Space Marine - Relic goes 3PS console action

[Sky]

Female 40k cosplay really improves things imo.

[Arrrgh]

http://vimeo.com/26102814

Rarely see sisters in these.

[NowhereMan]

So having started playing multiplayer on this (and it's been a few years since I got into MP in any game) did it become standard to restrict public games to one or two game types and a matchmaking service that removes pretty much all customisability or is Relic just hugely behind the times on this? It feels very much a console type thing and it's kind of annoying having everything being team games with quite a small number on each side. Even just a death match option or having a ridiculous kill target for each team in annihilation would make it a bit easier to get the unlocks. Actually on that topic, making the armour pieces unlockable has probably been the single biggest thing to draw me into MP simply because I love my Grimdark barbie doll dressup.

[Ingmar]

So having started playing multiplayer on this (and it's been a few years since I got into MP in any game) did it become standard to restrict public games to one or two game types and a matchmaking service that removes pretty much all customisability or is Relic just hugely behind the times on this? It feels very much a console type thing and it's kind of annoying having everything being team games with quite a small number on each side. Even just a death match option or having a ridiculous kill target for each team in annihilation would make it a bit easier to get the unlocks. Actually on that topic, making the armour pieces unlockable has probably been the single biggest thing to draw me into MP simply because I love my Grimdark barbie doll dressup.

Pretty sure the game was primarily developed for consoles, yes.

[Kail]

Yeah, getting a bit of console shock here too.  I've never hooked one up online, so this is my first experience with always-on mics.  Having my game sessions overlaid with heavy breathing, audio feedback, typing, people chatting with their roommates... What happened to "push to talk?"  Even an audio option to disable voice chat would be fine.

I'm trying to tough it out to level 41 (at 39 now), but ugh.  The grind is getting annoying.  And I don't even want to think about the asshole who thought it would be a good idea to put an achievement in for getting 40,000 kills, that's something like twenty full clears of the single player game for me.

[Ingmar]

I just mute everyone, the voice stuff is terribly done, no argument at all.

[NowhereMan]

There's a patch going in today with a push to talk addition. I don't know that it does much else actually.

[Azazel]

And another week or so on, and I'm still waiting on my copy...

[NowhereMan]

Sucks, I'm actually enjoying multiplayer. My biggest whine at the moment is not being able to pick teams as in I've got some Space Marine armour unlocks I really want and shouldn't take too long to get but it seems like 80% of the time I'm playing as Chaos and most of the times I'm playing as the Imperium, the team I'm on sucks and I've got like 6 Space Marine victories under my belt vs. 20+ Chaos ones. It's annoying because frankly the Chaos armour unlocks aren't much, the Space marine designs are clean enough that they look immediately different but the Chaos armour is so busy and lacks the clear silhouette so you're really just limited to colour schemes for differentiating. If they'd thrown in some mutations and crazy headgear I'd be happier with that.

OTOH the Lascannon owns as a sniping weapon and once you get the hang of aiming wihout a reticle it gets real fun laser blasting assault troops in the face. Multiplayer definitely needs some sort of mode that involves one guy as a Chaos Marine and everyone else playing Imperial Guardsmen.

[Azazel]

I think the console-styled matchmaking has fucked Space Marine hard (on PC). I played it for the first time this afternoon, and the peer-hosted lag was not good. Now it's 10:45 on a Saturday night and there are NO TDM games and only 2 CTF. What. The. Fuck?

[NowhereMan]

For the first two weeks I think the P2P thing was a bit of a pain but as people have begun to lose interest it has become consistently worse and worse. It's a fucking nightmare trying to find a lag free game now and the way latency is handled doesn't seem to be helping, which is a shame because MP with a good host and decent connections is good fun in a simple team DM style way. Also the Co-Op DLC that was meant to be a 30 day release (to keep people on-line and as a disincentive for trading in the console games) has been pushed back to Oct 25th, coinciding with BF3 release. I don't think it's going to be enough to pull people back in, though it sounds like a lot of fun.

Honestly I think dedicated servers were what this needed for PC at least, since otherwise we end up with a slightly retarded matchmaking client that seems to not have a problem with making the one guy with horrible latency and 20 active torrents the host.

[Azazel]

Yeah, it was fun for a day, and I'll play some more today and over the next week (I'm sure) but there's not a lot of depth there at all. If I wasn't a 40k fanboy I'm sure I'd lose interest much faster, and I don't see this game holding my interest for all that long anyway. It's like three or four maps for MP? With two gametypes. There's not much there, I've got to say...

[Morfiend]

I had a blast with the multiplayer for about a week or two. I have pretty much lost interest in it now, but it was fun while it lasted. A few more game types would have helped.

[Azazel]

Seems the 30-day DLC has been pushed back to the end of this month now, too. The 25th or some such.

I guess once I lose interest, I can still get some use out of the customisation menus as an Army Paint scheme preview tool. 

[NowhereMan]

Honestly I probably wouldn't have played for as long as I did if it wasn't for the fact I wanted to unlock more armour pieces to play around with. That said the basic MP was good fun, if it wasn't for the P2P hosting I'd probably still be playing it but fuck that laggy crap. I probably will have another crack at it when Exterminatus is released, I just hope there are other people going to do the same.

[rk47]

It was a really half assed way of doing things. If they better multiplayer support - official servers and that, it might've turn out differently. And delayed DLC is pretty much a death sentence. No one would be playing it much. This game fits the War of Cybertron and has a lot of good points, but the singleplayer campaign is utter crap, unlike WoC...

[Kail]

Co-op swarm mode was released today, if anyone's still playing.  Net code is still a bit quirky, but it's a ton of fun if you're not looking for anything too deep.

[Azazel]

That's actually a really apt description of the MP game as a whole. From both Kail and rk47...

I've still been grinding through it for an hour or so a night. - Since my copy arrives about 3-4 weeks after release. I'm up to about level 28, and not sure how far into the campaign. I recently got the Lascannon.

Also had my 2 360 copies arrive today - for Friday night Multiplayering, as well as potentially some horde mode with my wife.