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The episode was great as always, but I might have laughed even harder at the ad read. Kudos for finding sponsors willing to get the full Yahtzee treatment.
I think every person I've seen playing the game had that reaction. "Oh neat I can pick off enemies in the background. Oh crap they're coming this way!"
Not at all surprising if you played WWZ but I can see why it might catch some people off guard. There was also a disappointing number of 'skybox' enemies in the game on top as well TBH.
@@LegendaryPlank Yea, given the badass showing they get in the opening cutscene, it's disappointing that Gargoyles just a skybox asset for all but two missions of the campaign.
But it’s a fitting and deserved insult for Leandros specifically. Dude straight up ratted out Titus to the Inquisition and got promoted to Chaplain for it.
@@MrTavrosNitram He was literally describing the person who was revealed at the end of the game dude. The joke comes directly after saying not knowing who Leandros was. Rewatch the video.
Warhammer 40,000 started off taking the piss out of all of the common sci fi tropes, it has since spent the intervening decades pumping piss back in again. Current estimates put it at about 78% piss.
It's very much like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: taking the piss by being ridiculous, realising that people unironically love that and riding that to success.
generally the level of piss seems to depend on the faction in question I'd argue that at this point Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines (humans in general to be honest) are basically 99.9% piss meanwhile Orks are basically piss free. Daemons are also still at a relatively low level of piss Aeldari and T'au are somewhere in between Tyranids are somewhat lacking in piss, but that's mostly by virtue of them simply not getting much proper lore of their own since GW started pumping it back into the setting. meanwhile, right about the point where GW started pumping it back into the overall setting, the Necrons seemed to start getting it drained out of them as we ended up with hilarious figures like Trazyn and Zahndrekh. the older version of Necrons seemed rather humorless and serious compared to other early 40K things.
@@Eclipsed_Embers If you're a fan of the books I'd highly recommend the Fabius Bile trilogy by Josh Reynolds. It does the perfect job of making chaos marines these insane evil monsters while at the same time being INCREDDIBLY petty with each other, got some genuine chuckles out of me.
Yeah 40k has been up and down in its history. I think 3rd edition to 6th/7th maybe hit the perfect tone. Some of it now while obviously not serious doesn't really feel like satire, particularly the space marines. Its obviously highly subjective and a hard line to tread when you have genetically engineered super soldiers who are smarter, faster, better in every way but still have them be interesting or a satire. The sweet spot for me in marine lore is when they manage to be the greatest soldiers in the galaxy but do INCREDIBLY stupid things because 'honour'.
As far as I understand, the balance between being ironically and satrically badass, and being actually badass, is one of the main draws of Warhammer 40k.
Though a very vocal minority in the fanbase can't tell either way. Usually, the same people can't spot or outright ignore the satire in both Starship Troopers and Helldivers (and probably think the American Dems are left wing rather than centre right like the rest of the world does).
Why does everything have to be like some kind of personality-defining commitment? Can't we just enjoy Space Marines for being childishly over-the-top without being deeply ashamed of ourselves? I don't understand why people like Yahtzee take enjoying hobbies so seriously. They are extremely careful about their interests and how they talk about them, like they're walking on eggshells and their middle school bully is waiting just outside the room to give them a swirly if they say the wrong thing.
@@GallowglassVT Depending on where in the world you are at the American Dems are far left all the way to center right. You view things from such a narrow perspective that you insult others for your own ignorance.
I have no interest in 40k, but if I did, I'd be an Ork main for exactly those reasons. XD They seem to be the only guys having any fun in that setting, and I want in on THAT!
I don't know much about the setting but Ork weapons/paintjobs working because of a psychic field that makes it work if enough of them believe it should is such a genius way to get away with complete nonsense.
@@Drunkencrono Unfortunately it doesn't translate to in games rules anymore. But at some points painting your units red did make them slightly faster (with a marginal increase in points).
My favorite detail of the game is when you start fighting the traitor guardsmen who are just humans, you can kill them by walking into them because space marines are basically walking pickup trucks
There's a scene in the new trailer for Amazon Prime's video game anthology series of a space marine running through a human. He runs into the person at full sprint and the human's body just flies to pieces. The marine doesnt even slow down or miss a step.
One of the books, I wish I could remember which one, had this part where it spent legit like 4-5 pages describing this guy. Some noble who was one of the greatest swordsman on his world, had this ancient power saber handed down through his family, really builds him up. Next part is from the perspective of a chaos marine who casually bats aside the tiny power saber this random human is swing at him, kicks him in the chest, and then casually walks across him, caving his chest in, as he goes to melee a tank.
About Space Marines being badass or morons, there is one point in the campaign where your squad almost falls into an ambush by disguised soldiers, and like two missions later someone we've never met before shouts "Your commanding officer is a traitor! Shoot him now!" and the lads almost bloody do it.
Please tell me there's a moment where they go: "We did it, we saved the colony!" only for a ship to come blow the entire planet you just saved to literal bits. XD
Well to be fair to the lads, Titus has up to this point done his utmost to alienate said lads. Acting suss as hell half the time and biting their heads off whenever they brought said suss-nes up the other half of the time.
yes but you left out the part where only one of them tried to shoot the commander, and the other one was at least smart enough and shot the suspicious person you never met before so its one moron and one antimoron, they cancel each other out
you're supposed to find YOUR faction cool, and everyone else has something dumb you can use to point and laugh at them about. this is true no matter which faction you pick. Everyone has something cool and something stupid.
"are they laughable, or are they badass?" The answer is always yes. You know that scene from Mad Max: Fury Road of the Doof Warrior. In this setting there is a postapocalyptic resource shortage (particularly gasoline/petroleum) and everybody fights and dies for who controls what. Yet here is this dude strapped to speakers on a Semitruck blaring out metal shreds with a flamethrower guitar spewing said resource. It's so over the top that it's silly, badass, and you can't help but look at it. That is Warhammer 40k in a nutshell.
"In this setting there is ... resource shortages ... particularly gasoline ... amd everyone fights and dies over who controls what". *Looks meaningfully world politics and the significant drivers there-of since about 1875.*
@Hypogean7 the US could divert 4% of it's military budget and solve world hunger. The top 10 richest men in American could probably put their heads together and solve that problem tomorrow. It's a matter of political will rather than the actual difficulty of the problem. That's a change.
@@zacnewman7140 No, its an issue of logistics. You cant just sell a few tanks and buy vegetables for everyone in the world, you need to transport it before it goes bad
@@pokemastercube space dracula died during the horus heresy. The asshole could see the future and let himself be killed to proof that the future is absolte.
@@pokemastercube Space Draculas are okay, but I like me some Space Emos.
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The overly sincere voice work makes me laugh but not in a negative way. I like the fact that there’s no “well THAT just happened” Marvel energy, and they just commit to the ridiculousness of it.
Well that's the foundation of WH40K really - the story might be ridiculous, but the characters _must_ be taking it seriously. Making it laughably ridiculous and then committing to the bit is what the setting is all about.
I do think they could've hammed up the performances a bit though, like in the Dawn of War games where the Space Marines absolutely _holler_ every single word, it contributed to the franchise's satirical element for me.
It's very noticeable in Dawn of War 2. When your commanding officer with a very serious face and serious tone is talking about an Ork Stormboy named Gut-Rencha with not a hint of irony it really sells it.
Playing it straight is the best way to do this. Look at the Naked Gun films, they are ridiculous, yet played very straight almost all the time, and they are incredibly funny as a result.
What Yahtzee may or may not realize is referring to that character a Julius Caesar played by a concrete mixer immediately spoils who he is if you're a 40k fan.
I haven't been paying much attention to the game so far (I'll buy it in a few years when it goes on sale), so my reaction to that line was "wait, Girlyman is in this?"
Ya know what I miss from the xbox era? Enemy factions fighting each other. One of the best parts of Halo is going through the whole game fighting the covenant, getting to THAT mission, and now its not just you going "OH FUCK THE FLOOD" its EVERYBODY going "OH FUCK THE FLOOD" Game would have been better if they had shown everyone thrown into a three-way blender where absolutely no one was willing to work together, because thats 40k in a nutshell.
I was nodding along with the bit about hinging too much on 40k lore, thinking 'Yeah what kind of silly people would get excited over recognizing a space marine'. Then I saw the laurel wreath and realized 'Oh no, I am one of those people'.
