War40K: Space Marine, by Relic

[Newhope]

Originally Posted by Kyral

The size of Space Marines varies from source to source between 7 feet to 10 feet.
There is no real one true statment of what thier avarage size is.

No GW have stated on average a space marine is around 7.5' feet tall out of armor and 8 foot in power armor, tallest was the Primarch Magnus the Red who was said to be around 14'.

Average Orks are said to be about 7' tall however they hunch over which makes them look smaller than they are.

Spoiler for Space marine:

The guy in the picture is Jes goodwin one of GW's lead designers

[Roger Rambo]

I think I read an interview with Jes Goodwin (or some other GW designer) who attributed the growing space Marine stature as an arms race between authors main characters, wanting them to be taller then main characters in other books

[LoweGear]

Interview with Mark Strong aka Sinestr- eeerh voice of Captain Titus:

Shows some new scenes, including some combat knife action, a good look at how large Lt. Mira is (or how small Space Marines are), and possible SPOILERS

[Kyral]

Originally Posted by Newhope

Spoiler for Space marine:

The guy in the picture is Jes goodwin one of GW's lead designers

I know that picture... doesn't stop every warhammer 40k board to have at least one thread discussing it though. Heck, even the Space Marine Game Forum got it already.
http://www.spacemarine.com/forums/topic/1640

*shrug* I'm actually quit happy with Goodwin's size and coudln't care less about other sources.

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

The demo is epic. Took a bit to get used to the combo mechanism's but once I got the hang of it things went well, not to well for the Orks though. Holy balls I love the Chain Sword (the axe is good too, better damage I believe, but the sword just sounds meaty), ripping through enemies is just hilarious. Died so many times cause I was just swinging away with wild abandon listening to the noise.

The other weapons sound and feel mean too, using the Vengeance Launcher to see up an ambush is pretty good for thinning out an on coming rush, followed by the Bolter to shred em, then just go balls crazy with the sword/axe when the remaining dudes get to you. The Striker bolter was good too for picking guys off, but I didn't really use it much.

I'll probably play it through again just to check but I think there are some 'hidden' containers which contain other melee weapons, like the axe that was at the end of the mission near the elevator, which I found totally by accident. Maybe they aren't 'hidden' so much that I just didn't realise they were containers.

My main quip would be the voices for the Orks, they just sound... wrong, far to cultured.

Anyway the game felt fairly awesome, and smooth. I'll probably get the full version me thinks. The MP will probably be fun.

[MakubeX2]

The crictics were wrong. This is no Gears of War clone.

It feels more like an updated version of Dynasty Warriors done right.

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by Kyral

I know that picture... doesn't stop every warhammer 40k board to have at least one thread discussing it though. Heck, even the Space Marine Game Forum got it already.
http://www.spacemarine.com/forums/topic/1640

*shrug* I'm actually quit happy with Goodwin's size and coudln't care less about other sources.

I'll agree with the consensus that the Marines in Space Marine are a little short, but I perfectly understand that there could be lots of game design mechanics that would have necessitated them being made shorter ingame.


In Halo, Canonically Spartans are supposed to be seven feet tall and in illustrations are predominantly portrayed as such. But ingame they're ussually more six and a half feet tall. The reason for this seems to be so that the weapons and vehicle positions are scaled somewhat appropriately. If you look at allot of the weapons you realize they were scaled for 6.5 foot Spartans, and that on regular UNSC Marines (and especially female Marines) they look a bit under sized.


In this game, since it doesn't have Halo style weapon pick up and interchangeability, the issue was probably melee. They probably figured that having the Marines only be half a head taller than most enemies meant they could reuse the same animations against lots of different opponents.

This most definitely excludes going with high end figures on Marine stature from being shown in the game. A 10 foot space Marine cannot use his regular melee attacks against a six foot ork smashing his face against his cod piece. The game developers have to come up with entirely new melee attacks just to deal with Orks.

Another problem. The player isn't going to think of a mob of Orks half his size as being intimidating. If you play to his expectations, you get ALLOT of REALLY boring early game fights. If you don't and make Orks as tough as they are in the current game, the player will feel cheated of the power his character is supposed to have when they see him struggling to defeat such puny enemies. The player would similarly not intuitively grasp that nobs are bullet sponges, if they were as large as Nobs. And as before, if you play to the players reasonable expectations he feels disappointed by to easy gamelpay.

