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WH40K has never been so bad

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 22 / 26
Date: December 28, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Having witnessed the evolution of first person shooters and the WH40k universe of games first hand, I have trouble believing how unbelievably bad this game is. Apparently, Games Workshop will lend their WH40K license to anyone.

Visual experience: While the graphics engine is up to the task, the textures and level design are completely uninspired, making this game a visually bland experience. Although, I did enjoy the cut scenes which were well done, with the exception of poor voice talent. With this small exception, this game lacks any style whatsoever.

Weapons: Despite the game being set in the 41 Millennium, the weapons are about as deadly as a roman candle. The Pulse Rifle for example is well over a meter long and looks to weigh 100 kilos, yet it takes several shots to take out an unarmored imperial guardsman, even at point blank range.

Level Design: This game reverts to the stone age of the genera. These guys have apparent missed 15+ years of evolution. I had the feeling of being a trail horse, leisurely making my way about the countryside, not being able to choose my path or stray from the path that I was on. I found that you really don't have to pay attention to your mission or any of the plot development. Just continue to move forward, killing bad guys... If you run into a locked door, find a switch.

Gameplay: Take away the fancy graphics, and you're a playing a Doom II clone, without the cool weapons, spooky atmosphere or feeling of eminent danger. Strafe is the name of the game here boys and girls. Constantly run from side to side, back and forth behind cover and unload on your enemies and you'll be fine. Repeat until game complete. I found this game incredibly easy. I never felt I was in any danger of not completing my mission, even though I rarely knew or cared what it was. The whole game felt like a chore. I kept playing to find out if there was something I was missing. This game was clearly designed for the console platforms. The fact that you cannot use the mouse in the main menu was the first clue to the quality of this game. Then I found out that there are NO SAVE GAMES. Your progress is updated every time you reach a checkpoint. I thought this was banished from PC gaming years ago.

Even if you enjoy mindless action, I can think of a dozen titles that do it better than this game. If you only play it because it is WH40K, this is the ONLY WH40K game that I would suggest skipping all together. If you want to play WH40K FPS style, try Space Hulk, you may actually have fun. If you are an adolescent, not concerned with concepts like realism or suspense, missed doom II the first time around, and have nothing else to de except watch paint dry, this is the game for you!

WARHAMMER 40,000 ROCKS!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 24 / 33
Date: August 06, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Warhammer 40,000 Fire Warrior is the best translation of the Warhammer Universe to reach the PC and Console. All previous games on PC and Console have literally bombed due to lack of knowledge on behalf of developers who created the games. Chaos Gate was fun while it lasted if you were able to even get the frickin' Land Speeder to even move one square! Chaos Gate became outdated too because it used 2nd Edition rules and restricted you to the Ultramarines Chapter of Space Marines. Rites of War was what I call a crummy disaster since it turned out to be like a disaster of WarCraft/StarCraft that would only satisfy for 5 minutes until you decide you shouldn't have bought the game. Fire Warrior defies the tradition of Games Workshop's style, dubbed Tabletop Hobby Games a.k.a. Wargames, where you command mini's on a tabletop like some general charging into the fray but as the player you are playing the scene out like some omnipotent being overseeing an endless war, Fire Warrior launches you into a First Person Shooter, in the "shoes" of Kais, a Tau Fire Warrior who's leader (known as an Ethereal) was abducted by an Imperial Guard strike force, so you and your squad lock and load, head out to the sight the Imps landed at, and find yourself dropped into a battle rivaling the Normandy Invasion level in Medal of Honor: Frontline! This all takes place over a course of 24 hours as you encounter a range of opponents ranging from the "we're only human"-Imperial Guard to the superhuman Space Marines, and even worse, their counterparts, the Chaos Space Marines, superhumans gifted by Gods of Magic, War, Pestilence, and Excess, you will even encounter Traitor Guardsmen, Imperial Guard who follow the path of Chaos. THIS GAME ROCKS! For those who are Halo fans: The creators of Halo [TOOK] alot from the Warhammer universe, Space Marines in Power Armor was patented by Games Workshop in the 1980's, so go for the original Space Marines. Warhammer 40,000 is embellished in the Gothic style inside and out, and creates a storyline that will keep you coming back into that universe to fight off that endless war. If you aren't a WH40K fan, you still should get into it, its one ride you'll never forget! This game rocks!

