It’s the same game. Plug in your X360 gamepad.
There’s nothing to be impressed about though. It’s just stupid fun that’s very satisfying if it happens to interest you. Don’t think too hard about it.
That game would only appeal to people who liked Darksiders, 40k fans and TPS action fans.
That crowd isn’t that fairly large. But all in all, and despite the multiplayer being a train wreck, I can still see people playing it and the forums seem to be lively.
As such, I think the game hasn’t done that bad. It might not have been a blockbuster, but it definitely paid its dev costs and grossed some income.
The fans/players are ROARING for more. Not pleasing them is rather…err…insensitive? ;)
Besides, why pass on extra cash?
It sounds like MP is still broken in this game and will likely never have a decent online community.
Is this game recommended based solely on the SP campaign?
You can’t recommend the single player campaign but the single player probably has the best stupid fun. Just keep in mind you’ll be doing the same thing over and over. Try the demo first.
Co-op has the same hordes, but the pacing and length is kind of annoying. You also still get lag occasionally, and some teams suck.
I thought competitive multiplayer was pretty sweet playing as assault. It takes flanking – my favorite game mechanic – and makes it vertical. It’s satisfying to me personally to zoom down to an unsuspecting enemy devastator and shred him with a chainsword. For variety, it’s sometimes nice to play tactical class and kill assault marines trying to do the same. The actual game modes are pretty boring.
For what it’s worth, they stealth-added a Capture the Flag mode in the last couple of months that gives the game something fresh, and the new Chaos co-op pack also includes some new multiplayer maps that I have yet to play on.
I found SP a lot of fun, minus some nasty pin-you-down chokepoints that I had to redo towards the end.
The multiplayer, due to its lag, was nigh unbearable for the majority of my experience.
And playing Co-Op got a bit boring after a while, especially since it doesn’t count towards unlocking the special super bonuses to your weapons.
When I did have a good team (teams for some reason are usually lopsided) and decent lag, I was having a blast of a time…likely on the expense of the poor lagged sod on the other end who was as frustrated as I am.
Overall, it’s a good game that had potential of being a great online competitive fun, but due to poor network code and lack of central server, instead relaying on some peering shite, it failed miserably and likely won’t have much longevity as most people are drawn towards the big shooters/MMOs.
I will occasionally see a player on the opposing side highlighted with a + symbol within some sort of flag around it. Anyone know what that means?
If memory serves, that’s a combat stimulant indicator, meaning that whoever has the icon has increased melee damage dealt and bonus damage resistance for a short time. Most players carry grenades instead of stims, so that would explain why you wouldn’t see it often, but I cannot recall for certain if that stim indicator shows for every player on the map or just the screen of the player that uses it.
Sounds like Combat Stims to me. Generally a good idea to stay away from someone who’s just popped one until it wears off, if possible.
Thanks for the answers, gents.
I picked this up during the Steam holiday sale, and while I’ve still not finished the SP campaign, I really enjoyed the exterminatus co-op multiplayer. It was a bit puzzling, though, as some higher level folks just rocked through that mode. I was a bit surprised to find out there was this entire skill tree of unlockable skills that only unlock through standard versus multiplayer.
I’ve dutifully managed the 30 killstreaks to unlock the potential of the heavy bolter. Rather than jump back into exterminatus, I started fooling around with Assault marines, and wow, a completely different game than the slow, plodding Devastators. Do I need to finish the SP campaign to get a handle on the Assault class, or should I just play more MP? I’m still trying to figure out the jump mechanics, but I’m struggling to land in the right spot to induce carnage.
If you’ve done one jetpack section in single player, you’ve pretty much done them all. I made a few posts about Assault in this thread that might help. Just go after Devastators and watch out for Tactical class guys. You can ground pound to direct your landing, though sometimes I like to land quietly without alerting anyone before I attack.
