Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior

"Quite disappointing"

I had such high hopes for this game......

Being a Warhammer 40K fan I was over the moon to find out a first person shooter (FPS) set in the 40K universe was being made. Every other game that has been produced in this world (with the exception of Space Hulk) has just been a reproduction of the tabletop wargame, and as a result none of them have ever been any good. A FPS is the perfect genre for a game based in this universe, as there a huge selection of races, troops, vehicles, weapons etc that could be put to great use in a FPS. I was also pleased with the decision to have the player control a new race, the Tau, in the game. This was a wise decision as it would let the player experience just how tough some of the human imperium forces are. This is especially true for the space marines, as they are genetically enhanced shock troops, but in the 40K game they are often just seen as ordinary troops. This game was a great opportunity to show just how devastating they are. But sadly the game has failed to live up to its huge potential………….

Gameplay – 5 out of 10

You will all be familiar (I hope!) with the basic FPS shooter, and Fire Warrior doesn’t stray too far from this. You are given objectives to accomplish as you travel through each level. The objectives are pretty bog standard stuff - blow up gun emplacements, kill senior officers etc – and are highlighted by a pretty useful waypoint marker on your screen. One thing that this game brought back was the use of coloured door keys, and with me being an old Doom veteran I was quite pleased to see this return in an FPS. However, the feature seems a little dated now compared to what is possible these days.

A major flaw in this game is the weapons themselves. The 40K universe has a huge array of powerful (and not so powerful) weaponry and for me this was going to be a turning point in the success of the game. Sadly, the weapons were handled quite poorly. The models for them all look great, but it is the actual shooting itself that is problematic. Your starting weapon – the Tau pulse rifle – is so inaccurate that you have to fire a ton of shots to even land a few hits. This is no problem at close range, but anything outside of 6 metres will be very difficult to hit. This is the case for the majority of weapons.

Another problem with the weapons is that some of them are poorly represented. The space marine boltgun was particularly badly done. It is supposed to be a hugely powerful automatic rifle that fires explosive armour piercing slugs. But instead what we have is more akin to a slow firing, single shot grenade launcher. Why they made it this way is a total mystery. The grenades are as useless as the other weapons, there is no splash damage to speak of and you have to score a direct hit to actually hurt anyone with them. This makes them useless for clearing rooms, groups of enemies etc

Fire Warrior subscribes to the old school of FPS enemies, in that they take a lot of damage before they hit the deck. This is not like Medal of Honour or Soldier of Fortune where a well placed shot or two could bring down an enemy straight away. There don’t seem to be any body hit zones – so no headshots. Coupled with the inaccuracy of the weapons, this makes for some very frustrating combat.

Story – 7 out of 10

It’s hard to write much about this without giving away any spoilers, I wouldn’t want to spoil the story for anyone who buys the game (whoever posted the characters that died in Star Trek Nemesis before I had the chance to see it will suffer……….). The story is reasonably well done though. Nothing amazing, but it works well enough with the game and provides good settings for the combat. The 40K license comes into it’s own at times, and lifts the story just that little bit above your bog standard FPS storyline.

Graphics 7 out of 10

The game’s graphics are reasonably well done, nothing spectacular, but nothing terrible either. The settings for the levels all look good and there are some nice touches (again using the 40K license) that give some of the levels that little bit of extra character. The weapon models are one area where Fire Warrior shines, they all look great and just as you would expect them to look (shame they don’t work as you would want them to though…..).

The character models are a mixed bag, the armored Tau look good but the unarmored Tau look like rejects from a bad flying saucer movie. The human troops look too stunted and don’t have the variation of amour that the imperial guard have in 40K (a couple of different regiments featured in the board game wouldn’t have gone amiss). The space marines however, look absolutely fantastic. The first time I encountered one I was expecting an ordinary human wearing power armor, and instead this gigantic metal behemoth walks out and starts firing at me. The models are huge and intimidating, exactly how you would expect a space marine to look in the real world.

Sound – 6 out of 10

The best word I could use to describe the sound is ‘average’. It has its highs and lows, but for most part is just run of the mill sci-fi sound effects. Everything sounds exactly how you would expect it to. The voices of Tom Baker and Brian Blessed sound fantastic, Doctor Who fans will be overjoyed to hear the intro movie. Some of the voices are great too, the imperial guard set conversations you will overhear sound great, the English accents really add to the atmosphere.

One very, very annoying feature is the ambient voices you hear when you are walking through the levels. Most FPS games have them these days - Half Life’s navy seals are a good example of how this is done well. You can be sneaking up behind some soldiers and you hear them talking into their radio reporting ‘no movement here’ etc. It doesn’t work anywhere near as well as that in Fire Warrior. Often what the troopers say doesn’t match with what they are doing at the time. There were times when I was attacking a group of soldiers and they said that there was nothing wrong into their radios while I was firing at them. And you hear them all the time too; you could be walking around an empty section of the level and would still be hearing the same lines over and over again.

Play Time – 6 out of 10

Fire Warrior is about average length for a FPS, it comes into line with the length of most games in this genre. There are enough levels to keep you happy. The levels themselves are also of decent size.

Replayability – 3 out of 10

I can’t say I will be replaying this game (even if I hadn’t taken it back to the shop that is...) as the combat is just too frustrating to stomach for any length of time. Combat in an FPS should be a rewarding, seat of your pants experience and Fire Warrior’s combat is simply a case of blasting away until the enemy drops dead; there is no strategy or reflexes involved.

Overall Score – 5 out of 10

There is one more thing that I should mention before I end this. The PC version of Fire Warrior is quite obviously a lazily done port of the PS2 game. The menus don’t let you use the mouse, you can’t save individual games and they couldn’t even be bothered to take the remove the ‘save successful’ bar that comes up when you save a game.

This game should have been based more around the 40K wargame itself. A game that had you playing a single trooper in a large battle akin to the ones in the wargame would have been much better. A skirmish mode could also have been included where you chose two armies, selected troops and vehicles for them and had them battle it out with you playing as a trooper or vehicle of your choice.

Better luck next time then.....

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 10/13/03