I still love Yathzee's tradition of referring to them as his "correspondents" rather than "the horde of incoherent hate-mailers I have to fend off with a shovel every time I venture outside"
As a long time 40k player, it's both. Everyone is aware at how silly the whole thing is, but it's hard not to immediately become invested when your lone grot manages to land the killing blow on a Terminator; winning you the game. Also, the Orks paint their vehicles red because they think it makes them faster- and for funny / cool lore reasons, they literally will that belief into existence. More evidence that 40k is dumb and simaultaniously cool.
Ironically, the orks painting their vehicles red believing the vehicles will go faster is more of the more believable things of the orks given how many people still have superstition on color stuff
One of my favourite 40k short stories is about a group of Orks trying to escape from pursuing Blood Angels, but because they believe that "red wunz go fasta" they eventually get caught up and killed, much to the bemusement of the Blood Angels who thought the Orks were too far ahead to catch.
@@VoxAstra-qk4jz But none could so easily be mistaken for a concrete mixer as Marneus Augustus Calgar, in his suit of giant fuck-off terminator armour.
One thing I suppose people can appreciate is how back to basics this game is. No fumbling around with upgrades and skill unlocks (in the single player I mean), no “use this specific combo of weapons to take down this specific enemy” like in Doom Eternal, no learning how to dodge a boss’ 10 hit combo. It’s just you, a horde of enemies, and your job is to make the viscera cleanup guy’s life miserable
You have to consider that the CEO of Saber Interactive wanted this game to be like one of our gaming golden eras, which was the time from 2008-2016. As to which, by the gods did they nail it, Space Marine 2 has been such a breath of fresh air over all the political garbage and dogshit games.
@@TheSkaOreo Yes, but it's not shoved in your face, there's a difference between what a steaming pile of dogshit like Dustborn does, and the satire of the 40k series, like... It's not hard to understand that it's satire, it's literally the same sort of brand of satire that Helldivers is and the Starship Troopers movie is (The book is not in this, because the author is an actual facist prick.)
If you're not sure whether the Space Marines are supposed to be badass, or ridiculously over-the-top, you understand the game. You play as an angry refrigerator who lives only to fight, but their universe is so hostile that it's what they have to be just to survive.
Yes. It's ridiculous, and yet when you think about it, humans do ridiculous things in pursuit of lofty goals, and especially when threatened severely. The 40,000 years part is just there to add a virtually unlimited amount of hyperbole to it.
Ironic, satirical or campy media becomes insufferable when it constantly winks at the camera to make sure you know the makers are in on the joke. The secret spice of stuff like 40k or Helldivers, or even things like Resident Evil, is that the media takes itself seriously _in the moment._ When the material does keep winking you end up with the kind of unbearableness that's in the Resident Evil 2-4 remakes, or the Borderlands series.
Exactly. This is the problem with Marvel-derivative writing which is proliferous in movies and games nowadays. It really is like the writers are afraid you'll bully them for being nerdy if they commit to their own worldbuilding. "Haha, don't worry guys I was just joking, I wouldn't really like this stuff that would be cringe, right guys?"
The flipside that makes it also insufferable is when there's not enough stuff that would make it want to wink at you. One of the issues that 40K had during it's 'serious' turn is that they tried to get rid of the 'grim derp' that it was chock full of. Luckily there was just too much of it for them to completely erase all of it, but they got rid of a _lot_ of the camp that drew people to the setting to begin with.
the most insufferable way to tell a joke is to desperately and obviously seek the approval of others getting it. It is bizarre that entire teams of trained scriptwriters can't seem to grasp this
I think 40k should do more winking. Seems like it's too far on the 'taking itself seriously' side of things and not enough on the satirical side of things. If the setting were mainly orcs instead of just space marines, I could get behind it more
Lots of people are saying it, I'm just going to say it too. Warhammer 40K in general is a very silly concept, and to some degree was built off the idea of a setting where absolutely anybody can have a battle with absolutely anybody else, even if the reason ends up being bloody stupid. However, within the setting it's all deadly serious, and they make it look so badass that it's hard not to get drawn into that mindset and it ends up being another selling point. If you insist on the question of "am i supposed to think space marines are laughable or badass?" only having one answer, then you're only going to enjoy half of the Warhammer pie.
Very true, the answer to both is yes. I mean this is the game where space romans Catholics fight space Egyptian robots, space elves, space brittish football hooligans, space angry flesh, space pervert demons, and space CCP aliens.
Okay, but even if I can tell that I'm *supposed* to think of this in duality, I can also tell that I completely fail to see them as badass and can only personally feel them as goofy and edgy
If you haven't seen it yet, there's a special thanks section in the credits for TotalBiscuit. Whatever you might think of the gameplay, these devs had the spirit of Warhammer in their work.
YT recently suggested a WTF is Space Marine from TB ... Man it still sucks. Losing TB was such a loss for the gaming community as a whole. I'm stoked they thanked him, that's awesome I didn't know.
Yeah I got that one recommended to me again too. It hurts man, but our memories of him and the pain we feel for his loss, that's love living on. Rest in Peace TB.
Exactly. I can recognize that a monster truck is an absurd, impractical vehicle in almost any context--but would I pass up the opportunity to drive one in an arena?
WH40k is like the tabletop equivalent of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. It's ridiculous, over the top, tries too hard, makes no sense and by god that's why it's so awesome
Warhammer 40k has two wolves inside it. One is a twisted fking psychopath with human spam rations and people being mummified alive and put into a dreadnaught. The other is just a goofy lil guy that tells you stories about how a living tank went on a rampage against some Orks, or how it's not "landraider and landspeeder" but "landsraider and landsspeeder" because the techpriest who found out how to make them was called Arkan Lands...
As someone who is really into warhammer 40k (and spend way more then they're willing to admit on models, paint etc) its refreshing to see someone else's view on it. Its nice to know someone else sees the irony in it instead of it
Yahtzee: Starts spitting hurtful true facts about what Warhammer is Me: Slowly raises boltgun I do not know if I have the strength to admit the truth or shout "heresy" at this moment
He comes off as a snobbish hipster honestly. There's nothing wrong with enjoying low-brow entertainment, even if you go through painstaking efforts to ignore all of the historical references and satire laden throughout the setting because "big man looks silly."
@@CrizzyEyes Are you new here? you might be in the wrong place if so, yatzhee can and will recognize the value of simple brainless fun, but he is a critic, a damn good one at that, and he will not let flaws slide just because "You should just turn your brain off"
@@CrizzyEyes if anything his main complaint seems to be that the game takes itself too seriously, and doesn't lean enough into the sillyness of the setting, which i would call the opposite of being a snob
The thing with Warhammer (40k and to a lesser extent Fantasy) is that the seriousness levels have varied wildly depending on who was writing. 40k started out as an outright satire, and over time it's kinda waved back and forth between heavy irony and total seriousness. Fantasy had a lot of comedic elements early on, but got more straight-faced over time, and IMO it worked out better because the humor of WHFB was sort of layered on top of it all, whereas in 40k the joke is in the very bones of the setting.
@FinalGrand yeah, I'm so fucking sick of this bizarre rewriting of the history of 40k I've seen over and over again, particularly in the last few years Of course, the irony of retconning the very origins of 40k isn't lost on me either 🙃
@FinalGrand I feel like the "satire" bit only started coming along coz people are buying wayyy too far into the "space nazi" thing. Similar to how Slaanesh went from really fucking weird and kinda interesting on how fucked up it can get to the fans just sexualising everything while willfully ignoring everything else about Slaanesh. Afaik, GW probably aren't releasing any new content for Slaanesh to get her and the cult shadowbanned.
@@candrian7 they 100% took inspiration from current culture even some of the hair styles are 80s punk styles but its not as some believe any level of deep commentary on the politics of the time.
My answer to whether or not the player is supposed to take space marines seriously is, could you _ever_ take a space marine completely seriously after hearing one of them shout, "IT IS THE BAAAANEBLAAAAAAAADE!" upon witnessing a many-sponsoned behemoth of a tank that could swallow an entire armoured column of tiger 2 heavy tanks without touching the sides. The so-called serious moments are actually so camp they go full circle and become sensible again.
40k is kind of like one of those optical illusions that can either look like a fancy grail or a the faces of two people about to have the world's most awkward make out session. You can have a laugh at the over the top absurdity of it all or give in to your inner edge lord and revel in the sheer spectacle of bad-assery. Or both. Like one punch man or Lobo its parody via being one of the best examples of its genre. Just have fun with it. Lord knows hard fans joke around with it more than anybody else
I think you're supposed to find it generally humorous how laughably comically bad the situation's always are, and the people taking the situations completely at face value either becomes very funny, or very inspirational
@@starmaker75 Except it isn't. really. It's a satire of the human spirit, how bravery and loyalty get turned into brainwashed bigotry and religious zealotry taken to extreme levels.
