Space Marine - Relic goes 3PS console action

[Azazel]

This argument gets pulled out too frequently.  There are ways to include Space Marines (or Jedi or Wizards or whatever the alpha badass is in the IP you're using) in these games without having them insta-kill everyone they meet.  There are Orks in the single player game which are about as tough as the rank and file CSM you fight.  Or they could just balance the MP game separately and say "we buffed Orks to make the game fair" since the idea that the multiplayer in this game is somehow in canon seems unlikely to me.

I suspect it was more an art constraint thing.  I'd love to see some DLC for Orks or Sisters or other stuff, though.  Kind of jarring to go from Dawn of War which had, like, nine playable factions, to this game with two.

I believe it's actually the direct analogue model. Orks have shitty shooting (in the fluff and tabletop game), effectively no armour to SM weaponry and so forth. Orks would have required more depth to the game. SMs and CSMs are interchangable in many ways (though going by some of the old-school fluff, the true Fallen Legionaires should kick the asses of "modern" SMs by virtue of 10k years of battle experience.)

This isn't Dawn of War (which needs about 5 expansions to get to the 9 races). Space Marines/Chaos SM are just a skin swap. It's like the infantry in BF:Bad Company 2 are just a series of mesh & skin swaps. This is closer to that. Without vehicles or the action game MP experience that DICE has. Also the fact that the game got pushed back several times and the co-op is being wheeled out as "free DLC" in a month's time makes me think that if Da Boyz were originally planned for MP, they got crossed off the "to do" board awhile back.

I'm not making excuses for them - I'm postulating on why it is how it is.

[Ingmar]

Can anyone with the game confirm or deny if the release version has 16:10 aspect ratio, as the demo only has 16:9 which is slightly annoying for me.

No 16:10, there's like 85:45 or something, does that help?  (I have never heard of that size of res, wtf is it for? The 85:45 that is)

Yes there is 16:10 (labeled as 8:5) but it only goes up to 1680x1050 -- no 1920x1200 or 2560x1600.

Uh... I can play at 1920x1200 fine. In the demo and the game itself.

[Sjofn]

I already said I got it. It's right there in my quote, even. I was simply explaining why that's not going to fly with a lot of women that you may want to give your game a try. We're sick of "oh, but they're ALL MALE, we can't help it" for what feels like every other goddamn game. The gaming industry has a long way to go before "oh, our hands are tied IT JUST HAPPENS TO BE ALL MALE" gets the benefit of the doubt it sometimes deserves.

I know you said that - it's why I said I wasn't trying to be offensive, but this particular bitching (from anyone) would carry more weight to me if it were being given towards a game that's a new IP, or a new story set in an existing world with a gender-doesnt matter character rather than something as specific as this with close to 25 years behind it.

I'm not even disagreeing with your larger point - I actually agree with you with the caveats in my post above! Deus Ex HR which is busily being spooged over left and right in another thread is much more deserving of this kind of complaint than Space Marine. In fact your whole rant posted above would be much more appropriate in that thread and even make a lot of sense. Where here it doesn't so much. Why can't Adam Jensen be Adama?

I put it here 'cause someone mentioned how their wife won't touch this game because of no ladies and felt the need to share. I haven't been reading the Deus Ex thread 'cause I didn't buy it and probably won't. I did buy this one. :P

[Ingmar]

So, I finished the game. Looks like single player took me about 9 hours, for those curious about the play time.

Fun game, and the last couple levels really deliver I think in particular.

My few QQs:

[Trippy]

Can anyone with the game confirm or deny if the release version has 16:10 aspect ratio, as the demo only has 16:9 which is slightly annoying for me.

No 16:10, there's like 85:45 or something, does that help?  (I have never heard of that size of res, wtf is it for? The 85:45 that is)

Yes there is 16:10 (labeled as 8:5) but it only goes up to 1680x1050 -- no 1920x1200 or 2560x1600.

Uh... I can play at 1920x1200 fine. In the demo and the game itself.

Right, duh, it's checking my monitor info and limiting the resolutions I can choose from.

[Ingmar]

Did some multiplayer - it was reasonably entertaining. I like capture and hold a lot more than the deathmatch one. Got to level 4, opened up the customizer - I can confirm that there are not one but TWO choices of pink.

[Ironwood]

Can anyone with the game confirm or deny if the release version has 16:10 aspect ratio, as the demo only has 16:9 which is slightly annoying for me.

No 16:10, there's like 85:45 or something, does that help?  (I have never heard of that size of res, wtf is it for? The 85:45 that is)

Yes there is 16:10 (labeled as 8:5) but it only goes up to 1680x1050 -- no 1920x1200 or 2560x1600.