A big disappointment

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 11 / 15
Date: December 04, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I'm afraid they really missed the mark on this one. First off there is supposed to be a printed manual with the game. Mine didn't have one and from various chat rooms neither did most other folks. The developer has acknowledged a packaging problem and the manual is available as a PDF download on the Firewarrior site.

There are a few good points. First the graphics are pretty good. Not the best you have seen but nice. The video sequences are well done and if you are a WH40K fan they are really cool. In fact they make you wish they would just do an animated movie this way for WH40K. Unfortunately the good points pretty much end there. The sound is not well done at all. Dialog is hard to understand, weapons fire is wimpy and your main weapon has so much low-end bass to it that after awhile the sound really gets on your nerves (if you have a subwoofer anyway). Artillery and other ambient sounds seem to cut in and out randomly. You just get a very sterile feel from the whole thing.

By far the worst part of the game though is the combat! The weapons are RIDICULOUSLY inaccurate. I mean you can be five feet away from an enemy and blast away and you'll be lucky to hit him once. If that wasn't bad enough it seems to take an entire clip of ammo to knock down even an Imperial Guard trooper. Ok, actually four shots will do it but you'll use a full clip trying to hit one that many times. SGTs take ten hits or more to take down as they come at you with their chainswords. One example: I entered a room and stopped to shoot at a stationary trooper across the room (a small room). I placed my cursor carefully dead center on the target (we were both stationary). I went through a clip and a half before he died. When you do manage to finally kill a guy the death throw is something out of a Shakespeare play as the guy takes ten minutes to die and fall over. This makes the game not only horrendously annoying but pretty much causes you to scream in frustration from the start.

The AI is also pretty sad. For the most part enemies will end up charging at you and then stop and blast away at you. Of course their weapons are as inaccurate as yours. SGTs and others with close combat weapons will run up to you then run away. In fact you often get the feeling the AI has some sort of pte-plotted movement pattern that the enemies run no matter what you do or where you are.

Other folks have commented on the lack of interaction, the annoying 'find a door key', as well as the claustrophobic feel to the game but those things would have been ok (well, the key thing is REALLY annoying as you back track through levels to get a stupid key). It's the other stuff that makes this game a real bomb. If you are a GW WH40K fan and can get it in the bargain bin for $10 maybe pick it up, otherwise pass.

Don't know Warhammer 40k Universe = boring game?

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 11 / 17
Date: November 24, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I'd never heard anything about the Warhammer 40,000 universe before playing this game. It looks like people who know the universe enjoy it much more. As far as compared to other first-person shooters, this is pretty disappointing. Reading the game features made it sound pretty cool, but the developers just missed opportunites. You can carry one gun in each hand... apparently all the people in the year 40k have two right hands ;) Other than launching rather than tossing gernades and amount of ammo, I couldn't figure out the difference between the two guns you get...other than looks. The shoot exactly the same. You also just run up and fire point-blank range at other players and whoever lands the first 10 or so hits wins. I can't believe that a universe that has been developed as long as WH40K appears to have been could be so lifeless and stale... nothing interesting I haven't seen in other FPSers. Maybe knowing the back-story would make it more interesting. The graphics are pretty nice- so I give it 2 stars for that, but if you are an FPS fan and not a WH40K fan, you might want to skip this one.