@@peterclarke7240 Except you are completely wrong, as the very creators said it's not a satire, and for it to be a satire of the things you said you would have to ignore every other aspect of the setting that justifies, or at least lends reasonableness, to the IoM's behavior. It has some satirical elements, yes. It also has some silly, slapsticky humor. That does not make the whole a satirical work, nor does it make it a slapstick comedy. It's rule of cool in a grim dark setting, and it is pretty pathetic how insecure some people are that they have to ascribe satire or irony to it so they can feel it is sufficiently high brow to earn their esteem.
@@Wyqno Do you even understand what satire is? Also, you are aware that 40k was envisaged as a satire of totalitarianism, Thatcherism and religious extremism, as well as many other isms? It was designed by British people in the 80s. We specialise in satire, for crying out loud. It has a Hellworld called Birmingham, for goodness sake. The Orks basically are tabloid-reading football hooligans. There's a REASON they're able to believe things into existence based on absolutely no evidence. I was a Rogue Trader player back before 2nd edn even existed, and you need to understand that the rulebook (the one with the Crimson Fists on the cover) was absolutely LITTERED with satirical quotes from the Imperium's perspective, and that satire continues in later additions, it just became a bit less obvious. More Starship Troopers than Judge Dredd (judge Dredd is also a satire. Did you know that? Probably not... Starship Troopers is, too. At least the film version is. I'll give you a second to digest that, as I imagine you're having a meltdown right now). Basically, son, you haven't a clue what you're talking about, and it's interesting that you're accusing others who you have opinions that make you fill your nappy of being insecure... Do you have no self-awareness? No, of course you don't. You actually think 40k isn't a satire.
Guilliman isn’t in the game, you’re confusing him with Calgar. Guilliman would be a literal giant compared to an Astartes, plus that description was directed at Leandros
I played through SM1 in preparation to play SM2, and my biggest problem with that game is that the orks weren’t taking like orks. They called us “humans” and “space marines,” not “humies” and “beakies.”
I'm into Warhammer enough to have listened to an audio book or two, and my brother is super into the setting, which I clarify mostly to say that Yahtzee is 100% on-point observing that the setting both is ironic and is half-assed in its efforts to be ironic. The biggest problem with the setting, IMO, is that it's trying to have its cake and eat it too, to get you genuinely invested in the same characters who are over-the-top, genocidal parodies. I respect that actually committing to the bit with parody and satire doesn't help sell the plastic wargame models, but that just makes all the parts of the setting only tolerable *as parody* feel really awkward coexisting with the things you're supposed to be genuinely invested in.
WH40K is ridiculous, over the top and hard to take seriously, but the residents of this universe are victims to those ludicrous extremes and have to take it seriously to survive the world they live in. So you get this amazing duality of a silly premise that doesn't take away from having genuinely interesting ideas, world building and stories. Thats its charm really, you can laugh at it and enjoy the moments it takes itself seriously and both are valid.
Space Marines are meant to be both badass and ridiculous. There are chapters who do the most counter-productive things to filter out new recruits and fans will never stop making fun of them for it
Yep. There's guys who are literal vampires, guys who are Teutonic Knights that blatantly bend the rules in the name of killing aliens, the oddly-out-of-place nice guys who have no problem using flamethrowers all the time, guys who just have bad luck all the time for no reason other than it's funny, Viking guys, and so on. The problem is that GW only markets the one group of guys that was specifically designed to be the straight men in this comedy troupe to contrast with everyone else and licensed properties also suffer from that.
There's a goddamn " the satanic panic was a euphemism for what we do" legion. If you take Warhammer serious and can't grasp the irony I have to seriously wonder if you're just an actual fascist or have mental problems.
@@ZaydinTTV Magpies that totally aren't actually loyalist survivors of that one legion of chaos marines that also value secrets and happen to be full of naturally gifted psykers, and used to wear red...
White Scars, Iron Hands, and to some extent Raven Guard are diabolically under represented. The badass/absurd of a batman Arkham style game except the stealth expert is Edgar Allen Monster truck Poe would be phenomenal
While he’s right that playing the first game does give important context, it also makes the halfway-through-the-game shift to fighting the thousand sons a WORSE twist. The first game does the EXACT SAME THING, where a portion through the game the Xenos just abruptly die off and get replaced with Chaos Space Marines for the rest of the game but at least that time the Xenos boss has a badass send-off scene
The offhanded reference to the tyranids crawling over each other like the zombies in World War Z is appropriate given the devs used the tech from their World War Z game the tyranid swarms in Space Marine.
For a brit Yahtzee has a curious hole in knowledge when it comes to 2000AD comics where W40K directly takes its satire and edginess from. W40K is basically tabletop Judge Dredd or Nemesis: The Warlock game.
I would argue that over the years, GW has tried to shed that image mostly. Space Marines are no longer portrayed as the oppresive peacekeepers and hive scummer no longer look like they're listening to the Sex Pistols. That's also part of the problem: the series tries to emphasise extreme severity and and gravitas in a world that is just a carbon copy and played as a satire of all the wacky shit from most fantasy and sci-fi narratives of the 20th century. It's hard to recognize something from 2000AD when you do not have commissars executing guardsmen on screen but have everyone shouting how noble and heroic the guardsmen living up to their reputation as Cadians are.
@@DiggingForFacts Unless, of course, you play Necromunda. In which the 80s are very much alive and brightly-coloured mohawks are still the order of the day.
@@Meitti I think there was a period in the 90s where 2000AD went a bit obscure (they were trying to be more "adult" and presumably lost some of their younger market, and the 1995 Judge Dredd movie was a flop). I didn't realize how much 2000AD influenced GW until I started reading the comics in the 2010s after the good Dredd movie came out.
Yep, 40k pretty much stole (in a good way) a whole bunch of stuff from Rogue Trooper. Both in terms of designs and concepts. Of course, that was back when 40k was brand new. Now it's almost entirely it's own thing.
What you said about having to pretend to recognize characters coming back from the previous game kind of reminds me of the big villain reveal at the end of Rainbow Six: Vegas 2. I was playing it co-op with a friend, who'd already played through the campaign, and when the villain's face is finally revealed, he's like "Remember this guy?", and no, no I did not. I had no idea what the hell he was talking about, and we'd never seen the character's actual face before, so the reveal was completely lost on me until my friend explained who it was.
Space Marine 2: "LOOK, IT'S THAT DUDE! YOU LIKE HIM, RIGHT? HERE HE IS WITH HIS ICONIC WEAPONS, SHOOTING TYRANIDS AND BEING COO--" Me: "Heh heh. Dreadnaught yeet statue. :)"
I’m actually floored by the campaign / co-op mode being tied together. It’s brilliant. The only thing that would make it better is a DMCV style asynchronous co-op where you actually see other players doing their part of the mission in the background.
Prime example of where 40K lands on the cool/dumb spectrum from the wider lore; During the kickoff of a massive galaxy wide civil war called the Horus Heresy (don't ask, we'll be here for hours, just roll with it), the leader of the Ultramarines, Roboute Guilliman, who is a combination of the Chapter's leader, dad and patron saint all rolled into one, was vented out into the vacuum of space without a helmet. Instead of, y'know, _dying,_ Guilliman decided his O² bar could best be maintained by punching Traitor Marines so hard their heads expolded. He proceeded to do this for several hours until the assault on the ship was broken and he finally calmed down enough to come back indoors.
Well, you're not the only one who couldn't get a clear reading on the tone. When neo-nazis started showing up to tournaments, the creators had to make a public announcement reminding people that 40K is satire.
I guess you would have said similar things if you did review the previous space marine game, though with a less positive spin. Keep being awesome, sir.
My favourite piece of Ork lore is that the reason most their technology works is because they THINK it will work. They literally will creations to life through their psychic energy
Warhammer's mix of actual commentary, badass space soldiers and hilarious satire is what makes it so great. Humanities strongest soldiers are both incredibly cool and indoctrinated weirdos who religiously worship a proto fascist telepath who was really quite shocked when his proto fascism turned into fascism and now he cant do much but sit there and angrily watch. The emperor deciding that fascism, one of the most ineffective, religion obsessed and morally bankrupt forms of governance was the best way to create a morally good non-religious logic based human empire is one of the funniest bits to me.
