being eaten for lunch by the GTX-580 Classifieds.
Conclusion:
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine follows a time-tested genre of action-adventure but delivers on the goods in a neat package; the combat system is great with the added gore and blood. There is also just enough variation in the weaponry to keep the combat interesting throughout the Campaign mode. The Multiplayer seems like an afterthought with its blase approach but the character customization options give the player something to look forward to and try instead of just sticking to the Single Player mode.
The game performs beautifully even at the highest settings at 1600P however, the lack of native support for Nvidia Surround or AMD Eyefinity leaves something lacking for those of us with those setups. Of course, there are hacks out there that can enable one to play across several monitors but this review does not take those into consideration. If you have a decent rig, and of course, a 30″ monitor (or else you won’t be on this site right?), you can enjoy Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine in full 1600P glory and have an Ork-decimating good time!
Verdict:
Gallery:
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