Completed on Emperor's Mercy (second hardest) difficulty.

Mostly good! Very polished, didn't notice a single bug. What drew me to this game was The Boltgun, it looked very satisfying to shoot, and it really is. Every gun is varying degrees of fun to shoot, so it's already in the upper echelon of shooters for me based solely on that. Movement feels really good, running and jumping feels great, and the rare instances of platforming aren't that terrible by non-platformer standards. The chainsword dash is cool, and probably the only "original" idea this game has going for it, but I rarely used it. Would have been cool to see it used to access secret areas or something, but nope. The charge attack is useless, I kept forgetting it existed until I fat fingered the F key.

The art is awesome, I really wanted to roll around in those pixelated piles of blood and guts like a dog. The earlier Tzeentch stages were my favorite, but most environments end up being some variant of otherworldly industrial cathedrals. All of the enemies are flat and constantly rotate to face you, which means the only way to sneak up on anyone is from above or really far away.

Circle strafing will dodge most forms of projectiles (except the stupid fucking Plague Toads, who's attacks track like you're playing Dark Souls 2), but you'll never get behind enemies that way. I'm pretty sure they all see through walls as well, so they'll often prime their attacks if you try to sneak damage with corner peeking. They're smart enough to do that shit, but not smart enough to walk away from your grenades or avoid walking next to exploding barrels (I practically oneshot the first Lord of Change on accident with a barrel), or move slightly to the side when you're sniping with the Plasma Gun from across the map.

Like many others have pointed out, the level design is often very bad, and a LOT of its badness could have been muted by a map, a compass, glowing objectives, an objective list, more landmark variety, ANYTHING. I'm not that bothered by getting lost occasionally, but the absence of these features is so confusing, and the design philosophy remains highly suspect with or without them.

Despite those complaints, this was really enjoyable, and I was always excited to play just one more level. Certainly MUCH better than Space Marine by virtue of belonging to a better genre and having an art director with a voice.

Reviewed on Jan 21, 2024


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