Fascism is definitely not religion-obsessed. It's a secularist authoritarian ideology, much like Marxism (in practice, anyway). Coincidentally Mussolini was a former Marxist. Hitler was a guy who cynically subverted the Christian churches in Germany to make the religion about the state, literally supplanting Jesus in the process. What's hilarious is how he presented himself as a godlike figure, denying that he was a god every step of the way, while festooning himself with golden armor and glowing swords and halos. The point is really that while it is comically over-the-top, that we humans are not that far away from committing comically over-the-top actions when stressed by enemies within and without. And that hypocrisy is inevitable in authoritarian states.
the imperium is a religious theocracy. FFS not every bad regime is automaticly fascism. I start to think people dont even know what the fuck fascism means anymore
The only people who call the Imperium fascist are those that have no idea what a fascist state looks like on the inside. You judge by looks, not by systems. On an organizational level, religious level and state system level the Imperium is a Holy Roman Empire jacked up on extreme space steroids. The only thing that fits less in the HRE and more in any modern state is the over-the-top bureaucracy. The Imperium is a feudal absolute theocracy, planets can rule themselves as long as they pay their tithes and follow the state religion (to the letter) thats the polar opposite of a fascist state, where central rule from one location is one of the important key components.
@@CrizzyEyes Nah. Every single fascist is obsessed with the occult like nobody else. From actual Nazis to todays Neonazis, they can't stop getting into Runes and weird prophecies and a divine calling and all that. They're as little secular as you can get without becoming an actual Theocracy.
Youre meant to simultaneously think space marines are both badass and ridiculous. Its a fascist empire of massively religious humans fighting for survival against a universe that hates them, it's all cool but its also all ridiculous and over the top.
@@stev3548 you genuinly don't know what you are talking about. "So glaube ich heute im Sinne des allmächtigen Schöpfers zu handeln: Indem ich mich des Juden erwehre kämpfe ich für das Werk des Herrn." -Adolf Hitler "I believe I act in the will of the allmighty creator: By resisting the jews I fight for the work of the lord" -Adolf Hitler
According to the original creators of the setting, 40K was not intended to be satire, merely over the top sci fi that was a bit tongue in cheek. (Since people in the comments seem confused about that)
@@leadpaintchips9461 The only clear example of satire in the setting that has a real-world counterpart I can name at top of mind is the Orks being football hooligans. But stuff like an inquisitor named Obiwan Sherlock Clousseau is obviously just meant to be stupid fun.
Ghazghul is literally a riff on Margaret Thatcher, ie, Mag Uruk Thraka. Dark Angels whole, entire bit is a closet-gay joke. Satire is right in the bones of the setting
@@ambion19 Ghazkul is literally not, the guy who created him explained that it's just Tolkien's black speech for something like "big ork." Also I know where Dark Angels' name is from, but that's not satire either, obviously.
To answer the initial question: the way I understand it, it's kinda supposed to be a "sum of it's parts" deal. You have a bunch of things that are designed to be cool thrown in with shit that's intended to be ridiculous. Like, the Adeptus Mechanicus have got that cool, creepy, body-horror cybernetics thing going on, but they're also basically just like, space crows? Like they've got all this horrifying tech and fucked up their bodies with cybernetics all in service of being better able to touch all the shiny things
Warhammer 40k is a very specific type of British tongue-in-cheek humor that was popular in the 80s. See also 2000 AD, which shared a lot of writers and artists with Games Workshop.
So many people saying that 40k is satire because they're afraid of being judge for enjoying something someone else thinks is goofy. Yes, 40k is goofy and takes itself super seriously. That's it's charm.
Glad I decided to Google "space marine review" because even though I know I don't like the game based on 5 minutes of playtime, I did find this channel and I believe it's fucken brilliant. Looking forward to binge videos on a hungover day
Jokes and irony aside, it's impressive that Yahtzee only realized at the end of the review that a Warhammer 40k game is directed towards Warhammer 40k fans
5:20 understandable sentiment. Basically just consider him the sm equivalent of the kid who always asks the teacher about homework at the end of the day.
I was rather confused at choosing to remove Titus from the Deathwatch to return him to the Ultranoobs with their bright blue armor and then ALSO choose that your eventual Big Bads are the fucking Rubric Marines and THEIR bright blue armor, but now with Egyptian bits. It's also doubly confusing how they chose to make a side story companion piece with six 'distinct' characters, but because THEY'RE all Ultraboobies, they're all the *same*. At least if we'd stuck with Deathwatch we'd have gotten people with different accents and potentially some actual fucking personality like the Space Wolf we only ever hear on comms in the first mission and then watch heroically die. It's also not a "reveal" in that same mission to learn that the Deathwatch member we're playing as is Titus, his fucking face is prominently displayed on the 'box art.' We know who it is, game, you don't have to be coy in the subtitles by calling him 'Deathwatch Squad Leader' or w/e and putting a dumb filter on his voice.
I guess I figured the cliche they were going for was that you start out as a squad of unnamed badasses that all die horribly to establish how big of a threat the 'Nids were, so I was surprised to survive and actually be Titus haha.
While extremely badass, the problem with that would be that nobody that hasn't at least watched a few lore videos would have understood anything that happened. And i'm not saying that to come off as arrogant, it's just a unfortunate truth that Girlymans kids are still kinda the posterboys of 40k while the deathwatch are (if i remember correctly) one of the least played faction. I feel like including the thousand sons as a enemy was already a gamble
@@rigel9228 If you're going to have Chaos Marines, Thousand Sons are the best choice. Emperor's Children would be more interesting, but that would get the game rated R18 immediately, so that's out. Death Guard are too tanky, so they would be boring opponents. World Eaters would be too similar to the Tyrranids in just rushing you. Night Lords wouldn't really suit a head on combat scenario. Your last options are Black Legion and Word Bearers, but they are quite generic. Alternatively, you could go for successor Warbands like the Red Corsairs, but they aren't really well known enough.
@malcolm_in_the_middle James Workshop seems to like it's games pretty heavily faction segregated, but I can see Word Bearers working if they can throw all different kinds of demons at you
@@malcolm_in_the_middle Death Guard aren't too tanky or that they would be boring opponents, the problem with Death Guard is that nearly every other 40K game has Nurgle worshippers as their enemies. I'm a huge fan of Nurgle, but having them as every baddie ever does get tedious.
After following Yahtzee's reviews since 2008, I had a pretty good idea of how this review was gonna go before i even clicked the thumbnail.....and it went exactly how I thought it'd go hahaha
I am growing to despise irony, cynicism, apathy, satire, snark, and irreverence. Everything is so utterly drenched in these things, why does _everything_ have to be terrified of anyone perceiving it as cringe or taking itself too seriously? What if I want to take it seriously? I am absolutely STARVED for sincerity.
Agreed. It's sooooo easy to be critical / cynical / sarcastic / etc. Much harder to actually sincerely build something good. That's also why even now, people still love Lord of the Rings for example.
@@lightworker2956 Absolutely, 100%. it's also why absolutely no one is watching these new Star Wars or Hobbit movies and thinking "this is the greatest thing ever, i'm going to get these on dvd and 20 years from now i'll still be watching them, or any time i see them come on tv or notice it playing somewhere, i'll stop and just sit through the entire thing bc of how good it is."
Being a Warhammer fan is annoying cause everytime you meet another Warhammer fan you gotta roll a dice and see if ”Is this guy in on the irony and the comments about fascism and how it grinds humanity into a pulp?” or ”This guy is an unironic actual nazi who think the imperium are the genuine good guys”.
This is the only franchise where people constantly feel the need to go “REMEMBER ITS SATIRE” You don’t see people saying that to ppl who like the Empire in Star Wars or the COG or UNSC in Gears and Halo. Idk where this sudden fear of apparent Nazis comes from.
@@negativezero8174 no, you kinda have to remind people that the Empire in Star Wars are literal stand ins for Nazis (which Andor at least for once REALLY beat people over the head with) and that the UNSC in Halo are clearly fascists who approve of child kidnapping programs to make super soldiers (before they even knew of the covenant) which tends to get forgotten between all the John Halo action.
For those of you wondering if Warhammer 40k is supposed to be taken seriously or not allow me to tell you the 100% cannon lore about space marine super poop. When a space marine gets poisoned to the level that they will certainly die, they will instead go comatose and start violently trying to expel the poison from both end. There is a hatch designed into their power armor exclusively for this purpose. Thus space marine super poop.
I loved that the campagin was over in under 20 hours, but they clearly put a full games worth of effort packed in around the crazy new tech. That moment when Titus is finally able to join a large force of Ultramarines and march into battle against a gigantic warp demon is an example of atmospheric brilliance even if the mission design was simplistic. The spectacle not fucking up with the crazy new tech running is the most important goal, especially for 40k. I watched Luetin09's video on Titus before playing and I think that was pretty critical to enjoying the narrative, but I understand its important to let most of the audience skip the context if you want it to sell.
