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The First Person Shooter to end all!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 12, 2008
Author: Amazon User

So you're thinking about buying Space Hulk: Vengeance of the Blood Angles are ya'? Well I hope this review helps. Space Hulk: Vengeance of the Blood Angels is the Sequel to the PC DOS game Space Hulk, which is based on the Warhammer 40,000 table top game that goes by the same name. The game takes place in the universe of Warhammer 40,000. If you don't know anything about Warhammer 40,000 then the way the Terminators act will just seem cheesy. In fact, I suggest doing to research on Warhammer 40,000 before you purchase this game. It will help put things into perspective for you when you play this game. The first Space Hulk game was very primitive, if you will. Bad graphics mixed with very difficult game play kept it from being a hit amongst main stream PC gamers of the day. But fans of the table top Warhammer 40,000 game loved it. Vengeance of the Blood Angels is a HUGE upgrade from the original Space Hulk. The game play is a mix of Doom and Rainbow 6. Take the overall feel and look of Doom (Even though Vengeance of the Blood Angels looks WAAAAY better than Doom) with the strategy based controls and game play of Rainbow 6. You start out as a rookie just taking orders from your commander, but as you progress you become the commander. It will throw you for a loop because you move up so suddenly. When you are able to issue orders you can exit the first person view and enter a map screen. From this screen you can issue orders like Pick up item, Drop item, use weapon, move, retreat, self-destruct, hold position, etc. Make your orders quickly because while on this screen time only pauses for so long. After your "Freeze Time" meter runs out things start moving, and the enemies you face in this game don't stand still for very long. they are extremely aggressive. Most of the Enemies you face are Gene Stealers. They are an extremely intelligent and savage race of aliens bent on one thing and one thing alone, Survival. The A.I. in this game is better than that of any Xbox 360, PS 3, or PC game I have ever played. The Gene Stealers will distract you, and then flank you, take cover, move in zig-zag patterns, wait until you stop firing until they come out from behind cover, etc. Most of the fighting is done with your bolter (gun). It's semi-auto for you (fires as fast as you can press the button), but for your A.I. companions it's very rapid three shot bursts. The only alternate weapon you get to use in the campaign is the Heavy Flamer. It is a tad confusing because it doesn't shoot like a flame thrower at all. It shoots a single bolt that explodes and catches an entire room on fire. The other mode of combat is the most important. The hand to hand combat. This takes a lot of practice to get good at. You will die many, many times before you get good at it. EVERYTHING hand to hand is a one hit kill. If they hit you once, you die. If you hit them once, they die. The only hand to hand weapon you get to use in the campaign is the power glove. It's a huge metal fist that is charged with God knows how much electrical power to fry whatever it touches. In order to get the hand to hand combat down remember it's all about rhythm. When a Gene Stealer gets close enough to engage hand to hand combat the graphics get ramped up. They look gorgeous. It's those good ol' ray traced graphics. Anyway, it seems slow, but it's faster than you think. You have to watch the gene stealer because each movement is giving you a tell. Each little thing the gene stealer does is telling you what it's about to do. You'll understand when you play the game. It's hard to describe. When you learn the tells you'll learn when to defend and when to attack. Just remember, to defend press the block button twice on a rhythm, like your keeping time with a song. After you've blocked the attack, press the attack button as many times as you can on that same rhythm until you fry the gene stealer in front of you. They don't tell you that in the instruction manual. I had to figure it out through a very LONG trial and error period. Oh, and if you encounter a Chaos Space Marine, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, and don't get too close or they will instantly kill you. The Maps are HUGE and labarynthian in most cases, and require lots of strategy to navigate through. You can't just go headlong into battle blasting everything in your site to beat this game. Mainly because the gene stealers respawn at a very rapid rate from designated spawn points that are marked on your map. You have to organize your approach for each mission. Sometimes a passive approach is good. Sometimes a head on assault works. Sometimes you have to hold your ground, seal off all sites of possible enemy incurrsion, sit for a second, and weigh your options. Sometimes you just have to cut and run! Each mission is different. As the game progresses it gets harder, and harder. It takes a lot of patients and good strategy beat this game. If you get stuck on a level or you beat the game there are a ton of instant action missions. They are divided up into categories. Each one is unique, and difficult. It is in the instant action missions that you get to use the full array of Terminator long range and hand to hand weapons. The hand to hand weapons are my favorite. FYI: The Grand Hall is the BEST instant action mission. Over all, I loved this game, and I'm very happy I bought it. For it's time it was the most advanced first person shooter, and still rivals many modern first person shooters in A.I. and game play. The graphics are a little lacking, but the hand to hand graphics are AMAZING! The controls are a bit complicated, but it's nothing you don't get used to. The voices in the game can be a bit choppy as that kind of technology was new in video games at the time. The Death sounds are pretty drawn out, and painful. You really fell for the poor bastard. Sometimes the friendly A.I.'s can be real idiots and you have to pretty much baby sit them, but you know that they always have your back. They fight tooth and nail for you, and are happy to die to keep you safe, if, of course, they don't get stuck on a wall or in a corner. If you are a Warhammer 40,000 fan or not this is a must buy if you have the patients and the strategic mind for it. I don't know why this game wasn't given the credit it deserved. It should have been WAY more popular than it was. In fact, I've noticed that all Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 games are severely UNDERRATED! Buy this game, and buy every other game with the name WARHAMMER OR WARHAMMER 40,000 on it!

Daniel Hunter

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