Warhammer 40000 (40K in most people's parlance) is a terrific table-top game of warfare in a dark, grim future. Defying convention, players assume the role of an alien race's warrior, the Tau, battling humanity. Fire Warriors are the military caste of the Tau, by the way. The Tau retain some of humanity's finer characteristics while the humans in Warhammer 40K have slid into a new Dark Ages, so players will find it easy to empathize with their proxy. It's a novel premise. The graphics are marginably acceptable. Even at 1600 by 1200, it doesn't look as good as it should. Rather it throws back to Quake II era graphics, perhaps as a result of it's porting from the PS2 console. Insufficient variety of decals, indistinct edges even at close ranges, and poor 3-D rendering of objects are simply not acceptable in late 2003. Enemies all look alike and there are only perhaps a dozen or so different foes. Sound is the weakest of this game. The script and dialogue are very limited, but the voice-acting is acceptable. Sound effects are just awful, however. Mostly "whumps". A weapon as powerful as the boltgun deserves better. The story revolves around an encounter between the Tau and the humans. Predictable, it results in war. But when a truce is attempted, a treacherous human noble goes to extremes to stop it. The action is all run-and-gun a la Doom 2. Enemies are nearly mindless and weave back and forth blasting away. It gets worse, however, because weapons (other than the sniper rifle) are hopeless inaccurate at less than point-blank range (even with auto-aim turned on) making combat an exercise in frustration (and there isn't anything other than combat in the game). To top it off, gameplay can only be permanently saved in between levels with a checkpoint or two in between. This ratchets up the frustration as players must continuously refight the same battle over and over again in later levels. There is a timid stab at mulitplay, but why bother with so many other, better games out there? There's little enough reason to play this game once, much less after that. This game is maybe worth rescuing from the bargain bin. Then again, maybe not...
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