If I've learned anything from watching fandoms like a birdwatcher watches... well, birds, it's that even when irony and satire are as obvious as the sun in the Sahara in mid-day, they either won't pick it up or actively ignore it. Goes a long way in explaining a lot of their opinions about the real world tbh.
40K is a universe where everyone is objectively terrible, and that makes them all much more likable. The irony is so over the top, that it can be enjoyed with sincerity. It’s a great balance!
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The episode was great as always, but I might have laughed even harder at the ad read. Kudos for finding sponsors willing to get the full Yahtzee treatment.
coupon doesn't work for me :c
You should do a retro-ramble about Armed and Dangerous. I think you'll love it, if you havent played it.
Coupon link is broken
'OH SHIT THAT'S NOT A SKYBOX' is a great summary of realizing just how many enemies you'll be fighting in an average mission.
I think every person I've seen playing the game had that reaction. "Oh neat I can pick off enemies in the background. Oh crap they're coming this way!"
@@adamsbja That effect would surprise me more if I hadn't played the dev's previous game.
Not at all surprising if you played WWZ but I can see why it might catch some people off guard.
There was also a disappointing number of 'skybox' enemies in the game on top as well TBH.
This game's scale really impressed me on several points. Lots of moments that are wallpaper-material.
@@LegendaryPlank Yea, given the badass showing they get in the opening cutscene, it's disappointing that Gargoyles just a skybox asset for all but two missions of the campaign.
"am i supposed to think space marines are laughable or badass?"
yes
I think that narm charm(as tv tropes calls it) working there
like horus....that practically became evil because he was stabbed with a knife.
I, CATO SICARIUS, BELIEVE BADASS!
@@TaurusTheCrazyBull ::CRIES IN ULTRA-DEPRESSION::
@@TaurusTheCrazyBull YOU DESERVE SOME FISTIN, BOY!
"A guy that looks like Julius Ceaser being played by a cement mixer"
That could be any Ultramarine.
But it’s a fitting and deserved insult for Leandros specifically. Dude straight up ratted out Titus to the Inquisition and got promoted to Chaplain for it.
@@Harmonmj13 think he was describing Calgar
No, it is I, Cato Sicarius!
@@MrTavrosNitram He was literally describing the person who was revealed at the end of the game dude. The joke comes directly after saying not knowing who Leandros was. Rewatch the video.
It is Calgar, though. The chapter master of the ultra smurfs.
That bloke whose mini in the 90s looked like he was taking a shit.
Warhammer 40,000 started off taking the piss out of all of the common sci fi tropes, it has since spent the intervening decades pumping piss back in again. Current estimates put it at about 78% piss.
The best summary.
It's very much like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: taking the piss by being ridiculous, realising that people unironically love that and riding that to success.
generally the level of piss seems to depend on the faction in question
I'd argue that at this point Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines (humans in general to be honest) are basically 99.9% piss
meanwhile Orks are basically piss free. Daemons are also still at a relatively low level of piss
Aeldari and T'au are somewhere in between
Tyranids are somewhat lacking in piss, but that's mostly by virtue of them simply not getting much proper lore of their own since GW started pumping it back into the setting.
meanwhile, right about the point where GW started pumping it back into the overall setting, the Necrons seemed to start getting it drained out of them as we ended up with hilarious figures like Trazyn and Zahndrekh. the older version of Necrons seemed rather humorless and serious compared to other early 40K things.
@@Eclipsed_Embers If you're a fan of the books I'd highly recommend the Fabius Bile trilogy by Josh Reynolds. It does the perfect job of making chaos marines these insane evil monsters while at the same time being INCREDDIBLY petty with each other, got some genuine chuckles out of me.
Yeah 40k has been up and down in its history. I think 3rd edition to 6th/7th maybe hit the perfect tone. Some of it now while obviously not serious doesn't really feel like satire, particularly the space marines. Its obviously highly subjective and a hard line to tread when you have genetically engineered super soldiers who are smarter, faster, better in every way but still have them be interesting or a satire. The sweet spot for me in marine lore is when they manage to be the greatest soldiers in the galaxy but do INCREDIBLY stupid things because 'honour'.
As far as I understand, the balance between being ironically and satrically badass, and being actually badass, is one of the main draws of Warhammer 40k.
Though a very vocal minority in the fanbase can't tell either way. Usually, the same people can't spot or outright ignore the satire in both Starship Troopers and Helldivers (and probably think the American Dems are left wing rather than centre right like the rest of the world does).
"Is it Ironic and silly, or badass"
YES
Why does everything have to be like some kind of personality-defining commitment? Can't we just enjoy Space Marines for being childishly over-the-top without being deeply ashamed of ourselves? I don't understand why people like Yahtzee take enjoying hobbies so seriously. They are extremely careful about their interests and how they talk about them, like they're walking on eggshells and their middle school bully is waiting just outside the room to give them a swirly if they say the wrong thing.
@@GallowglassVT Depending on where in the world you are at the American Dems are far left all the way to center right. You view things from such a narrow perspective that you insult others for your own ignorance.
I think that how professional wrestling , metal gear and the yakzua series works.
Ork players get the irony. Ork player are THERE for the irony.
They're also there because rolling ginormous piles of dice is satisfying.
I have no interest in 40k, but if I did, I'd be an Ork main for exactly those reasons. XD
They seem to be the only guys having any fun in that setting, and I want in on THAT!
I don't know much about the setting but Ork weapons/paintjobs working because of a psychic field that makes it work if enough of them believe it should is such a genius way to get away with complete nonsense.
@@Drunkencrono Unfortunately it doesn't translate to in games rules anymore. But at some points painting your units red did make them slightly faster (with a marginal increase in points).
@@Drunkencrono Hence the expression "DA RED WUNZ GO FASTA"
My favorite detail of the game is when you start fighting the traitor guardsmen who are just humans, you can kill them by walking into them because space marines are basically walking pickup trucks
There's a scene in the new trailer for Amazon Prime's video game anthology series of a space marine running through a human. He runs into the person at full sprint and the human's body just flies to pieces. The marine doesnt even slow down or miss a step.
You could do this in the first game too -- and since this counted as a glory kill, it healed you
@@Marvolo14 Wasn't even just a human. It was like 4 of them on a truck charging him.
One of the books, I wish I could remember which one, had this part where it spent legit like 4-5 pages describing this guy. Some noble who was one of the greatest swordsman on his world, had this ancient power saber handed down through his family, really builds him up. Next part is from the perspective of a chaos marine who casually bats aside the tiny power saber this random human is swing at him, kicks him in the chest, and then casually walks across him, caving his chest in, as he goes to melee a tank.
@@22RedRangers Storm of Iron? I remember that scene but it was like 1 page total
About Space Marines being badass or morons, there is one point in the campaign where your squad almost falls into an ambush by disguised soldiers, and like two missions later someone we've never met before shouts "Your commanding officer is a traitor! Shoot him now!" and the lads almost bloody do it.
Please tell me there's a moment where they go: "We did it, we saved the colony!" only for a ship to come blow the entire planet you just saved to literal bits. XD
Well to be fair to the lads, Titus has up to this point done his utmost to alienate said lads. Acting suss as hell half the time and biting their heads off whenever they brought said suss-nes up the other half of the time.
yes but you left out the part where only one of them tried to shoot the commander, and the other one was at least smart enough and shot the suspicious person you never met before
so its one moron and one antimoron, they cancel each other out
@FinalGrand *cough* Celestial Lions *cough*
@@XieRH1988 Is it like matter and antimatter, where the canceling out comes with lots of flash and boom?
The thing about WH40k is you're supposed to find it all cool and ridiculous/dumb simultaneously
Like Gurren Lagann.
So like a campy 80s movie? Groovy
you're supposed to find YOUR faction cool, and everyone else has something dumb you can use to point and laugh at them about. this is true no matter which faction you pick. Everyone has something cool and something stupid.
"That's so cool. But it's so dumb. But it's so COOL. BUT ITS SO DUMB"
@@My_Naginta
Yeah, it was made in the 80s. You can literally play as Sylvester Stallone, it's always a little goofy
"are they laughable, or are they badass?" The answer is always yes.
You know that scene from Mad Max: Fury Road of the Doof Warrior. In this setting there is a postapocalyptic resource shortage (particularly gasoline/petroleum) and everybody fights and dies for who controls what. Yet here is this dude strapped to speakers on a Semitruck blaring out metal shreds with a flamethrower guitar spewing said resource. It's so over the top that it's silly, badass, and you can't help but look at it. That is Warhammer 40k in a nutshell.