Uh... I can play at 1920x1200 fine. In the demo and the game itself.

Right, duh, it's checking my monitor info and limiting the resolutions I can choose from.

There must be a sneaky ini file somewhere !

[Sjofn]

I can confirm that there are not one but TWO choices of pink.

YES

[UnSub]

I already said I got it. It's right there in my quote, even. I was simply explaining why that's not going to fly with a lot of women that you may want to give your game a try. We're sick of "oh, but they're ALL MALE, we can't help it" for what feels like every other goddamn game. The gaming industry has a long way to go before "oh, our hands are tied IT JUST HAPPENS TO BE ALL MALE" gets the benefit of the doubt it sometimes deserves.

I know you said that - it's why I said I wasn't trying to be offensive, but this particular bitching (from anyone) would carry more weight to me if it were being given towards a game that's a new IP, or a new story set in an existing world with a gender-doesnt matter character rather than something as specific as this with close to 25 years behind it.

Sexism in games is fine as long as it comes with historical baggage. 

[Kitsune]

The thing about GW is, okay fine the super space marine bio-engineering was only made to work on dudes, whatever.  But on top of that, you almost never see a woman in 40K, ever.  I've never seen a woman naval officer mentioned in Battlefleet Gothic.  No females in the imperial guard.  No lady titan pilots.  The Tau and Eldar have some prominent women, the Orks are giant mushrooms and have no women either, and everything else is generally genderless.  It's like the brits believe that you can get by with just five percent of the population being women or something.

[Morfiend]

Can anyone with the game confirm or deny if the release version has 16:10 aspect ratio, as the demo only has 16:9 which is slightly annoying for me.

No 16:10, there's like 85:45 or something, does that help?  (I have never heard of that size of res, wtf is it for? The 85:45 that is)

Yes there is 16:10 (labeled as 8:5) but it only goes up to 1680x1050 -- no 1920x1200 or 2560x1600.

Uh... I can play at 1920x1200 fine. In the demo and the game itself.

Right, duh, it's checking my monitor info and limiting the resolutions I can choose from.

Ok, thanks guy. I'll probably pick this up later.

[Ingmar]

The thing about GW is, okay fine the super space marine bio-engineering was only made to work on dudes, whatever.  But on top of that, you almost never see a woman in 40K, ever.  I've never seen a woman naval officer mentioned in Battlefleet Gothic.  No females in the imperial guard.  No lady titan pilots.  The Tau and Eldar have some prominent women, the Orks are giant mushrooms and have no women either, and everything else is generally genderless.  It's like the brits believe that you can get by with just five percent of the population being women or something.

The Relic games are a little better about this than the regular GW stuff - they usually work at least one female character in somewhere when possible, at least from DoW2 onward.

[amiable]

You know what, I am as hardcore a fan of GW and its lore as you can find.  I played 1st edition WFB and had Space wolves, Dark angel and Necron armies.  I had a fuggen army of squats too!  I used to play their fleet battle games as well.   I have played for over two decades and all I can say is:  bullshit.

GW has retconned the fuck out of every race a hundred times over at the drop of a hat for their own inscrutable marketing purposes and never batted an eye.  The fact that people even make arguments about "lore consistency" in the GW space is ridiculous.  They have changed their own lore countless times (remember when Orks were actually supposedly the slave race of snotlings who rebelled?  I do.)  There is no reason why they couldn't have a Sisters of Battle in "experimental battle armor" or some other such Maguffin to allow a female protagonist and still be consistent (snigger) with GW's "lore". 

The only reason they did not include a female character choice is laziness and sexism.  I know, other companies are just as (or more) lazy and sexist, but that does not give them a free pass. 

[Sir T]

Guys, stop pretending. You all know the real reason there's no Spice Marines Sisters of Battle is that its impossible to wiggle your ass in power armour. 

[Ghambit]

Guys, stop pretending. You all know the real reason there's no Spice Marines Sisters of Battle is that its impossible to wiggle your ass in power armour. 

Spice Marines dont need armor.  Pfft.  Didnt you get the female rpg armor memo?

[SurfD]

Might be a stupid minor derail, but why exactly are there no female space marines anyway?  I mean, when you have been bio-cyber modified so heavily that your original gender might as well not even matter, why bother counting the women out?   Is it just a lore thing that the training etc is too harsh for women to handle, or was it just a mandate from on high that the marines will always be a "Boys Club".

[Fordel]

Boys Club.

[Ingmar]

If you think 'girls don't play games' is a common assumption now, well, you should have seen the 1980s.

[climbjtree]

And plus dudes are just generally more bad ass. Except at having babies.

