THQ's Kill Team and me

THQ's Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team

Good afternoon children of the Plague Father and welcome once again to the Cupboard of Nurgle. Firstly apologises for not posting yesterday however after speaking with a friend he suggested that by posting on Sunday I am not reaching as wide an audience as I could ( not that I expect thousand of willing sacrifices to Nurgle to surface just by a changing the day ) if I posted on a Monday, so this week I am testing out his theory and you get me today you lucky devils.

I had planned to post the next instalment of my Sanctum of the Aquila, however I got a text on Wednesday evening letting me know Kill Team was out. My xbox hadn't seen any action since Fallout New Vegas so I decided to dust it off and download it for a mere 800 points ( which lovely old Microsoft made me buy in 500 or 1000 increments and now have 200 left over ).

After loading it up I decided a Black Templar Sword Brethren or something close enough for me to be happy was the way to go, sadly this was not meant to be as when choosing my chapter to my horror the Crusaders were not one of the 6 chapters available and instead had to go for an Imperial Fists Vanguard Veteran ( wielding a plasma pistol that is weaker than a Librarian's bolt pistol ).

In single player this guy is good but has problems if you get overwhelmed as it appears to occasionally get stunned ( maybe just my "leet skillz" failing me ) though in co-op the melee boost really helps keep your Sternguard backup shooting. Without a doubt the main issue I had with the Vanguard was certain parts of the game you need to shoot a turret whch is out of range of your sword and with a weak pistol it is slow going.

I bought this game to see if I would like Space Marine as watching one marine killing hordes of Orks made something in me say it was just GW trying to make Marines look cool and nothing more. If Kill Team is any indication of the way Space Marine plays then yes it is just hero worship of the marines however ( and this is important ) it took me back to many a game from my youth where you had one guy and his sole purpose was to butcher an entire country with a tooth pick after being forced out of retirement for "one last mission" which always seemed very flaky on why he needed to go on an epic killing spree, and it was amazing. The plain and simple kill them all while we pretend to have a "story" which is so linear it would make Gordon Freeman blush just worked.

Of course I want to moan, I'm English after all

I did have a few problems with it, as I already said no Black Templars and the Combat guys not being quite on par with their shooting counter parts was a small drawback but nothing huge. I do have two things that did annoy me.

1, Cut Scenes - While I love to watch the cut scenes and get the story in a game, with a game that encourages online leader boards with times & scores I want to be able to skip these when I'm playing through again and not being able to got frustrating.

2, Shooting with the right stick - This was the main course of my annoyance, what's wrong with the old point and shoot method. It's simple, easy to do and more importantly it is common throughout games, why try to reinvent the wheel by letting me face left with my left stick while sprinting away from death, press the right "fire" stick and end up sprinting right at the hungry Orks who want to eat my flesh and wear my face as a mask?

Hopefully these won't be in Space Marine but if they are I just hope the combat guys are able to kill everything without having to resort to a 10 minute pistol barrage at a ranged target.

Overall I really liked this game and for an arcade game it was good fun which has got me looking forward to Space Marine ( even if I have to be a Smurf and not a Zealot ) and has even got me painting one of the Orks that live in my bits box ( nothing like a game and a random model to derail your painting plans ).

Until next time apologies for no modelling pictures but I hope you enjoyed my ramblings on a funky little game

O'Shashar