You could scale the Orks up, but then you're throwing the *canoncity* arguement straight out the window. Cause now your average Ork is the size of an Ogre, when canonically they're supposed to be man sized hunched over.


In short? There's no good game design reason to indulge the higher end Black Library height wankery.

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

There needs to be a blood texture on the ground imo, for extra overkill to make this (pic) truly horrifying.

Spoiler for pic:

The crictics were wrong. This is no Gears of War clone.

Never played GoW myself, but didn't 40k exist like... 20 year ago? (I dunno, I don't really know much about Warhammer.) So I'd say it's the arch-type for like every super-solider lol.

Besides who listens to critics anyway if its something you're looking forward too.

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by Mr Hat and Clogs

Never played GoW myself, but didn't 40k exist like... 20 year ago? (I dunno, I don't really know much about Warhammer.) So I'd say it's the arch-type for like every super-solider lol.

Besides who listens to critics anyway if its something you're looking forward too.

The logic goes...

3rd person shooter? Huge guys in guns? Fighting huge monsters with guns?

If yes, then Gears of War clone.

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

Heh, I hate that logic, although I use it tongue in cheek with a health dose of sarcasm. Same thing goes with MMO's, everything is a WoW clone... which is an EQ clone and so on.

Could really boil it down to being a Doom clone if you want, even though its first person.

Thing is though we bring it on ourselves in a way gamers hate/distrust things that are too unfamiliar, so when new stuff comes out they look at the cover and scream 'clone' and don't bother too look at it in detail. unfortunately some really awesome games come out that do break the mold, but they are often indie games and don't get the publicity they deserve. The big guys hate risk, cause risk threatens profits and threatened profits make for sad shareholders and a Directors. So they stick with what they know and take little steps.

Note: A boss fight in the demo would have been nice, just to round things out too see what they can do and we can expect (hopefully not just circle strafing).

[Waven]

Space Marine doesn't have a cover system which on the other hand makes up like 70% of GoW.

[LoweGear]

Something of a late video preview, but does show off some new scenes:

Shield bash execution FTW

[Hooves]

Originally Posted by Waven

Space Marine doesn't have a cover system which on the other hand makes up like 70% of GoW.

Bah! Who needs cover when you are a genetically superior human that can simply bolt/chainsaw Xenos/Heretics to death

[Seitsuki]

I think this is a nod to the fluff: the armor of a space marine is in most cases superior to any any cover you end up having anyway. Unless you're in a fortified bunker.

Tank it like a man marine.

[Firefly00]

Originally Posted by Hooves

I can definitely tell that the selling point for this game has to be the multiplayer game modes. Imagine the madness it will be if they added the Last Stand feature from Dawn of War 2. Hmmm... I can't think of anything else :heh:

Oh, I can: a 'Three Corners' modifier for any Annihilation (team deathmatch) or Seize Ground (capture and hold) scenario. Inspired by RE: Operation Raccoon City, this spices up your otherwise standard-pattern battle with the waves of Orks you'd expect from a Last Stand/Horde/Firefight setup. Naturally, the greenskins are hostile to both teams; Nobs, when present, would focus on the players occupying the top 3-4 score ranks.

[Myssa Rei]

Played the demo. My word, are Nobs annoying, especially during the horde attack at the lift.

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by Seitsuki

I think this is a nod to the fluff: the armor of a space marine is in most cases superior to any any cover you end up having anyway. Unless you're in a fortified bunker.

Tank it like a man marine.

That, and giving this game a cover mechanic would incite the same rage Duke Nukem Forever got for his regenerate health behind cover thing.

[LoweGear]

DAT DELICIOUS CHAINSWORD

Also, the first of Prima's videos on Space Marine:

Finally, here's some good pics of the pre-order DLC Chapters, with comparisons to the standard game skins:

[Hooves]

I like the standard skin for Black Templars, something about it appeals to me.

[ACSephiroth]

Originally Posted by LoweGear

DAT DELICIOUS CHAINSWORD

Spoiler for Videos and images:

Also, the first of Prima's videos on Space Marine:

Finally, here's some good pics of the pre-order DLC Chapters, with comparisons to the standard game skins:

That second video says it is private.