*ducks*

[Trippy]

Might be a stupid minor derail, but why exactly are there no female space marines anyway?  I mean, when you have been bio-cyber modified so heavily that your original gender might as well not even matter, why bother counting the women out?   Is it just a lore thing that the training etc is too harsh for women to handle, or was it just a mandate from on high that the marines will always be a "Boys Club".

The original gene seeds were based on the genomes of the Primaches who were all male and as the Imperium has lost a lot of knowledge over the centuries they may no longer have the ability to modify the gene seeds to work in females.

[Azazel]

Sexism in games is fine as long as it comes with historical baggage. 

Nice troll attempt, but nah, not biting. I already wrote about that earlier.

The thing about GW is, okay fine the super space marine bio-engineering was only made to work on dudes, whatever.  But on top of that, you almost never see a woman in 40K, ever.  I've never seen a woman naval officer mentioned in Battlefleet Gothic.  No females in the imperial guard.  No lady titan pilots.  The Tau and Eldar have some prominent women, the Orks are giant mushrooms and have no women either, and everything else is generally genderless.  It's like the brits believe that you can get by with just five percent of the population being women or something.

Decent point. There are a (small) number of IG figures out there, but yes on the whole you're right. Just as Necromunda and later, Mordheim also decided to have one seperate girl-gang each, and every figure is painted as a white male. Not that much we can do about that - I tend to proxy in appropriate female figures when I can find them and paint the figures in whatever skin tone I feel like at the time. As you say, both flavours of Eldar show much more representation.

Interestingly, the Dark Angels for a time had a really strong Native American influence, but that seems to have fallen by the by since the days of the first Space Hulk. Similarly, the first Salamanders featured in WD were all painted with "black" African fleshtones, which have now been retconned to black. Not dark brown, like skin, but black like your leather chair. Which is stupid.

You know what, I am as hardcore a fan of GW and its lore as you can find.  I played 1st edition WFB and had Space wolves, Dark angel and Necron armies.  I had a fuggen army of squats too!  I used to play their fleet battle games as well.   I have played for over two decades and all I can say is:  bullshit.

GW has retconned the fuck out of every race a hundred times over at the drop of a hat for their own inscrutable marketing purposes and never batted an eye.  The fact that people even make arguments about "lore consistency" in the GW space is ridiculous.  They have changed their own lore countless times (remember when Orks were actually supposedly the slave race of snotlings who rebelled?  I do.)  There is no reason why they couldn't have a Sisters of Battle in "experimental battle armor" or some other such Maguffin to allow a female protagonist and still be consistent (snigger) with GW's "lore".  

The only reason they did not include a female character choice is laziness and sexism.  I know, other companies are just as (or more) lazy and sexist, but that does not give them a free pass.  

Well done to you on your history. Get busy in the miniatures thread then, slackarse. I'm sad I sold all of my metal RT Squats when I was a teenager with my metal RT IG army - Mostly Imperial Army figures. You are right on the retconning of course, but one thing that has always stood pretty consistently has been the "Space Marines stand above all others blah blah" bit.

There is no reason why they couldn't have a Sisters of Battle in "experimental battle armor" or some other such Maguffin to allow a female protagonist and still be consistent (snigger) with GW's "lore".  

There's also no reason it couldn't have been a friendly Tau in "experimental battle armor", or an Eldar or even Dark Eldar in "experimental battle armor" swaying the battle for their own ends, or a Jokero in homemade "experimental battle armor", or an Inquisitorial Stormtrooper or Inquisitor in "experimental battle armor" or an Ogryn BONE'ead with "experimental cybernetics" or...

Basically, you're being silly in order to push the "it could have been sisters agenda" when it doesn't fit the story/game they are telling. Which is about Space Marine(s). Not sure if you're white-knighting Sjofn since I don't recall seeing you white-knight the whole gender choice thing in threads about any other games, ever. I don't think she needs it, though. Also, you seem to be pushing almost an idea that Relic "would have wanted to make a girl but GW won't let them" with all the talk about GW in this game and not Relic. I'm sure GW would have said "no", but the assumption that Relic would have otherwise have placed a female Adepta Sororita in the game as an alternative main protaganist is drawing a pretty long bow.

Might be a stupid minor derail, but why exactly are there no female space marines anyway?  I mean, when you have been bio-cyber modified so heavily that your original gender might as well not even matter, why bother counting the women out?   Is it just a lore thing that the training etc is too harsh for women to handle, or was it just a mandate from on high that the marines will always be a "Boys Club".

