Okay, cardboard radar blips on the table time here, I’m calling this preview a “First Impressions” rather than a “Hands-On” because that playthrough of mine did not go well. Despite the slow-paced nature of the turn-based combat I lost very quickly. A few screw-ups mean certain doom, and given that the mission I was on was called “Suicide Mission” even if things went perfectly it’d still be a struggle to succeed. Instead, well... let’s just say I got more details of the mission from watching better players play. Now we’ve established my ineptitude can we move on to Space Hulk? Thanks.
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| No, Darth Vader isn’t angry, it’s a Space Marine |
The setup is very simple. The player controls a team of Space Marine Terminators, heavily-armoured and horribly beweaponed hard-asses from the Warhammer 40K universe, last seen in gaming with the Dawn of War series and Space Marine from Company of Heroes developer Relic. This game is nothing like either of those. It’s turn-based strategy, and in general controls a lot like classic X-Com except with a far narrower field of play and vision. Characters take up entire corridors, and Marines are so bulky just turning around takes Action Points and precious time.
In the mission being shown off, as mentioned optimistically titled “Suicide Mission” (the first in the campaign!), the player has to get his Flamer Marine (which there is only one of) to the control room and torch it. A quick look at the basic but maze-like map reveals this room is quite close to the start point as well, only a couple of left turns. Simple? Not when there’s an army of vicious Genestealers coming at you from every direction. While there’s no “they’re coming out of the goddamned walls” moment just running down every corridor is enough. Marines are well-armoured but all that counts for nothing against even one Genestealer – you’ve got to shoot them before they get to your marines or those guys are either as good as dead or straight-up dead.
The first thing you’ll hopefully notice is the superb level of detail. The one major advantage Space Hulk the videogame has over the board game is being able to turn a few pieces of cardboard into a real lived-in place. Skeletons grasp Imperium bibles, lights flicker ominously, shadows of ventilation fans turn in rooms, bones litter the floor outside the airlock, and that’s before the Terminator squad enters the fray. That’s not even taking into account the detail on the Marines and Genestealers, their fantastic animation, and the cool zoomed-in action moments. Best of all is the first-person camera that’s attached to every Marine – click on a squad member and in the corner of the screen you can see exactly what he is seeing, slightly blurred as if from a wobbly shoulder-camera. It’s a small and utterly unnecessary touch but immensely cool and draws you into the conflict and the world wonderfully.
The first action of the game is to place your Marines in the airlock in the position you want. While you can control any Marine at any time as long as they have Action Points remaining, as all but a few rooms in the game are one space thick you have to move the Marine at front first since the others have no way of getting past him – and that goes for every corridor in the game. Since the Flamer is vital for the mission, you have a choice – put him in front and dash for the Control Room, or keep him protected and flanked by the other Marines? Sticking him in front and dashing seemed wisest to me (and bear in mind I suck), since time really isn’t on your side. Get those Marines into the first 3x3 room, cover the two doors, and either go on Guard or set Overwatch – the Genestealers will be on their way in no time.
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| A zoomed-in view of the action. That guy on the left might be trouble |
Wow, I wasn’t kidding. Half a dozen radar blips appeared as soon as I clicked “end turn” at the end of every corridor, including between my Marines and the Control Room. These blips coolly solidified into red “holographic” Genestealer shapes, far more menacing than red circles (which instead are used to show possible entrance points for the Tyranid scum) and yet still only giving you a rough estimation of how many Genestealers to expect. Like in the board game this will be a random amount – it might be just one, it might be three, but even one can be lethal. Unfairness rating – rising.
It’s the speed of the Genestealers, the narrowness of the corridors and how they twist and turn that are the real killers though. While guys like the Flamer have special area-attack abilities (which in the Flamer’s case can keep Genestealers away from a burning area for a turn), general Marines have to have line-of-sight to attack enemies, something that a Space Hulk with its many corners is not great for – meaning Genestealers can just hide around corners and wait. A few aliens fell to my Flamer, but there are plenty more hanging back. Unfairness rating – ticking up nicely.
One of the nicest new features Full Control have implemented is the ability to move and shoot at the same time, smoothing out the gameplay to avoid you having to move forward, stop, click “shoot”, click on a Genestealer, and fire. Instead if you just move a guy forward and a Genestealer is in range he’ll automatically fire as long as he has some AP points remaining, with no punishment for firing from the hip or anything silly like that. You can direct the fire, and I presume you can order your Marines to not move and shoot, but in general this is a great way at speeding up a bit of gameplay in an otherwise slow-paced game – I mean, what else are you going to do? Stare out the vicious mutant killing machine a square away?
Of course luck is a major factor too, just like the best and most infuriating board games. Overwatch is reliant on it, but just shooting at an enemy at point-blank range offers the possibility of failure or a gun jamming. Fire once and you’ll have a slight chance at hitting a Genestealer, but repeated fire increases your chances. Even a wall of flame might not kill a Genestealer, but you can near enough guarantee that having a Genestealer within striking range of a Marine without Overwatch or Guard will mean death for that Marine in a single attack. Invisible dice rolls are everywhere, and they’re often not in your favour. The best you can do is cover your flank, keep pressing forward, and try and take out every Genestealer you see. And don’t try to melee attack – the option’s tempting, but if they survive they can counter-attack afterwards where they will almost certainly kill your Marine instantly. Oh, and keep your Flamer alive. Which I singularly failed to do, and the reason my session ground to a halt far too soon. Sigh. Unfairness rating – maximum.
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| TOO CLOSE! TOO CLOSE!!! |
I failed my turn at Space Hulk, but I certainly wasn’t the only one. Space Hulk is brutal, unfair, and stacks the odds against you from the first mission, but it’s also addictive, deeply strategic, and will keep you coming back for more. Beyond the X-Com-style gameplay while initially appearing like the board game it’s clear that Full Control have packed with detail to make it feel like a real place, with the first-person camera and zoomed-in action moments being the cherry on the cake.
Space Hulk will offer the full 12 missions of the ‘Sins of Damnation’ campaign, three prequel missions that will act as a tutorial to introduce players to the world, and will have Brood Lord bosses. Eek. It’ll be out Fall/Autumn this year for PC, Mac and iOS, and will offer cross-platform play, co-op, and competitive “Marines Vs Genestealers” multiplayer as well as the single-player campaign, and I probably won’t make it past the tutorial. If you’re a better player than me though, keep your eye on it.
Most Anticipated Feature/Element: Doing the campaign in co-op. I can’t think of anything more fun than yelling obscenities at my computer with a friend miles away doing exactly the same.
