Onward brothers, in His Glory! In our Space Hulk Review, we’ll tell you about the new turn-based strategy game from developer Full Control Studios. Set in the Warhammer 40K universe by Games Workshop, Space Hulk was originally a 1989 board game starring the heavily armored Space Marines and skittering Genestealers. In this 2013 video game adaptation players take control of the Blood Angels as they carry out missions aboard gigantic derelict space ships filled with dimly lit halls and hoards of alien Xenos.
The bulk of the missions take place over a twelve level campaign. The missions have different objectives of varying complexities and conditions and can take anywhere from ten minutes to well over an hour. Some of the later missions are arduous and involve half a dozen Space Marines , huge maps, and several ways to complete the objectives. Actions in the game all take AP, and the game accounts for things like reloading, unjamming your gun, and even turning around your bulky Terminators in the cramped corridors of the Space Hulk. Command Points are a pool that any of your units can draw from to make movements that would otherwise sap all four AP gained at the start of the turn. Make sure you have enough points left to set your marines on Overwatch if they’re in the dangerzone - it allows Terminators to shoot on sight, even during the enemy’s turn.
The game relies on dice rolls, surfaced in a text box for the curious, as a byproduct of being based on a board game. The randomness leads to a lot of pen and paper style silliness not found in a game like XCOM: Enemy Unknown – for example, some Terminators carry Assault Cannons which have a chance to explode and kill the user. Weapons jam and broken doors can take way too many Power Fist punches to crash through. Don’t forget that even units with bonuses to melee can still whiff completely and die to a single Xeno attack.
Like XCOM, when you fire on an enemy you are shown the percent chance you have to hit – and sometimes a 31% chance hits every time, but other times a point blank Storm Bolter to the face of a Xeno can miss entirely. Melee combat follows a similar one-hit-one-kill rule, but encounters can also result in a draw, leaving units exactly as they were before you made your move. The randomness of combat can heavily alter the effectiveness of your tactics. You may set your Terminators up in a crossfire to cut off enemy reinforcements, which seems like a great idea in the moment, but let’s say one Terminator’s gun jams, the Assault Cannon explodes and a turn later your expert planning has resulted in two dead team members – grounds for a restart, for sure.
I found Space Hulk most fun when my tactics worked and the dice rolls were mostly in my favor. I say “mostly” because it’s such a rush to just barely eek out the final mission objective with only a couple Space Marines left while a horde of Genestealer blips are heading my way. When a lone Terminator held off the influx of Xenos in a narrow corridor, protecting my key unit from behind, and delivered the coup de grâce to the last enemy in the form on a Power Fist, I did a mental fist bump.
It’s rare to talk about atmosphere in a tactics game, but Space Hulk oozes style. I’ve seen plenty of people express their boredom with space marines in pop culture, everything from Starship Troopers to Gears of War, but I’m a fan of Warhammer 40K’s brand of zealous, fanatical toughs with Thunder Hammers, flowing banners, and Latin names. If you enjoyed the carnage present in games like Relic’s Dawn of War series, you’ll enjoy watching Genestealers get gunned down in a shower of blood, or take sick delight in lighting an entire hallway of Xenos on fire. The game looks sharp, with successful dice rolls presenting you with an up close and personal view of the violence. Lumbering marines animate as well as the Genestealers do scampering around the levels. Each marine comes equipped with a grainy, POV shoulder cam that adds a James Cameron’s Alien-style horror feeling to the strategy.
I’m not the best at tactics games, and I haven’t played the original Space Hulk board game, but the tutorials were adequate in getting me started and the in-game manual does a decent job explaining how units work and all the different systems in play. The mission variety was good, but the game lacks a campaign creator - something that would’ve added a lot of life on the Steam Workshop. If you’re like me and appreciate hotseat multiplayer (Heroes of Might & Magic, anyone?) then you’ll enjoy sitting around the computer trading blows with a friend playing as the Genestealers. Fans of Warhammer and turn-based strategy fans will find a lot to like here, as the gameplay is quite satisfying.
