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Space Hulk: Deathwing - may the Emperor's legs be OK

Lazing Dirk

Arcane
Joined
Dec 12, 2016
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Shooting up your ride
you have to be a member for a year

Well fuck my packed lunch, if I'd known that I wouldn't have spent so long lurking as a guest.

What does the assault cannon sound like in this game? If it isn't a terrifying avalanche of noise and pain I'm not buying it. Disappointing weapon sounds are a bigger turn-off than Margaret Thatcher's tits, even if they're rotting now.
 
Joined
Nov 29, 2016
Messages
1,832
you have to be a member for a year

Well fuck my packed lunch, if I'd known that I wouldn't have spent so long lurking as a guest.

What does the assault cannon sound like in this game? If it isn't a terrifying avalanche of noise and pain I'm not buying it. Disappointing weapon sounds are a bigger turn-off than Margaret Thatcher's tits, even if they're rotting now.

Well, it sounds like what it is, more or less - a big-ass rotary cannon. Streumon has always been good with weapon sounds and gunplay in general. My favorite is the storm bolter, which actually sounds like something that fires explosive rounds. Plasma cannons sound pretty terrible, though - then again I never had a taste for energy weapons in games.
 

Darth Roxor

Royal Dongsmith
Staff Member
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May 29, 2008
Messages
1,878,406
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Djibouti
Even on lowest settings I get hueg stuttering when anything starts happening :negative:
What's your setup?

8 GB ram, AMD X6 1090T 3.20 GHz cpu, GeForce GTX 750 Ti.

And yeah, loading times also still take an assload of time (3 minutes on average), but they ARE 50% shorter than the beta (... where it took 6 on average), that's for sure.

Also, fwiw, I didn't get any CTD in the first mishun.
 

flabbyjack

Arcane
Joined
Jul 15, 2004
Messages
2,592
Location
the area around my keyboard
I'm ashamed to say I confused this with the other Space Hulk/Warhammer 40k game (The shitty boardgame/room clearing one). Sorry to have doubted you, Streumon studio.

Check my signature for a Let's Play of another Streumon game.
 

Makabb

Arcane
Shitposter Bethestard
Joined
Sep 19, 2014
Messages
11,753
Just played the tutorial..... and the game hanged after 3 min.

Yea will wait for the patch
 
Joined
Nov 29, 2016
Messages
1,832
Just played the entirety of Mission 2 in multiplayer using Codex rules on second easiest difficulty. I was apothecary with redemption bolter.

I was playing with randoms due to having no interweb friends that own this game. There were only two unpassworded public servers using Codex rules that I could see, so that is very disappointing.

It was surprisingly good. The network lag and aforementioned stuttering were a thing, but not to the point where it was impossible to play.

Two battle bros were lost: one to a turret, the other had his jeans stolen by a lictor from behind. It is really important that whoever is at the back of the group keeps an eye on the rear or the flanks, or else you get into situations like that. After being killed, the bros DC'd (not sure if this was due to connection errors or asspain).
Speaking of lictors, the radar is awesome - I managed to kill a lictor a second before he leaped at me because I paid attention to the pings on the map.

I am still not sure if the spawns are static or if there is randomization/AI involved (would be disappointing, not to mention false advertising, if it was just the former).

All that being said, the game is too easy on that difficulty level. Perhaps I just did a really good job as apothecary, but I was able to keep everyone alive unless the entire squad fucked up. Still, I could see this being a cock-hardening affair on the highest difficulty level with Codex rules and a few friends /w headsets, even in its current state.
 

Siel

Arcane
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Some refined shithole
1481805379500.png


:imperialscum:
 

Durandal

Arcane
Joined
May 13, 2015
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New Eden
My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
Still adorably Anglaise as always. What happened to that WH40K book writer they supposedly had on board for the story?
 

Shackleton

Arcane
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Knackers Yard
Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture
So what's the SP like? The MP sounds like it might be a bit lacking in longevity, but might still grab it for the single player campaign if it's decently meaty.

Campaign is a series of how many missions? Is there any story at all worth mentioning? Looks like there's some progression in the SP, if not really in MP.
 
Joined
Nov 29, 2016
Messages
1,832
So what's the SP like? The MP sounds like it might be a bit lacking in longevity, but might still grab it for the single player campaign if it's decently meaty.

Campaign is a series of how many missions? Is there any story at all worth mentioning? Looks like there's some progression in the SP, if not really in MP.