The right spot to land is always directly behind a Devastator. Slash away until he starts to turn, then launch yourself up again and come down on the other side once more. As soon as he picks up his gun and tries to run away, you can start hacking away as fast as possible. In fights with tactical marines or other assault marines, use the pistol to soften them up before you get in close. Use the Impenetrable perk until you get a good grasp on the jump system, and I’d suggest either Swordsman/Axeman’s Zeal (the 50 kill melee weapon perks) or Air Cooled Thrusters (higher level basic class perk) as a complement. Zeal lets you survive in frantic melee situations for a ridiculously long time, and Thrusters give you tremendous mobility by allowing you to jump more often.
I picked this up on a steam sale and finally got around to playing it. The single player was good, but I hated the end boss fight. Not because it was difficult mind you, just because it was unsatisfying to reduce it to a long quick time event. The warboss fight was much better.
Yup, kind of weird. You win some, you lose some.
This is kind of embarrassing. I wanted to love this game so goddamn much. However, I couldn’t make it more than 10 minutes into the demo before I simply couldn’t win the fights any more (and these aren’t even boss fights, just the swarms of bad guys fights). Was the demo representative of the overall game, was I doing something completely wrong, or did I just suck at the game? I’d love to pick it up if the demo wasn’t representative of the game, but, honestly, I damn near broke a controller after the 20th time I was killed by the same goddamn swarm of orcs.
Which difficulty level are you playing on? The harder levels are actually quite difficult so you shouldn’t let your pride compel you to play on hard if that’s the case.
Assuming it’s not, then the next question is how you actually conduct combat. When you find a group of 20 orks, do you wade into them point-blank and take a bunch of damage or do you stand back and let them come to you while you spray them with bolter rounds? I’d suggest taking a fairly cautious path through the game, utilizing the ranged weaponry heavily to thin out the enemies before they get to you. Once they do, you need to liberally use the stun ability as part of your melee chains to disable enemies that are swarming you. If you’re completely surrounded and make the last strike of a melee combo a stun instead of an attack, you’ll usually knock back everyone within ten meters of you, and you can then start executing them to regain health.
This game’s combat system forces you to manage stuns and executions to stay alive against overwhelming odds. Don’t neglect your ranged weaponry, but don’t be afraid to get in close and mix it up. Just remember to stun when things are about to get difficult and you should be fine once you get used to the pacing of combat.
The demo level is hard because it’s from later in the campaign and you don’t have the ranged weapons you’d normally possess at that point. Now that I think of it, you might not have the armor upgrades you get during the campaign either.
I felt exactly the same way you did and nearly skipped the game. I breezed through that level during the full campaign and ended up loving the game overall.
There are still a few frustrating parts – I hate checkpoints with a passion – but never as bad as the demo. I think I played on normal but I can’t remember.
I think you actually do get all the weapons in the demo, but it does a terrible (read: non-existent) job of telling you that.
For the armor upgrades, you may very well be correct, though.
Ok, you guys have sold me on it. Thanks for the encouragement – it’ll sit atop the backlog for a bit, but hopefully I’ll slog through the SP this summer.
There are parts I found hard where I replayed them upwards of six times or so, but I still found it fun because typically I was able to find tactical mistakes on my part. The only place I got really frustrated was because I forgot that when you have a thunder hammer you can only use it and your bolter, so I had intended to change up my special weapons and then found myself without any decent long range weaponry against some pretty tough long range opponents. If anything the early game builds bad habits because the hordes are pretty weak and you really can just wade through them with a chainsword, stopping only to do a stun->execute combo to restore your health. Later on that really won’t fly, and as mentioned above, you need to think more tactically and thin the herds out before you start swinging that chainsword.
Another small gripe (as a 40k fan) was the lack of vehicles. Not even a single killa kan from the orks. Granted, i’ve faced armies on the table that consisted of only boyz, but it would have made for some nice variety. The only vehicles you encounter are very late in the game and nothing that even exists in the tabletop setting so it’s kind of odd.