Page 77 - Computer Power User - February 2017

Purge The Xenos

BY CHRIS TRUMBLE

$39.99 (PC) • ESRB: n/a • Focus Home Interactive
www.spacehulk-deathwing.com

In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war. But for with incredibly powerful armor and weapons. You have a squad of
now, there are also some really fun games based on Games Deathwing Terminators at your disposal, and you have to fight your
Workshop’s immensely popular Warhammer: 40K universe, and way through the hulk to the Dark Angels ship to unlock its mysteries.
Space Hulk: Deathwing from Focus Home Interactive is one
of them. The campaign portion of the game has some simple squad control
elements, and you start out with just a couple of basic weapon
Those familiar with the Warhammer 40,000 premise will recall options and a couple of basic (but very cool) psychic attacks. As
that space hulks are sort of like the interstellar equivalent of our you complete missions and discover ancient relics, you and your
oceanic garbage patches, except that instead of consisting of squad mates will have access to more advanced weaponry, which
bottles and cans and the like, they are made of ancient derelict you can select before missions and during them when you use a
spaceships that were lost long ago in the immaterium. These psychic gate to jump back to your base of operations. There’s also
twisted amalgamations of old ships are occasionally ejected from a four-player co-op mode that lets you and your friends select
the warp for various reasons, and when they enter real space, your own classes and customize your loadouts to take on the
they cause big problems, as they are ideal breeding grounds for dangers of the space hulk as a team.
Tyranid Genestealers and other (also terrible) things.
At launch, the game had significant problems with bugs that in some
The very first Space Hulk game was a board game issued by cases could even break the game and cause you to have to restart
Games Workshop in 1989, and since that time there have been a from your most recent save point, but many of these have been
handful of videogame adaptations of that concept. Deathwing is ironed out with a patch that dropped Dec. 21.
the latest, drawing upon both the old Space Hulk lore and that of
the Dark Angels, a Space Marine chapter steeped in mystery and There are still some issues; squad AI isn’t as good as it could be,
betrayal. The Deathwing is the Dark Angels’ elite first company; in and some of the menus and especially the map screen are wonky
the game, Deathwing leader Grand Master Belial dispatches the and frustrating. But the core gameplay is very solid, and both
company to intercept a space hulk that has entered real space the characters and the environments look like they were ripped
and purportedly contains an ancient Dark Angels warship lost right from the pages of your favorite Warhammer 40K novels.
nearly 10,000 years prior during the great Heresy. Deathwing does a nice job of making you feel like a massive
Space Marine Terminator. The game doesn’t do a lot of hand-
Long story short, the game is a first-person shooter that puts you holding for those who aren’t familiar with the universe, but if
in the role of a Deathwing Librarian, a superhuman psychic warrior you’re a fan, this game is a must-play experience. ■

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