I think it is 9 missions that are pretty lengthy (the first two took me about an hour each, though it will be longer if on higher difficulties and if you hunt for every relic). As far as I know, singleplayer was the focus on the game, with the multiplayer tacked on later, just like EYE. The story is pretty intriguing and the gameplay is good but then again I've only beaten the first two missions.
 

Freddie

Savant
Joined
Sep 14, 2016
Messages
717
Location
Mansion
Even on lowest settings I get hueg stuttering when anything starts happening :negative:
What's your setup?

8 GB ram, AMD X6 1090T 3.20 GHz cpu, GeForce GTX 750 Ti.

And yeah, loading times also still take an assload of time (3 minutes on average), but they ARE 50% shorter than the beta (... where it took 6 on average), that's for sure.

Also, fwiw, I didn't get any CTD in the first mishun.
Thanks, I ordered RX 470, should do the trick.

Anyone having problems with game hanging, severe lag and CTD's, I read on Steam forums that this may be related to Unreal engine bug. Setting affinity from 4 cores to 3 and (leaving last core out) appeared to help many whom had these issues on Steam.
 

Gerrard

Arcane
Joined
Nov 5, 2007
Messages
11,927
8 GB ram, AMD X6 1090T 3.20 GHz cpu, GeForce GTX 750 Ti.

And yeah, loading times also still take an assload of time (3 minutes on average)
Jesus Christ what year is this? I don't think even Witcher 3 takes 3 minutes to load first time.
 

Durandal

Arcane
Joined
May 13, 2015
Messages
2,117
Location
New Eden
My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
played it a bit
I'm used to playing games as a low resolution windowed blurry mess by now after DOOM and SW2, but even Deathhulk often proves itself too much to handle at times
my rig isn't THAT top of the line, but if you are going to make a game about shooting a large amount of enemies in huge open spaces with high visual detail, perhaps the Serious Engine is a better pick
anyways

-game looks great for what I could make out
-no music, just ambient sounds Marathon-style, whether that's truly atmospheric depends on your tastes
-sound effects are satisfying and meaty
-anything that isn't story material looks like it's written by a frenchman with a base understanding of English
-what the fuck do these stats do, what the fuck is the difference between DAMAGES and DAMAGES BONUS?
-there's a smooth transition when zooming in, but no transition at all when zooming out, which can be kinda disorienting
-voice acting is pretty neat
-squadmates seem to put new orders on hold in favor of purging xenos, which is kind of annoying if you order your apothecary to heal something
-noticed that when entering through a door, your squadmates will automatically follow through so you don't have to order them around before locking the door behind you
-limited heal and psy gate charges do add an element of long-term planning which I like
-I don't really see the point of a stamina bar when there's plenty of shit being able to outrun you, as it's a bit annoying for exploration
-some tyranids crawl on all fours rather than on two legs which is neat, though I'd want to see leaping and wallcrawling xenos to spice things up a bit more
-limited health, squad management, and alien swarms (and framedrops) can make for some right tense situations
-why do enabled turrets shoot you too? why do you have to hack a turret again to do something with it?
-there's little multitasking, you can't melee/psy if you are shooting or reloading, which is unfortunate as shooting stuff is primarily the most efficent way to kill stuff
-melee is just too slow (can't even attack/charge attack while sprinting?) to be really preferable over just taking the brjnt and reloading your weapon, as you have infinite ammo anyways
-no segmented reloading
-does locational damage even do anything?
-I'm not sure if being able to heal a teammate only by standing right next to them is a good thing, as squad AI seems to be wonky when it comes to that
-circle order menu feels somehow worse than in EYE

then I got to the second level after which it stuttered unreasonably intensely to the point of making my PC unusable for six minutes as I tried to shut the game down
 

Shackleton

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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture
Is there any mid-mission save in SP? If early missions take an hour or so to complete, I can imagine later ones taking longer and I hope this isn't a 'complete in one sitting' style game.
 

Not_It

Novice
Joined
Jul 31, 2016
Messages
1
I'm in chapter 8 and playing on the Lion's Sword difficulty on sp.
Feels like there are alot of things that can still kill me pretty fast. Like stalker strains if they get jump on me, scythe strain which just murder almost anything without a shield fast, missile hybrids and psykers.
Noticed that equipping the devastator bro with storm shield and thunder hammer let's you down scythe strain pretty reliably. Without the shield he kept getting killed all the time. I've had success letting the melee bro do the tanking and equipping my main character with storm bolter hellfire variant to kill all the long range threats like heavy weapon hybrids and psykers.

does locational damage even do anything?
If your legs go out you walk slowly and if your arm goes down seems like you cannot use the weapon on that arm.