"In this setting there is ... resource shortages ... particularly gasoline ... amd everyone fights and dies over who controls what".
*Looks meaningfully world politics and the significant drivers there-of since about 1875.*
@@zacnewman7140Literally since there were sticks and stones nothing has fundamentally changed.
@Hypogean7 the US could divert 4% of it's military budget and solve world hunger. The top 10 richest men in American could probably put their heads together and solve that problem tomorrow. It's a matter of political will rather than the actual difficulty of the problem. That's a change.
@@zacnewman7140 No, its an issue of logistics. You cant just sell a few tanks and buy vegetables for everyone in the world, you need to transport it before it goes bad
"the rule of cool" uh... rules.
"Another big chunky dude who looks like Julius Caesar being played by a cement mixer." So Roboute Guilliman?
Marneus Augustas Calgar
thats jsut the ultramarines in a nutshell, give me my space dracula's
No, and you've proven his point by assuming that.
@@pokemastercube space dracula died during the horus heresy. The asshole could see the future and let himself be killed to proof that the future is absolte.
@@pokemastercube Space Draculas are okay, but I like me some Space Emos.
The overly sincere voice work makes me laugh but not in a negative way. I like the fact that there’s no “well THAT just happened” Marvel energy, and they just commit to the ridiculousness of it.
Well that's the foundation of WH40K really - the story might be ridiculous, but the characters _must_ be taking it seriously. Making it laughably ridiculous and then committing to the bit is what the setting is all about.
I do think they could've hammed up the performances a bit though, like in the Dawn of War games where the Space Marines absolutely _holler_ every single word, it contributed to the franchise's satirical element for me.
It's very noticeable in Dawn of War 2. When your commanding officer with a very serious face and serious tone is talking about an Ork Stormboy named Gut-Rencha with not a hint of irony it really sells it.
Playing it straight is the best way to do this. Look at the Naked Gun films, they are ridiculous, yet played very straight almost all the time, and they are incredibly funny as a result.
@@SarcyBoi41 Between the space marines, chaos, orks and the imperial guard, the voice acting in DoW is so OTT it is amazing.
"That's not a skybox at all!"
"The skybox is in the walls, man! It's game over, man!"
@@RFC3514 "They're in the walls...THEY'RE IN THE GODDAMN WALLS!" *violent bolter unloading noises*
@@TustlePlays Shame. [Reloads bolter with malicious intent]
Sounded very reminiscent of the "they're flocking this way" bit in Jurassic Park
@@josepheastham9717 it reminded me of the "THERE IS JAM COMING OUT OF THE WALLS" from the old ZP Amnesia 1 review.
What Yahtzee may or may not realize is referring to that character a Julius Caesar played by a concrete mixer immediately spoils who he is if you're a 40k fan.
It's Robot Gorrilaman.
It is a really concise way to describe old rowboat girlyman isn't it?
I haven't been paying much attention to the game so far (I'll buy it in a few years when it goes on sale), so my reaction to that line was "wait, Girlyman is in this?"
It's not Girlyman you buffoons.
thanks for the spoler. I didn t know Rowboat Garbanzoman was in the game.
"You are the wrong kind of fanatical!" basically sums up 40K.
Ya know what I miss from the xbox era? Enemy factions fighting each other. One of the best parts of Halo is going through the whole game fighting the covenant, getting to THAT mission, and now its not just you going "OH FUCK THE FLOOD" its EVERYBODY going "OH FUCK THE FLOOD"
Game would have been better if they had shown everyone thrown into a three-way blender where absolutely no one was willing to work together, because thats 40k in a nutshell.
There are a couple parts of the game where they fight each other
@@funybirbman3813 Huzza! Already planning to play it.
Space marine 1 actually did that when you encounter the chaos marines and then then the orks start fighting them AND you
I was nodding along with the bit about hinging too much on 40k lore, thinking 'Yeah what kind of silly people would get excited over recognizing a space marine'.
Then I saw the laurel wreath and realized 'Oh no, I am one of those people'.
yup
Sadly I don't ACTUALLY have enough 40k lore knowledge but I did get a twinge of "Robot Girlyman?"
I still love Yathzee's tradition of referring to them as his "correspondents" rather than "the horde of incoherent hate-mailers I have to fend off with a shovel every time I venture outside"
It's because he's a busy man with a lot of ashes to urinate on.
As a long time 40k player, it's both. Everyone is aware at how silly the whole thing is, but it's hard not to immediately become invested when your lone grot manages to land the killing blow on a Terminator; winning you the game.
Also, the Orks paint their vehicles red because they think it makes them faster- and for funny / cool lore reasons, they literally will that belief into existence. More evidence that 40k is dumb and simaultaniously cool.
Ironically, the orks painting their vehicles red believing the vehicles will go faster is more of the more believable things of the orks given how many people still have superstition on color stuff
You come for the silliness, but stay for the surprisingly funny historical satire, Black Templars for instance just being Teutonic Knights in space.
Rule of thumb, if someone is unironically taking anything related to 40K seriously, stay the hell away from that person.
@@starmaker75 yes but everyone knows in the real world yellow is faster than red
One of my favourite 40k short stories is about a group of Orks trying to escape from pursuing Blood Angels, but because they believe that "red wunz go fasta" they eventually get caught up and killed, much to the bemusement of the Blood Angels who thought the Orks were too far ahead to catch.
Julius Caesar played by a concrete mixer is an excellent description of Marneus Calgar.
Literally all ultramarines look like that.
He was referring to Leandros, not Big Daddy Calgar
@@VoxAstra-qk4jz But none could so easily be mistaken for a concrete mixer as Marneus Augustus Calgar, in his suit of giant fuck-off terminator armour.
@@Harmonmj13 He said "yet ANOTHER guy who looks like Julius Caesar played by a concrete mixer". He was saying they all look like that.
@@Harmonmj13 The fact that the comments is full of people arguing over which cement mixer he meant proves his point fantastically.
One thing I suppose people can appreciate is how back to basics this game is. No fumbling around with upgrades and skill unlocks (in the single player I mean), no “use this specific combo of weapons to take down this specific enemy” like in Doom Eternal, no learning how to dodge a boss’ 10 hit combo.
It’s just you, a horde of enemies, and your job is to make the viscera cleanup guy’s life miserable
there was also that power wash cross-over earlyer this year, gotta keep those guys empoloyed too
It's amost more of a doom clone than the actual 40K doom clone _Boltgun_ was.
You have to consider that the CEO of Saber Interactive wanted this game to be like one of our gaming golden eras, which was the time from 2008-2016. As to which, by the gods did they nail it, Space Marine 2 has been such a breath of fresh air over all the political garbage and dogshit games.
@@Ashen_Night116…you do realize that the entirety of 40K is a political satire on fascism, right?
Right?
@@TheSkaOreo Yes, but it's not shoved in your face, there's a difference between what a steaming pile of dogshit like Dustborn does, and the satire of the 40k series, like... It's not hard to understand that it's satire, it's literally the same sort of brand of satire that Helldivers is and the Starship Troopers movie is (The book is not in this, because the author is an actual facist prick.)
If you're not sure whether the Space Marines are supposed to be badass, or ridiculously over-the-top, you understand the game. You play as an angry refrigerator who lives only to fight, but their universe is so hostile that it's what they have to be just to survive.
Yes. It's ridiculous, and yet when you think about it, humans do ridiculous things in pursuit of lofty goals, and especially when threatened severely. The 40,000 years part is just there to add a virtually unlimited amount of hyperbole to it.
Ironic, satirical or campy media becomes insufferable when it constantly winks at the camera to make sure you know the makers are in on the joke. The secret spice of stuff like 40k or Helldivers, or even things like Resident Evil, is that the media takes itself seriously _in the moment._ When the material does keep winking you end up with the kind of unbearableness that's in the Resident Evil 2-4 remakes, or the Borderlands series.
Exactly. This is the problem with Marvel-derivative writing which is proliferous in movies and games nowadays. It really is like the writers are afraid you'll bully them for being nerdy if they commit to their own worldbuilding. "Haha, don't worry guys I was just joking, I wouldn't really like this stuff that would be cringe, right guys?"
