F#¢& Space Marine for XBox 360

There is a campaign mode. It's fine, but it isn't why you get Space Marine.

You get Space Marine to machine gun (oops, sorry 40k nerds, Heavy Bolter) the face off of strangers from the far ends of the world who no doubt are swearing at you under their breath where you'll never hear it!

The game is set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. It uses the weapons from that universe and in the Versus mode (where you heavy bolter other people's faces off) you are either on the side of the Space Marines or on the side of the Chaos Marines.

The team you are on is randomly assigned. There are five maps (though there are plans to add three more this month.)

You may select from a variety of 'builds' and you may have multiple builds ready for you to access based upon what level you are (the highest level is 41 as you level it opens more options for you).

There are three armor styles you may select:

Assault:

This is the guy that flys around with a jet pack and tries to surprise people by landing on them from above and hacking them to pieces with either a Chainsword, Powersword, Chainaxe, or Thunderhammer. They do not have Lightning Claws or Power Fists implemented yet, and even if they did I don't think those would go on Assault Classes. Assault Space Marines also have either a Bolt Pistol or a Plasma Pistol.

Tactical:

Right now this is a grenade spamming mortar machine, but ostensibly it is supposed to be the 'typical' Space Marine with access to a Melta Gun, Bolter, and Stalker Bolter. Theoretically the Bolter is supposed to be one of the finest weapons in the game once you unlock all of the bonus features for it. I've not bothered to do this yet, but I have certainly been killed enough by it.

Devestator:

The heavy gives access to Plasma Cannons, Lascannons, and my favorite, the Heavy Bolter.

Each class has access to different armor perks that you unlock as you kill more and more people more and more often in different ways.

Each weapon also has perks associated with it. As you use the weapons and do various things with them you unlock things that make the weapons even better. It seems a bit bassackwards to me to give you the weapon in its weakest form to practice with and as you gain skill with it to make it even more effective, but that's the way they do it.

Ok, you have your Heavy Bolter, now playtime!

You can choose to play Versus, where you are killing other people from around the world. This is what it is all about. There are two options for playing Versus currently and they are Seize Ground and Annihilation.

Seize Ground: There are 3 or 4 'points' on the map that your team wants to own. Score is tallied over time based upon how many points a team controls. If teams control an equal number of points (and more than zero) each team scores the same amount of points every 'heartbeat'. Otherwise if point control is uneven than the score climbs in favor of the team with more points. The more lopsided point control is the greater the score that tallies for the team in charge each heartbeat.

This is the version I play the most often. I like to have an objective, and I enjoy team work, and having an objective seems to predispose about 5% of the population of general yahoos who play games like this to want to apply some teamwork which is about 5% more than the other version...

Annhiliation:

Kill 41 opponents before they kill 41 of you.

You randomly appear on the map and start shooting. You never know when an opponent will spawn behind you, so you better keep moving. So far my experience in this is that if I don't go into it with a friend who will watch my back while I watch his this is a total free-for-all. It's completely silly, and is why I prefer Seize Ground.

Review: I really like this game. It was difficult to start out, and some of the perks only become available once you reach a certain level. Gradually you begin to learn the maps, and where the most advantageous ground to hold is located as well as how best to capture points and surprise enemies.

There are flaws, as with any game, and the company that makes the game has plans announced on their website that indicates they are going to try to address the biggest problems with the game play, but with anything that has degrees we'll see if they can tune it just right, don't reduce the problem enough, or overcompensate and throw the balance off the other way.

If you like quick, dirty shoot-em-in-the-face games that have sessions that don't last more than 12 minutes, and disallow you opponents from screaming at you during the game this game is for you! I find it to be a tremendous stress reliever. It totally reminds me of Tribes which I used to play on PC. A perfect mix of atmosphere (40K) and simple game play that allows for extremely casual play with just enough of something to keep you engaged.

8 out of 10 from me!