But yeah, for all of the gnashing and wailing of teeth that's going on in this thread, the game sets you in the shoes of an Ultramarine, with other Ultramarines. You want to bitch about the lack of sisters, you can't even change your protaganist to a Blood Angel or a White Scar - and their skins are already in the game! (MP) I'd wager a lot more 40k fans give a lot more of a shit that they can't play as their own chapter of choice than not being able to play as a Sister - and yet they can't. Them designers done made a choice about the character you play. I say we blame GW for that, too! Right?

[Azazel]

And plus dudes are just generally more bad ass. Except at having babies.

*ducks*

That's unfair. I think girl ass is more badass.

[Azazel]

Guys, stop pretending. You all know the real reason there's no Spice Marines Sisters of Battle is that its impossible to wiggle your ass in power armour. 

Spice Marines dont need armor.  Pfft.  Didnt you get the female rpg armor memo?

You don't remember these from the early-mid-90's?



I never bought them, which is a shame. They're the kind of odd thing I'd have liked to have in my collection these days.

[Fordel]

I've asked this in one of the comic book threads before, but when do things get to change?

When your history/lore was designed during a time when the assumed default was white male, when do you get to do something else? The Lore is the Lore is the Lore just seems to reinforce it's own flaws and stereotypes or whatever.

[Azazel]

Depends what your changes are, I'd guess. I never read DC, but you don't change Superman to have green skin or to now eat green kryptonite. From my experience reading marvel I can tell you that you don't change the Hulk to Grey. You don't kill Captain America or Spiderman's costume to black. (Note how all of those things that happened have un-happened).

Then again, comics are telling (and re-telling) the same few stories on a monthly basis. Doesn't mean that there can't be new superheroes introduced who are African or Women or have Blue Skin or Iron Skin. Storm, Nightcrawler and Colossus were new once. There was a time when the Battle Sisters were just a few lines of fluff scattered here and ther ebefore they got fleshed out fully. No reason there can't be famous IG regiments that are all-women (I think they have already been mentioned - just no figures!) or mixed units.

Space Marines are what they are. Suddenly deciding that they are no longer what they are is cheap when there's plenty of other space in the lore to add rather than change for the sake of change. There's plenty of space for new stuff. Dark Eldar were just rumoured in the background of the lore at one stage, and more of an echo of the "Eldar Pirates" that the Eldar were in RT-era.

[Sjofn]

If you think 'girls don't play games' is a common assumption now, well, you should have seen the 1980s.

And we've been given an inch now, so we are DEMANDING A MILE RAAR!


EDIT: By the way, I am perfectly happy to put roughly 90% of the blame for the GRR MANLY MAN MANS Warhammer shit on GW in this instance (they get 100% in most instances, for what it's worth). Relic seems like they're aware it's a giant sausagefest and that it's sort of silly and off-putting for women dollars, which just so happen to be the same as man dollars. I base this entirely on the fact that they appear to make an effort to cram ladies in there when it will make even the faintest bit of sense.

[Fordel]

Space Marines are what they are. Suddenly deciding that they are no longer what they are is cheap when there's plenty of other space in the lore to add rather than change for the sake of change. There's plenty of space for new stuff. Dark Eldar were just rumoured in the background of the lore at one stage, and more of an echo of the "Eldar Pirates" that the Eldar were in RT-era.

Except it wouldn't be change for changes sake, but change on the realization that maybe our target of white male might have been to narrow to begin with?
 
It goes back to 'that's the way it was, that's the way it will be!' thing again.


Having a few Chapters of lady Space Marines (or even just mixing some into existing chapters) isn't some devastating change to the IP or theme or whatever.

[Ingmar]

And dudes do have an X chromosome, after all, so I'd think it would be possible to clone a female from a male, especially using SPACE SCIENCE FOR THE EMPERORRRRR.

[Maledict]

*pointless geeky lore rant*

What I've  never understood is why GW have never updated the chapter sizes.

Each Space Marine chapter is 1000 marines. 1000 *anything* wouldn't be able to do jack shit to a modern city, never mind an entire world in the future. Space Marine chapters are so small that they are completely useless and impractical.

I mean, there's only roughly 1000 chapters in total. That makes for 1,000,000 space marines. That's not enough to conquer a medium sized western country, never mind all the stuff space marines are supposed to do. How do they possible ever fight a tyrannic attack when they're going to be outnumbered a thousand to one each wave? And even whilst they fight those another million go destroy your base, supply lines and eat all those citizens you were protecting because 1000 men can't be everywhere.

It's as if one hand decided that space marines had to be small in size because they were so leet, and on the other the imperium had to be huge because that sounded cool, and never thought through what that meant.

*geek mode off*

[Azazel]

What I've  never understood is why GW have never updated the chapter sizes.