The flipside that makes it also insufferable is when there's not enough stuff that would make it want to wink at you. One of the issues that 40K had during it's 'serious' turn is that they tried to get rid of the 'grim derp' that it was chock full of. Luckily there was just too much of it for them to completely erase all of it, but they got rid of a _lot_ of the camp that drew people to the setting to begin with.
the most insufferable way to tell a joke is to desperately and obviously seek the approval of others getting it. It is bizarre that entire teams of trained scriptwriters can't seem to grasp this
What's wrong with the RE remakes? They play everything about as straight as the originals.
I think 40k should do more winking. Seems like it's too far on the 'taking itself seriously' side of things and not enough on the satirical side of things. If the setting were mainly orcs instead of just space marines, I could get behind it more
Lots of people are saying it, I'm just going to say it too. Warhammer 40K in general is a very silly concept, and to some degree was built off the idea of a setting where absolutely anybody can have a battle with absolutely anybody else, even if the reason ends up being bloody stupid. However, within the setting it's all deadly serious, and they make it look so badass that it's hard not to get drawn into that mindset and it ends up being another selling point.
If you insist on the question of "am i supposed to think space marines are laughable or badass?" only having one answer, then you're only going to enjoy half of the Warhammer pie.
Very true, the answer to both is yes. I mean this is the game where space romans Catholics fight space Egyptian robots, space elves, space brittish football hooligans, space angry flesh, space pervert demons, and space CCP aliens.
The entire Warhammer 40k setting is meant to be satire of Thatcher's britain. If anyone's taking it seriously, they've got issues.
Okay, but even if I can tell that I'm *supposed* to think of this in duality, I can also tell that I completely fail to see them as badass and can only personally feel them as goofy and edgy
@@nolategame6367 If you can still enjoy the franchise like that, that's absolutely fine, and if not, then that'll be why.
@@vegladex yeah. I don't really enjoy Warhammer and that's pretty much why.
If you haven't seen it yet, there's a special thanks section in the credits for TotalBiscuit. Whatever you might think of the gameplay, these devs had the spirit of Warhammer in their work.
YT recently suggested a WTF is Space Marine from TB ... Man it still sucks. Losing TB was such a loss for the gaming community as a whole. I'm stoked they thanked him, that's awesome I didn't know.
Yeah I got that one recommended to me again too. It hurts man, but our memories of him and the pain we feel for his loss, that's love living on. Rest in Peace TB.
Ah, yes. TotalBiscuit, gaming's Harvey Dent.
01:05 - "Am I supposed to think Space Marines are laughable or badass?"
Yes. The answer to both is yes.
Exactly. I can recognize that a monster truck is an absurd, impractical vehicle in almost any context--but would I pass up the opportunity to drive one in an arena?
@@eggbaron3968So, Space Marines are like less sincere Gundams?
@@cybercop0083 that’s a pretty apt comparison actually, yeah
WH40k is like the tabletop equivalent of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. It's ridiculous, over the top, tries too hard, makes no sense and by god that's why it's so awesome
Warhammer 40k has two wolves inside it. One is a twisted fking psychopath with human spam rations and people being mummified alive and put into a dreadnaught. The other is just a goofy lil guy that tells you stories about how a living tank went on a rampage against some Orks, or how it's not "landraider and landspeeder" but "landsraider and landsspeeder" because the techpriest who found out how to make them was called Arkan Lands...
I wish I could see Yahtzee’s face when he realizes “that’s not a skybox, THAT’S NOT A SKYBOX!!”
Just look at any streamer playing the end of prologue mission, it's always the same gaping mouth stare XD
As someone who is really into warhammer 40k (and spend way more then they're willing to admit on models, paint etc) its refreshing to see someone else's view on it. Its nice to know someone else sees the irony in it instead of it
Yahtzee: Starts spitting hurtful true facts about what Warhammer is
Me: Slowly raises boltgun I do not know if I have the strength to admit the truth or shout "heresy" at this moment
Why not both? TRUHERUSTHEY *unloads boltgun*
Just because something is true doesn't mean it isn't heresy, hell that's kind of the point
He comes off as a snobbish hipster honestly. There's nothing wrong with enjoying low-brow entertainment, even if you go through painstaking efforts to ignore all of the historical references and satire laden throughout the setting because "big man looks silly."
@@CrizzyEyes Are you new here? you might be in the wrong place if so, yatzhee can and will recognize the value of simple brainless fun, but he is a critic, a damn good one at that, and he will not let flaws slide just because "You should just turn your brain off"
@@CrizzyEyes if anything his main complaint seems to be that the game takes itself too seriously, and doesn't lean enough into the sillyness of the setting, which i would call the opposite of being a snob
The thing with Warhammer (40k and to a lesser extent Fantasy) is that the seriousness levels have varied wildly depending on who was writing. 40k started out as an outright satire, and over time it's kinda waved back and forth between heavy irony and total seriousness.
Fantasy had a lot of comedic elements early on, but got more straight-faced over time, and IMO it worked out better because the humor of WHFB was sort of layered on top of it all, whereas in 40k the joke is in the very bones of the setting.
The satire thing is just a common myth. Priestly and Chambers have both said its was not written as a political satire.
@@NostalgiaVivec Probably not originally but they definitely grabbed it with both hands when they used 2000AD as a major reference.
@FinalGrand yeah, I'm so fucking sick of this bizarre rewriting of the history of 40k I've seen over and over again, particularly in the last few years
Of course, the irony of retconning the very origins of 40k isn't lost on me either 🙃
@FinalGrand I feel like the "satire" bit only started coming along coz people are buying wayyy too far into the "space nazi" thing. Similar to how Slaanesh went from really fucking weird and kinda interesting on how fucked up it can get to the fans just sexualising everything while willfully ignoring everything else about Slaanesh. Afaik, GW probably aren't releasing any new content for Slaanesh to get her and the cult shadowbanned.
@@candrian7 they 100% took inspiration from current culture even some of the hair styles are 80s punk styles but its not as some believe any level of deep commentary on the politics of the time.
My answer to whether or not the player is supposed to take space marines seriously is, could you _ever_ take a space marine completely seriously after hearing one of them shout,
"IT IS THE BAAAANEBLAAAAAAAADE!" upon witnessing a many-sponsoned behemoth of a tank that could swallow an entire armoured column of tiger 2 heavy tanks without touching the sides.
The so-called serious moments are actually so camp they go full circle and become sensible again.
BROTHER I AM PINNED
@@l33t9r0u93 BROTHER I AM HIT
SPESS MEHREENZ TODEH TEH ENEMEH IS AT OUR DOAR
@@marianofernandez6470 WE WILL NOT FAIL ! NOOO !
@@marianofernandez6470 MY TAKTIC IZ STEAHL RAHN!
40k is kind of like one of those optical illusions that can either look like a fancy grail or a the faces of two people about to have the world's most awkward make out session.
You can have a laugh at the over the top absurdity of it all or give in to your inner edge lord and revel in the sheer spectacle of bad-assery. Or both.
Like one punch man or Lobo its parody via being one of the best examples of its genre.
Just have fun with it. Lord knows hard fans joke around with it more than anybody else
I think you're supposed to find it generally humorous how laughably comically bad the situation's always are, and the people taking the situations completely at face value either becomes very funny, or very inspirational
It basically the human spirit enduring the grim dark absurdity
That’s an excellent description. It’s always “you think that’s bad, then it got worse!”
@@starmaker75 Except it isn't. really. It's a satire of the human spirit, how bravery and loyalty get turned into brainwashed bigotry and religious zealotry taken to extreme levels.
@@peterclarke7240 Except you are completely wrong, as the very creators said it's not a satire, and for it to be a satire of the things you said you would have to ignore every other aspect of the setting that justifies, or at least lends reasonableness, to the IoM's behavior. It has some satirical elements, yes. It also has some silly, slapsticky humor. That does not make the whole a satirical work, nor does it make it a slapstick comedy. It's rule of cool in a grim dark setting, and it is pretty pathetic how insecure some people are that they have to ascribe satire or irony to it so they can feel it is sufficiently high brow to earn their esteem.
@@Wyqno Do you even understand what satire is?
Also, you are aware that 40k was envisaged as a satire of totalitarianism, Thatcherism and religious extremism, as well as many other isms?
It was designed by British people in the 80s. We specialise in satire, for crying out loud. It has a Hellworld called Birmingham, for goodness sake. The Orks basically are tabloid-reading football hooligans. There's a REASON they're able to believe things into existence based on absolutely no evidence.
I was a Rogue Trader player back before 2nd edn even existed, and you need to understand that the rulebook (the one with the Crimson Fists on the cover) was absolutely LITTERED with satirical quotes from the Imperium's perspective, and that satire continues in later additions, it just became a bit less obvious. More Starship Troopers than Judge Dredd (judge Dredd is also a satire. Did you know that? Probably not... Starship Troopers is, too. At least the film version is. I'll give you a second to digest that, as I imagine you're having a meltdown right now).
