Review: Space Marine II: Just Guys Being Dudes

By Saber Interactive / Focus Entertainment / Games Workshop

I am rarely inspired to write reviews, but middling art that could be great triggers me. Let me take you to a new dark age, in which enlightenment is replaced by superstition, rhetoric, and blind prayer. A time when humanity stands on the brink of annihilation. No, I am not talking about a conservative administration, it’s Warhammer 40k.

SPACE MARINE II is the second installment of a series I wanted to play 13 years ago, but didn’t have a PlayStation 3. Despite the resurgence of the series, SPACE MARINE is not available to run on my PS5. I’ll have to settle for the second installment. But alas, not much has changed. Here is a planet, it is in trouble, and instead of sensibly bombing the enemy, our troops, and the civilian population to zero, someone in the Imperium has decided that a rescue is in order. Enter you. Because this is grim-dark fantasy, it’s never to save civilians, it’s always for some secret, dangerous, and unpredictable weapon—time to bravely save some fancy equipment.

Gameplay

Let’s get the dumb stuff out of the way. Controls are standard: Light attack, heavy attack, parry, pew pew, and grenades. The executions are slightly too long for my taste. Very God of War with guns. The extra pistol shots are cute, but in all, it's fine. It works, nothing super innovative. I am sure if you are awesome at the game you can make it look good.

Story

Let’s talk about the story. You bought this for the vibes anyway. I find the most compelling stories are ones where outnumbered, outgunned everyman overcomes their trials and tribulations to succeed. What does it look like when a conscript with their trusty lasgun saves the day? In short, I like to root for the underdog.

In SPACE MARINE II this is not the case. You play as a titular SPACE MARINE named Titus. You are a walking brick shithouse of a soldier, capable of mowing through the enemy as if they were nothing. A single swipe of your chainsword can turn several creatures into a red paste.

Despite being unstoppable, Titus, your avatar, has a problem. At the end of the first game, his ability to save the day and resist the forces of Chaos was, according to the Imperial Inquisition, evidence of chaotic corruption. After a century or three of exile fighting in the Death Watch, he is eaten by a Tyranid. Game over.

Or is it? After a small intro, Titus is brought back with a new body and put on probation. He is a SPACE MARINE again. Titus is now more of a SPACE MARINE than the other SPACE MARINES as his new body is a “Primaris” a better version of the classic “firstborn” marine. I had to look this all up.

Despite my love of the underdog, I am down for the occasional power fantasy. However, this power fantasy is a walking contradiction. Titus isn’t acting on his own accord. He is merely the agent for the contradictory, failable, and paranoid Imperium. You can crush waves of Tyranid Gaunts, but only when and where you are commanded. Presumably, deviating from standard procedure pisses off your probation officer. This runs afoul of the power in the power fantasy. Part of being the most powerful ass-kicker in the room means that you don’t have to listen to anybody (see Doom Eternal, ”You can’t just shoot a hole into the surface of Mars”).

This creates a contradiction that makes for an unsatisfying story. You don’t feel like you are overcoming anything difficult beyond pointing the bigger gun at the bigger Tyranid, and you don’t get to live out a true power fantasy, you just want approval from the people in your organization.

Adding to your list of burdens, you are also at the beck and call of the Adeptus Mechanicus, a caste of IT professionals that make everything in the Imperium work. They also get into trouble searching the aforementioned artifacts.

Thus Titus is running from Macguffin to Macguffin doing as he is told like a good boy until it is revealed that the true enemy isn’t the swarm of Tyranids, but Chaos. Because it’s always Chaos. In the same scene, Titus concludes the Adeptus Mechanicus must be fucking around with a Chaos-based artifact (it is same one Titus encountered in SPACE MARINE, I guess?). So, after the dramatic reveal, Titus needs to call the boss of his SPACE MARINE chapter. The Tyranids are quickly defeated off-screen so you can make that intra-dimensional equivalent of a phone call to tell your dad you don’t like what IT is doing at work.

On a personal level, Titus has to keep his probation secret from his buddies who keep asking him reasonable questions like “How do you know all this?”. This comes to a head when Titus complains to his team about his Captain not giving him more mission-pertinent information. One of his buddies pops the same question to Titus: “You know you keep information we believe pertinent from us, just like the Captain is keeping from you.” You can almost hear the therapist hopefully say, “I feel like we are getting close to a breakthrough.”

Titus then tells his buddies to shut up.

That is as close as our heroes get to communicating important and relevant information that could save their lives. If you have made it this far, it slowly begins to dawn on you that most cockups in the Imperium could be stopped with direct communication and a few “I feel” statements. That’s girm-dark for you.

The game wraps up from there. Daddy shows up, and you all work together to defeat chaos in a few set-piece battles that are not as epic as the game is telling you they are. I do respect the developer for making it weird. In the end, Titus uses his special resistance to Chaos to save the day and is told that he is a good boy. As a reward, he gets to go on an off-screen special mission.

In short, the story is fine. But the worst kind of fine. The kind that could have had a well-written plot, fully developed characters, and an interesting enemy, but ultimately chose to recycle tropes from that universe. I may be a filthy Warhammer casual, but I know a Necron temple when I see one. I had a fleeting amount of excitement thinking we would get to fight Necrons. Nope.

But there are moments. There are these tiny moments that show the developers cared about the source material. The Imperial Guard bow to you when you walk by, there are tiny little rituals whenever any important computer is used. The Astropath cutting themselves with a small bone before sending a message was a particularly interesting moment. As well as the “empty” armor when you execute a member of the Thousand Sons. Late in the game, the SPACE MARINES argued over whether to execute some guardsmen who were stunned by a powerful Chaos warp spell. As a testament to the fractured Imperial bureaucracy, the SPACE MARINES eventually decided that these executions were, administratively, outside their jurisdiction.

But those story moments don’t make up for this odd mix of a power fantasy without the power and a midtier story.

Bottom Line: Should I buy this?

Great question. This review is for me. I am reconciling my feelings from being vaguely disappointed. If you love Warhammer, go for it. You’ll like it. Otherwise, it’s merely fine. Buy it on sale if you want to play it.