Each Space Marine chapter is 1000 marines. 1000 *anything* wouldn't be able to do jack shit to a modern city, never mind an entire world in the future. Space Marine chapters are so small that they are completely useless and impractical.

It's as if one hand decided that space marines had to be small in size because they were so leet, and on the other the imperium had to be huge because that sounded cool, and never thought through what that meant.

*geek mode off*

This makes more sense to me, actually than arguments about why the videogame Space Marine can't have a non-marine female as it's primary character. I think it's also the primary reason that they went from simply better than other humans to the whole "7 8 feet tall supergenetically engineered supermen capable of singlehandedly heroically outfighting an entire ork army.

As to the "girls want to be marines too" thing, when it comes down to it, I'm going to continue to disagree but in the end it doesn't really matter since GW isn't going to change that aspect of their IP anytime in our lifetimes, and I don't care enough to continue the same circular argument here.

I do look forward to seeing this issue brought up in threads about other games though, particularly by those of you who seem to care so passionately about it in this instance. You know, since you actually care a lot about this and aren't simply shitting up this thread for an entertaining semi-troll. The DX:HR thread is right there, and it has no lore or reason why Adam can't be Adama.

[Ingmar]

*pointless geeky lore rant*

What I've  never understood is why GW have never updated the chapter sizes.

Each Space Marine chapter is 1000 marines. 1000 *anything* wouldn't be able to do jack shit to a modern city, never mind an entire world in the future. Space Marine chapters are so small that they are completely useless and impractical.

I mean, there's only roughly 1000 chapters in total. That makes for 1,000,000 space marines. That's not enough to conquer a medium sized western country, never mind all the stuff space marines are supposed to do. How do they possible ever fight a tyrannic attack when they're going to be outnumbered a thousand to one each wave? And even whilst they fight those another million go destroy your base, supply lines and eat all those citizens you were protecting because 1000 men can't be everywhere.

It's as if one hand decided that space marines had to be small in size because they were so leet, and on the other the imperium had to be huge because that sounded cool, and never thought through what that meant.

*geek mode off*

That's why they have billions of billions of Imperial Guard.

And Azazel, it's an issue in this thread because you made it an issue. Amiable expressed a wish for a female character so his wife would be interested (note that DE:HR has no multiplayer) and then you decided the LORE MUST BE DEFENDED.

[Fordel]

The best way to think of Space Marines, is as special forces, or even plain old super heroes. Like even in the game, the space marines aren't the ones holding the planet together, that's the Imperial Guard doing that.

The Space marines are the ones that change the momentum though, what was a stale mate between the IG and Orks, slowly shifts to the IG side as the Space Marines go from point to point securing/destroying/rescuing <plot thing>.

[Ingmar]

Played some more multiplayer tonight, it is growing on me. I wish they had Orks and such in there just to make target ID a little easier!

[Azazel]

And Azazel, it's an issue in this thread because you made it an issue. Amiable expressed a wish for a female character so his wife would be interested (note that DE:HR has no multiplayer) and then you decided the LORE MUST BE DEFENDED.

No, not really. Not at all in fact. I just echoed what Kitsune said before me while making some other general chitchat. I spent just as long talking about Orks as Sisters. It only became an issue when Sjofn got out her soapbox and made it an issue. Try reading it again and see where the thread ramps up when THIS ONE POSTER STARTS WITH THE ALL CAPS STUFF AND NERDGIRLRAGEANGST.

Read those threads again. Don't bother apologising though, it's the internet, where you never need to admit that you're wrong about anything.

Fuck it, I'll quote myself from that post where you claim I'm making it an issue.

Yeah, was about to post essentially what Kitsune said in that they're not directly analogous to Marines in the game, and particularly not in the lore - in-game, Orks are a much closer match 1-on-1 for a regular marine. Though a Captain would still kick ass, he could lose to these large swarms of Orks. Meanwhile in the lore a single SM is enough to fight off Hordes of Orks - much as in this game.

The game's not by GW, it's Relic. And it's called "Space Marine". Maybe in sequels they might open it up a little more and have a token SoB level, but I think we're more likely to see a token Grey Knight or IG level.

Character development - it's not an RPG or RPG-styled game. And a SM captain is pretty much already at the peak of his skill tree. Not really sure it's the right/same genre for ME-style character development.

yeah, real big fucking issue there. Such an angry post. 

[Azazel]

And what does DE: HR's lack of multiplayer have to do with anything anyway? All the wailing and gnashing of teeth in this thread seems to be about games in general not offering a choice of gender for the player's character but aimed inexplicably at this particular game where it actually makes no sense to just swap one out with the other.