Altough the game is pretty fun the performance is kinda awful and some of the bugs are pretty annoiyng. Like the hack a turret and your weapon changes to the default storm bolter. Also had a couple of incidents where after a loading screen had my screen all white so could not see anything. I could still hear my character moving so I changed my video settings in the video menu and got my visuals back.
 

Infinitron

I post news
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Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/12/15/space-hulk-deathwing-review-pc/

Wot I Think – Space Hulk: Deathwing

SPACE HULK SPACE HU.. no, sorry, best not do that again, eh? This latest pixel-flashing rendition of the revered Games Workshop tabletop game is no boardgame adaptation, but rather a squad-based swarm-shooter in the vein of Left 4 Dead.


I played Space Hulk: Deathwing [official site] alone and had a lousy time. Then I played it with others and ALL GLORY TO THE EMPEROR OF MANKIND! Oops, I did it again.

Deathwing’s been presented as though it’s a singleplayer shooter at least as much as it is a co-op one, and that’s not untrue as such, but its heart just isn’t in solo play. Played alone, it’s an often tedious stomp back and forth across the same set of corridors and antechambers, with the scripts that trigger each new wave of enemies as blindingly obvious as the fact that the guy with the streaming nose and hacking cough is going to choose you to sit next to on the bus.


Played co-op, it’s a backs-against-the-wall, teeth-gritted survival affair, knee-deep in the dead, totally dependent on each other, not caring where you are, what you have and haven’t seen already or where you have to get to – just that you have to stay alive. There is a bleak trade-off, however, and I don’t mean that seeing a Space Marine in Terminator armour who calls himself ‘ShagNasty’ rather ruins the grimdark mood. I’ll get into the critique shortly, but first let me talk about how this thing actually works.

A Space Hulk is an ancient, ruined, enormous ship/floating cathedral left, ladies and gentlemen, floating in space. At some point in the 41st Millenium, some of these great carcasses are discovered by the Adeptus Astartes of the Imperium of Man. You may know these as Space Marines. Some of the Hulks have gained new inhabitants during their long period of abandonment. They are not friendly.


shulk2.jpg


They’re generally referred to as just a type of Tyranid now, but back in the late 80s/early 90s we called ’em Genestealers. They’re Aliens from Aliens, let’s be honest, but with Warhammer 40,000’s typical excess – more spines, claws that can tear through steel, four arms, infinite numbers. I love a Genestealer, me, although I’m disappointed that Deathwing’s are shades of grey, rather than the rich blues and purples of yore.

The most recent Space Hulk videogame was a broadly faithful if divisive recreate of the turn-based boardgame, but years before that we had a pair of EA games which I suppose should still be called first-person shooters, but are very, very different to what we now take that term to mean. Slower, a huge emphasis on vulnerability, and highly tactical – all about how you positioned your small squad of Space Marine Terminators, not really how well you could aim.

Deathwing is somewhere between that and yer Halos. It is about correctly waving a targeting reticule over legions of monsters, but it’s also about working with a squad to make sure all the exits are covered, doling out healing, area of effect psyker magic and hacking doors and turrets.

shulk1.jpg


There are some feints towards the tactical – follow, wait, defend, heal orders, which are followed by your AI chums in singleplayer and may or may not be heeded by human chums in co-op. In either case, you will nonetheless be spending the vast majority of your time either stomping, shooting or stabbing.


The flow of a Deathwing mission is long periods of walking fearfully around dark, maze-like corridors, punctuated by remarkably long and vicious firefights against what can feel like an infinite swarm of beclawed horrors.

It doesn’t always feel quite right – as I mentioned above, often you can see its working, whether it’s because enemies are obviously spawning from fixed places or because it makes you repeatedly criss-cross an area in order to make an environment feel larger than it is. This is essentially a small game wearing big clothes, but what clothes they are.

shulk4.jpg


There is such a thing as Space Hulkiness, and that’s arguably even more important than how well the action or the tactics are realised. Space Hulkiness is science-fiction horror, set in long and twisty corridors which occasionally yield rooms populated by either gruesome or titanic sights – viscera and giant altars, that sort of thing.

