Hands-On Preview: A long time from now, in a galaxy far, far away…
It seems that First-Person Shooters are the current fad in gaming – everyone and their mother are trying their hand at a FPS game to match up with the kings of the genre (Halo, Doom, Quake, Unreal, Half-Life, etc), and many are taking the online route to further expand their creation. Developer Kuju and publisher THQ are in this game boat, as the companies are close to releasing their own contribution to the FPS craze, Warhammer 40000: Fire Warrior. While there is a story mode in place with Warhammer, the biggest deal is the online play for the PS2. And from what we’ve been able to play, it seems that online play must be the selling point for this game to succeed. Hey, it worked for SOCOM…
Warhammer takes place in the far future, as the 40000 means the year 40000, some 38,000 years from now. As always, we’re at war and the combat is fierce in a battle for control of the planet. The demo played drops you right into the world of the fight, battling hordes of enemies all by yourself – think Master Chief blowing up the Covenant, only these guys aren’t aliens, they’re real fighters. Kuju promises an epic story to go along with the FPS action, but this, as always is to be taken lightly, as everyone promises an epic, dynamic story these days in their games.
The main draw, however, should be the online play. Supporting broadband only, Warhammer will let up to 8 PS2 users take part in numerous types of play, a la SOCOM. While it’s unknown whether or not the SOCOM headset will actually come into play for the game, I’d guess it’s possible given a FPS has no time for typing with a keyboard. The online play perhaps will be the only major selling point, given the single player, at least in this early stage, is rather unexciting and doesn’t stand out from the pack of FPS games.
What should make online at least work for a while is the solid base the game is built on. The game controls and plays very well techinically, with good controls and responsive actions. THQ and Kuju promises plenty of futuristic weapons to go along with the action, which should lead to enough gameplay variety, at least online with other competitors. This could be the PS2’s answer to Unreal Championship – great online modes, average to poor offline modes (with the exception of offline multiplayer, of course).
See, the level played for this preview was rather familiar and really didn’t stick out as anything spectacular. After playing through it, I sincerely hope that the rest of the game turns out a lot better, as the game plays too well in technical terms to end up being so mediocre. All I could see was “blast baddies, move on, collect guns and powerups, achieve objective, rinse and repeat”, with some storyline mixed in to go along with it. There’s a solid base for Warhammer, but it’s up to the developers to build a great game behind it for both online and offline players.
