Executions are used to replenish health, and look ridiculously cool, with finishers determined by the enemy being fought and the weapon used - for example, fighting a Bloodletter Daemon with a chainsword will see Titus grab it from behind and pull the chainsword through its throat. If an enemy is stunned enough to become dazed, Titus can perform a brutal finishing move. Titus performs standard melee attacks with one button and stun attacks with the other, while incredibly simplistic combos (hit, hit, stun and hit, hit, hit, stun) are used to create more effective stun blows. Melee weapons come in four varieties - the weak combat sword, the one-handed chainsword and force axe, and the two-handed thunder hammer. Players use the left trigger to aim and the right to fire, as one would in a standard third-person shooter, although some weapons are best suited to hip-firing, “spray and pray” tactics, especially when foes get close. Ranged weapons include the standard rapid-fire Bolter and sniper-esque Lascannon, as well as more exotic weapons such as the Melta Gun - which essentially fires an all-encompassing mass of energy at anything stood within ten feet ahead of the player, reducing enemies to paste. There’s also a solid range of weapons to choose from, all lovingly taken from the tabletop experience. Using the shoulder buttons for guns and the face buttons for melee weapons, controls are streamlined and intuitive, making for a versatile game in spite of its inherent simplicity.

I’m rather impressed by how well the sword-swinging and gun-slinging work together, as Titus swiftly moves from one style of play to the other. Expertly merging melee hack n’ slash violence with ranged warfare, Relic Entertainment has created a surprisingly tight, fluid action experience. While the narrative is a little unfulfilling, one cannot say the same for Space Marine‘s combat.

The Space Marines, Orks and Chaos forces look and sound incredibly authentic, presenting perhaps the best representation of 40K forces that I’ve seen in any entertainment medium. That said, it takes the “grimdark” world of Warhammer 40,000 very seriously, and does an excellent job of representing the three races that drive its story. Space Marine‘s story is not exactly deep, and in fact it only gets interesting at the end, where it is aggravatingly cut short by a sequel hook. The Chaos Space Marines show up, and Titus is locked in a three-way struggle for the planet, along with the experimental new energy source that it houses. His squad is sent to a Forge World (essentially a huge, planet-sized factory) in order to deal with an invading mob of Orks and liberate the strategically crucial location. Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine‘s campaign tells the tale of Captain Titus, a hero of the Ultramarines Space Marine chapter. Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine (PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 ) We’ve had plenty of strategy games, such as Relic Entertainment’s Dawn of War series, but outside of the critically unpopular Fire Warrior, we’ve never had a chance to feel what it’s like to be one of those soldiers who die on folding tables and ironing boards every single day. Games Workshop’s universe of battle-hardened space marines, reality-warping daemons and gruesome aliens makes for the perfect game fodder, and while we’ve seen some solid 40K titles in the past, none have truly ventured into the bloodshed and brutality of the ground-level warzone. In fact, one can be quite certain it’s inspired a fair few. Warhammer 40,000, the tabletop game in which sci-fi depictions of fantasy creatures battle it out in a grim, perpetually violent future, lends itself well to the world of videogames.

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