Space Hulkiness is Warhammer 40,000’s In The Grim Darkness Of The Far Future There Is Only War mantra distilled to a claustrophobic, paranoid essence – the religious-fascist fervour of the Space Marines, the indefatigable alien horde, the gothic excess of an environment that is both unspeakably huge and oppressively sealed-in.

shulk5.jpg


Deathwing looks like Space Hulk box art come to life. The environments and most especially the lighting is absolutely spectacular. This is not really the sort of game where you can pause to admire the scenery, but I often did. The size, the splendour, the light, the shadow, the dark beauty of it all. Good work, Unreal engine (and artists, obviously). And it sounds like Space Hulk should too – all those sounds of metal, as the monstrously heavy Terminator armour stomps about and Genestealers sneer and snarl from the distance. The constant noise of unseen but almighty engines. The machine spirit, all around.


The downside of this is that my framerate more than halves whenever more than a couple of enemies appear – dramatically, jarringly and often to the point of unplayability, unless I drop settings to minimum even for the copious enemy-free scenes in which it’s running at a happy 60 frames on max settings.

Which sadly means that concept-art-made-flesh aspect rather loses its edge – matters become rather sludgy at lowest settings. Many players report similar framerate problems, many others say it’s absolutely fine, so I guess all we can do is hope that it turns out to be fixable bugs on certain configurations.

shulk6.jpg


This issue aside, in co-op – be it with randoms or chums – the Space Hulkiness is all present and correct. It’s all about staying alive, not about finding out what happens or unlocking new weapons and abilities. The latter is there as option, by turning off Codex Rules in a match, but I much prefer having them on – no progression, everything unlocked, pick your poison. Yes, it removes a certain amount of purpose, but we didn’t need it in Left 4 Dead, did we? Sometimes it’s so much better to enjoy the ride, not get hung up on rewards.

Whatever you choose, you’ll still feel profoundly vulnerable even in your foot-thick armour and with your Lightning Claws and Bolt Guns and Plasma Cannons and Heavy Flamers and the rest of Deathwing’s small but wildly powerful-feeling arsenal.

The shooting and the stabbing or punching or chopping is breathless and intense, battles often lasting long past the point you feel is fair, and then eventually occupying a place which is appropriately Space Hulk. Sudden, punishing death is at least as important to the tone of the game as is victory. Which is not to say that it’s super-hard – unless you pick the hardest difficulty – but that it wants to feel a certain doomy way, not be unqualified slaughter.


shulk7.jpg


The great downsides of multiplayer is that it removes many of the trappings of singleplayer – the cutscenes are lost, even if you have experience points and unlocks on it all gets reset come every new map, a couple of weapons are excised, as is the hacking of turrets and doors. More flesh is cut from the bones of an already lean game.

In grim contrast to that, multiplayer especially is a mess of menus and countdowns and loading screens – so much time is wasted, and even if it’s to mask necessary under-the-hood machinations, it’s done clumsily and frustrating. Once you’re in, OK, fine, but either side of it brace yourself for a whole lot of waiting for things to happen.

shulk9.jpg


Unfortunately, right now Deathwing multiplayer is also prey to random crashes and disconnects, which means you often have to dance the whole dance all over again even in the space of the same play session. Given the framerate problems too, I can’t say that Deathwing is in the rude health it should be.

As for singleplayer, it is b.o.r.i.n.g. Fair play, they’ve stuck cutscenes and VO in there and it’s serviceable if unexceptional – so many 40K videogame struggle with story, as they’re not allowed to screw with the lore or adjust the essential dynamics of the endless war. You also get permanent character upgrades and weapon unlocks to pursue, so there’s a certain push to keep going.

Thing is, I think this compulsion towards progress overrides what the game is actually good at, which is shutting you inside a derelict spaceship and making you fight for your life. That itch to win things interferes with enjoying the moment. When you’ve got a thirst on for some new toy, frustration mounts at constantly retreading the same ground or being interrupted by yet another mammoth wave of ‘Stealers when you’re inches from your destination.

shulk10.jpg


The squad stuff is banal and almost needless too, other than requesting healing – Deathwing can’t really be called a tactical shooter. Singleplayer felt so mechanical, so repetitive – whereas with humans and no unlocks to pursue in multiplayer, it felt tense and organic.

It does, however, effectively do just the one thing, and unless big updates are coming I suspect it’s going to wear thin. Part of me feels as though this is a brilliant, beautiful Space Hulk tech demo blown up and looped, and I’m not sure how long that can hold my interest. It’s a good time for a while, but for a long life its many rough edges need smoothing and more flesh needs adding to its bones.

Space Hulk: Deathwing is out now for Windows, via Steam, for £29.99/$39.99 (discounted to £25.49/$33.99 until Jan 2).
 

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