Could have been better, but not horrible

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 7 / 14
Date: December 08, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Innovative? No. Unique? Not really. Flawed? Sure. Bad game? Nah. As critical as I am of video games, I can't really say Fire Warrior is all that bad. A few things could have been done diffrently to make it a bit more enjoyable. Basically, its a classic Quake/Doom-style shoot-em-up, which I personally can appreciate since I grew up playing the aforementioned games. I actually do see some potential for "What could have been" here, but in the end its pretty much just a generic FPS experience. The graphics, I think, are actually pretty good. Contrary to much of what I've read, the view models are pretty nice , well animated and well skinned. Gameplay is decent, but a bit uninspired. The patch, which you will have to get yourself from the site (the built in updater didn't detect it for me) Improves the feel of the game a bit by eliminating some of the visual lag that occured pretty regularly in the unpatched version. Note that by visual lag, I'm not talking about FPS drop, I'm talking about times when the game seems to "skip" rather than just suffering a framerate hit. From what I can tell, this seems to be a popular workaround for framerate slowdowns, but in the end it is actually alot more annoying. Once patched, Fire Warrior delivers a solid if not especially exceptional jaunt through the Warhammer universe. Not a waste of money, but nothing really special. If you're just looking for some FPS action, go for it. Its more fun than Quake 2 was (as if that's really saying too much :D )

Warhammer 40K: Fire Warrior is Snoozehammer 40K, ZZZzzzz...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 8 / 21
Date: February 17, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Don't buy this, you will only encourage people to write crummy games - even cheap, it's a waste of money.

There are no saves, the player has to complete missions or objectives or start over. The graphics are uninteresting as is the game design.

Even the plot is lame. Be the good 'Tau' and kill the evil humans. This may appeal to Columbine types, I suppose.

Save your money and buy Max Payne 2, a bit lame but much more fun to play as a shooter. It has some atmosphere too.

Do NOT Buy This Game

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: November 23, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This is the worst game I've ever had the misfortune of purchasing. Save yourself the trouble of printing the return label and DO NOT buy it. Yet another dissapointment from Games Workshop. It's unbelievable that this game was even released. Wiped it off my hard drive 5 minutes after starting to play.

Old; and it shows.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: September 20, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Although it's cool to see the various foes of Warhammer 40k up close, this game is dated, with crude graphics and sloppy mechanics. The UI in particular is very poorly designed - with large, maze-like areas and no objective markers or reminders, getting lost is nearly inevitable. On top of that, the weapons work unpredictably and poorly - even rifles have extreme inaccuracy and do miniscule damage, requiring almost a clip of ammunition to kill a single opponent.
If you're looking for a fun first-person shooter, this game is not for you. If you just want to run around in the Warhammer 40k universe....well, there might be better ways to do it, but this game will do it. Don't expect good graphics, though.

finaly some one who gets it

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 12
Date: November 07, 2003
Author: Amazon User

ive ben playin wh40k for about 8 years now and teh games made for teh consoles and pc have ben horrible well except space hulk but still taht lasted about 15 min fire warrior from teh screen shots and interviews ive read in teh warhammer magizine this is gona rock fans of teh table game are gona finaly get a good game based on there beloved table top game

Wasted Potential

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: November 05, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game could have been great.

What we got instead was a lifeless game that has very little value to those new to the Warhammer 40k universe, but especially little value to veteran fans of the game.

Pros:

Decent Graphics, Decent 40k Universe Maps.

Cons:

Controls are awful, especially to anyone who has played any of the halflife mods (sensitivity and precision are out of sync).

HORRIBLE hits/kill ratio, you'll find yourself pouring clips of ammunition into low-level grunts whle backpeddling like a madman. (You'll spend most of the game doing this.)

Weak plot? It seems you're just jumping from one pile of grunts on steroids to another... gets old fast.

For hardcore fans of the game, you'll be disappointed by the complete lack of detail when it comes to weaponry. (Ex: In the tabletop version the pulse rifle is the strongest personal weapon in the game... in this game it has trouble competing with the las rifle.)

This truly is a $5 game. THQ should be paying YOU to play it. If you are looking for a first person shooter, get a half-life mod game. If you are looking for a great 40k game, get DAWN OF WAR.

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