Have you ever wanted to be a marine and shred alien monsters to protect humanity, and worship a machine god? Then Warhammer 40000: Space Marine II is the game for you. Warhammer 40000: Space Marine II, is a third person shooter game where you mow down hoards of alien monsters while defending different objectives. You have an array of different guns and blades at your disposal to help take down the Tyranids, that constantly try to rip you limb from limb in the most horrific matter imaginable. To put it simply this is not a game for children and has lots of gore in it.
You play as Captain Titus, a lieutenant of the space marines, who is a returning character from the first game, fighting in the war between humanity and the Tyranids. As you play through missions, you are accompanied Chairon and Gadriel, fellow space marines determined to take down the alien threat. You can even play online with two other players on each mission and work together to complete each objective and take down hordes of aliens. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed playing this game. One thing you will notice is no one is really a good guy. While you play as the main protagonist, no one in the game is innocent and has done some horrible thing. Even the machine cult you are a part of has done some inhuman things to even their most loyal members, all in the name of winning the war. While I understand that war is never pretty, seeing what is done to the marines and how they are treated after death I ask myself, is it worth it even if they win the war, does the ends justify the means. I don’t usually play these types of games, but after playing this game I will definitely be looking up more games of this genre.
Before you start a mission, you are given the chance to change up your equipment. You can choose the type of guns you take to the mission as well as the type of melee weapon, from a chainsaw sword to Warhammers. One issue is that there isn’t much to do in the hub area besides equipping yourself for the next mission. Once you are equipped you board the drop ship and head planet side for your mission.
Combat is very satisfying during game play and will require you to be mindful of your surroundings. When an enemy launches an attack, you can either parry or dodge it depending on the type of attack. Some attacks can only be dodge, so make sure you pay attention the entire time. When fighting Tyranids you can either use your melee weapon or a variety of guns at your disposal. If you are lucky you can even find different types of grenades to help thin out the enemies. Each grenade has different effects. However, they are sparse and cannot be equipped before the start of a mission and are not carried over to the next level. They can only be found during certain parts of the mission, so use these sparingly. On the other hand, you will always find ammo when you need it. Even when you are swarmed by Tyranids, you can find ammo through the area. And if for some reason you need to change any weapons you have, you can find them laying around the area and use them.
Your health is split between armor and regular health, you lose armor when you get hit and when you run out of armor you start losing your main health. Your armor will recover over time when you’re not getting hit, but your main health will only recover when you’re attacking the enemies. When it comes to your health while there’s recovery items, if you don’t know where they are you might miss them. You can hold 2 healing items at a time, and I recommend you save them for when it’s necessary or if you already have 2 and you find another one. If you explore the area before advancing the mission, you may find a guardian relic which is this game’s equivalent of an extra life. One thing I noticed is that the missions are usually the same. You land on the planet, fight Tyranids, then you have to hold out until something happens, then you have to protect something or stay in a specific area for a certain amount of time. There isn’t much of a variety in the missions but what they do have is a fun experience. I recommend that you save your grenades for any mission you have that has you defend an objective, because the Tyranids will swarm the target instead of fighting you.
In conclusion, This has been a very interesting experience, and I recommend this game if you are into shredding hoards of aliens or even if you’re in a bad mood and want to let off steam after a long day. Warhammer 40000: Space Marines II is a solid game that will be a fun yet challenging experience even on the easiest difficulty and trust me this game gets hard especially when defending a target. Just make sure you aren’t squeamish because there will be blood and lots of it.
Score: 8 out of 10
Reviewed on PlayStation 5