While my life has been seriously devoted to all sorts of video games over the past 21 years of my existence, one very good friend of mine from high school managed to wrench me away from the TV and PC for about 4 years with the universe of Warhammer 40K. I became pretty serious about it, dropping $100.00 a weekend on new characters, spending hours and days painting miniatures, then spending hours on the weekends locked in futuristic army battles with friends. I also got into the side titles pretty heavy as well, like lots of 40K Epic, Blood Bowl, and Space Hulk, and finally set down my brush and sold my stuff back in 1995 due to having no one to play with anymore. Well, time has moved on, and I still keep my fingers crossed that someone, somewhere will release a video game version of the 40K universe as it was meant to be played. For now, us PS2 owners have the most recent console release of Warhammer 40K: Fire Warrior for PS2, and while it’s not the tabletop game version, it’s a heck of a lot of fun to play.

Fire Warrior shucks the huge armies and group combat for an FPS gaming style. The game centers around Kais, a young Tau warrior (the Tau are one of the more recent race add-ons to the 40K universe) and opens as he is ready to prove himself against a fearless and relentless army of Space Marines (the Imperium of Man) who have infiltrated his home planet and kidnapped one of the elders. Kais will mostly have to go it alone against this massive army through a kill or be killed story of action, betrayal, and a couple of plot twists along the way.

The best way to sum up the gameplay in Fire Warrior is kind of Halo light meets Doom in a head on collision. Many times Kais will be escorted and helped by friendly soldiers, and he only has a selection of two weapons that he can carry at any given time (Halo). The overall element of the game is constant run and gun through rooms, small areas, and hallways, and puzzles consist of “find the blue key for the blue door” or “hit the switch to open the gate” all while mowing down anything that moves and isn’t wearing yellow body armor to represent a friendly teammate (Doom).

While I was a little disappointed (personal thing here … not a reflection on the game) that I wasn’t able to play as one of the blue suited Ultramarines, I was impressed at the action level from the get go. As soon as the gate drops from the drop ship in the opening of the game, you are immediately assaulted on all sides by the sounds of explosions, tons of red and blue plasma and pulse rifle fire exchanges going on, and are shoved headfirst into a brutal fire fight. To make it even more fun, only having the selection of two weapons to carry forces you have to make decisions on the go, since it might be a good idea to grab the machine gun for more ammo and killing power, but leaving the sniper rifle behind may hurt you later if distant enemies are ripping into you.

Another impressive feature was in the overall AI. While it’s not perfect, and there are times where a soldier may get stuck behind an object or refuses to step across a door threshold (Chainfist wielding generals were notorious for that second one), overall it showed signs of intelligence. Enemies will drop down behind boxes or will fire for explosive barrels or whatnot in your vicinity to try and add extra damage, and on a flipside teammates were pretty accurate and helpful with cover fire and worked out to prove a slight advantage in a rough situation.    

For everything that Fire Warrior has going for it, two things really pull it down … the first of which being replayability. There are three different difficulty settings (hard has to be unlocked), but even so since there is only one story to play through and many gamers may not feel it deserves a second run. The multiplayer mode also doesn’t help much, since there are about 4 arenas to choose from, all of which feel way too small and cramped for large group warfare, and the only three modes of play are the standard found in 90% of other FPS titles … CTF, Deathmatch, and Team deathmatch.

Secondly, the game is way too linear and there really is no need for exploration (and in the majority of places there is no ability to do it anyways). Each door that needs to be unlocked has a key that is found somewhere close by, and every stage felt like hallway after hallway of kill, kill, kill, open the door, kill, kill, kill, hit the switch, rinse, repeat. I would have loved to see more open fighting ability to maybe have more of a Warhammer 40K feel to it even in an FPS title.

Overall, Warhammer 40K may not be perfect, nor is it a major revolution in it’s genre, but it’s packed full of decent graphics, intense firefights, and some serious non-stop trigger happy blasting for you run and gun FPS fans looking for something a little new that doesn’t make you solve a bunch of puzzles just to get to level 2. Warhammer fans should be happy with it, even if you can’t select your chosen faction to play with, and while it’s not the original Warhammer style … good Games Workshop games haven’t popped up too frequently over the years. Take advantage of it.

Gameplay: 7.2
It definitely has some good points, like the Halo style team fighting and the two weapon carry limit, and for run and gun action fans that enjoy lots of shooting with limited brain use the swarming enemies, “find the key” puzzles and constant action will be a good thing. There may not be a lot of reason to go back and play it a second time though, and gamers looking for a little extra exploration may not be too keen on the linear nature of the game overall.

Graphics: 8.0
I had to take a moment of silence in joy the first time I ran across a very well designed and good looking Space Marine, even if he was trying to blow me into 50 pieces with a grenade launcher. Overall, the environments are dark and have a creepy industrial feel to them, and THQ did a good job in making you feel like you were in the middle of a war. The characters, both good and bad, were well animated and there were some really impressive lighting effects done to show off shining gun metal or shadows in the corners. 

Sound: 8.1
If you have good graphics AND good sound, this really helps the game out. There are a lot of repetitive statements, like enemies saying “it’s quiet” over and over again until it drives you nuts. Still, the weapon sounds were great, the background explosions were nifty, and the radio chatter of your team of your enemies added to the overall feel of the game.

Difficulty: Medium
You may get into some tough situations against large numbers of enemies, but the linear nature of the game will ensure that you won’t hit many stuck points and there is enough weapons to pick up and ammo to grab by the handful to ensure that your trigger finger doesn’t get a break.

Concept: 7.5
I would have loved to see Warhammer 40K brought to the console in TBS format (if any developers are reading this, please answer my prayers!), but I was really impressed with the way that it was made into an FPS game. If a sequel is on the horizon, the addition of choosing a faction to play with, more open environments, and a better multiplayer may take it way up to the top.

Multiplayer: 7.0

It is fun to play multiplayer … but in brief spurts. Since the environments aren’t that large and the game types are what we’ve all played before, it may not be enough to keep you immersed for long periods of time.

Overall: 7.4
I’m still a huge Warhammer 40K fan, and seeing weapons and characters from one of my all time favorite pastimes brought to the console was a real treat. I’d love to see a sequel to Fire Warrior in the future … and hopefully I’ll be writing a review after marching my Ultramarine squad into a heavy firefight with a group of Nurgle Chaos Marines or Space Orks … who knows? 40K fans will probably not regret picking this up, and run and gun action fans will definitely get more out of it than gamers looking for something to present them with a major challenge.