Basically, son, you haven't a clue what you're talking about, and it's interesting that you're accusing others who you have opinions that make you fill your nappy of being insecure... Do you have no self-awareness?
No, of course you don't. You actually think 40k isn't a satire.
*"Am I supposed to think Space Marines are laughable or badass?"*
Yes.
yahtzee: am i supposed to think space marines are laughable or badass?
the WH40K community: Yes!
6:55 - I was going to insert a hilarious Warhammer 40K here, but I ran out of space (marine).
John Spacemarine...
@@Kivanos and Horus Heresy 40.000
Created by Jimmy Space, ultimately the work of James Workshop.
Julius Caesar being played by a concrete mixer is such a brilliant way to refer to Roboute Guilliman that I can't stop giggling.
Guilliman isn’t in the game, you’re confusing him with Calgar. Guilliman would be a literal giant compared to an Astartes, plus that description was directed at Leandros
@@Harmonmj13 To be fair, since they are all sons of Guilliman, the comparison is still there.
I like how Yahtzee immediately identifies Warhammer's constant inability to decide whether it's a parody or not.
I played through SM1 in preparation to play SM2, and my biggest problem with that game is that the orks weren’t taking like orks. They called us “humans” and “space marines,” not “humies” and “beakies.”
As a fifty year old who cheered when Marneus Calgar arrived, I feel that was aimed in my direction 😂
Finally justice for the time Yhatz skipped Space Marine 1
All things considered, this is a highly positive review of SMII from Yahtzee.
"dumb fun game that knows what it is" is yahtzee's version of showering something in praise
Being unashamedly, unflinchingly itself is very respectable
"Big chunky dude who looks like Julius Caesar being played by a cement mixer" is now my favorite description of the Ultramarines in general.
I'm into Warhammer enough to have listened to an audio book or two, and my brother is super into the setting, which I clarify mostly to say that Yahtzee is 100% on-point observing that the setting both is ironic and is half-assed in its efforts to be ironic.
The biggest problem with the setting, IMO, is that it's trying to have its cake and eat it too, to get you genuinely invested in the same characters who are over-the-top, genocidal parodies. I respect that actually committing to the bit with parody and satire doesn't help sell the plastic wargame models, but that just makes all the parts of the setting only tolerable *as parody* feel really awkward coexisting with the things you're supposed to be genuinely invested in.
WH40K is ridiculous, over the top and hard to take seriously, but the residents of this universe are victims to those ludicrous extremes and have to take it seriously to survive the world they live in. So you get this amazing duality of a silly premise that doesn't take away from having genuinely interesting ideas, world building and stories. Thats its charm really, you can laugh at it and enjoy the moments it takes itself seriously and both are valid.
Space Marines are meant to be both badass and ridiculous. There are chapters who do the most counter-productive things to filter out new recruits and fans will never stop making fun of them for it
Then you have the Blood Ravens who are magpies.
Yep. There's guys who are literal vampires, guys who are Teutonic Knights that blatantly bend the rules in the name of killing aliens, the oddly-out-of-place nice guys who have no problem using flamethrowers all the time, guys who just have bad luck all the time for no reason other than it's funny, Viking guys, and so on. The problem is that GW only markets the one group of guys that was specifically designed to be the straight men in this comedy troupe to contrast with everyone else and licensed properties also suffer from that.
There's a goddamn " the satanic panic was a euphemism for what we do" legion. If you take Warhammer serious and can't grasp the irony I have to seriously wonder if you're just an actual fascist or have mental problems.
@@ZaydinTTV Magpies that totally aren't actually loyalist survivors of that one legion of chaos marines that also value secrets and happen to be full of naturally gifted psykers, and used to wear red...
White Scars, Iron Hands, and to some extent Raven Guard are diabolically under represented.
The badass/absurd of a batman Arkham style game except the stealth expert is Edgar Allen Monster truck Poe would be phenomenal
While he’s right that playing the first game does give important context, it also makes the halfway-through-the-game shift to fighting the thousand sons a WORSE twist.
The first game does the EXACT SAME THING, where a portion through the game the Xenos just abruptly die off and get replaced with Chaos Space Marines for the rest of the game but at least that time the Xenos boss has a badass send-off scene
“That’s really dumb! But he’s so cool! BUT THATS SO DUMB!”
The offhanded reference to the tyranids crawling over each other like the zombies in World War Z is appropriate given the devs used the tech from their World War Z game the tyranid swarms in Space Marine.
For a brit Yahtzee has a curious hole in knowledge when it comes to 2000AD comics where W40K directly takes its satire and edginess from. W40K is basically tabletop Judge Dredd or Nemesis: The Warlock game.
I would argue that over the years, GW has tried to shed that image mostly. Space Marines are no longer portrayed as the oppresive peacekeepers and hive scummer no longer look like they're listening to the Sex Pistols. That's also part of the problem: the series tries to emphasise extreme severity and and gravitas in a world that is just a carbon copy and played as a satire of all the wacky shit from most fantasy and sci-fi narratives of the 20th century. It's hard to recognize something from 2000AD when you do not have commissars executing guardsmen on screen but have everyone shouting how noble and heroic the guardsmen living up to their reputation as Cadians are.
@@DiggingForFacts Unless, of course, you play Necromunda. In which the 80s are very much alive and brightly-coloured mohawks are still the order of the day.
@@Solusist Fair point: at least that bit of 40K still has a lot of its original 80's weirdly themed gang vibe.
@@Meitti I think there was a period in the 90s where 2000AD went a bit obscure (they were trying to be more "adult" and presumably lost some of their younger market, and the 1995 Judge Dredd movie was a flop). I didn't realize how much 2000AD influenced GW until I started reading the comics in the 2010s after the good Dredd movie came out.
Yep, 40k pretty much stole (in a good way) a whole bunch of stuff from Rogue Trooper. Both in terms of designs and concepts.
Of course, that was back when 40k was brand new. Now it's almost entirely it's own thing.
What you said about having to pretend to recognize characters coming back from the previous game kind of reminds me of the big villain reveal at the end of Rainbow Six: Vegas 2. I was playing it co-op with a friend, who'd already played through the campaign, and when the villain's face is finally revealed, he's like "Remember this guy?", and no, no I did not. I had no idea what the hell he was talking about, and we'd never seen the character's actual face before, so the reveal was completely lost on me until my friend explained who it was.
3:03 i do remember that movie, its World war Z with Brad Pitt. WE ALL REMEMBER THAT MOVIE YHATZ
Yep that's what I thought of instantly when he said that, though I remember it more for the scene in Philadelphia when the break out happens.
I remember the scene, but I admit I went into the comments to figure out which specific huff of the '00s zombie media bag that came out of
I hope to forget. That movie was terrible.
Space Marine 2: "LOOK, IT'S THAT DUDE! YOU LIKE HIM, RIGHT? HERE HE IS WITH HIS ICONIC WEAPONS, SHOOTING TYRANIDS AND BEING COO--"
Me: "Heh heh. Dreadnaught yeet statue. :)"
Dreadnought ain't got no time for that Heldrake.
“The plot hinges too much on the last game and Warhammer 40k lore in general” Almost as if it’s a sequel. Imagine that
Screw The Escapist. Zero Punctuation is dead, long live Second Wind and our snarky boi Yahtzee.
Jimmy Space and His Space Marines!
I’m actually floored by the campaign / co-op mode being tied together. It’s brilliant. The only thing that would make it better is a DMCV style asynchronous co-op where you actually see other players doing their part of the mission in the background.
Prime example of where 40K lands on the cool/dumb spectrum from the wider lore;
During the kickoff of a massive galaxy wide civil war called the Horus Heresy (don't ask, we'll be here for hours, just roll with it), the leader of the Ultramarines, Roboute Guilliman, who is a combination of the Chapter's leader, dad and patron saint all rolled into one, was vented out into the vacuum of space without a helmet. Instead of, y'know, _dying,_ Guilliman decided his O² bar could best be maintained by punching Traitor Marines so hard their heads expolded. He proceeded to do this for several hours until the assault on the ship was broken and he finally calmed down enough to come back indoors.
Julius Caesar being played by a concrete mixer is by far the best way to define Marneus Calgar i've heard yet
Cool zenomorph kicks
Part of the charm of warhammer 40k is that as fans we know some things are dumb lord but they are a fun dumb lord that brings a laugh.
Well, you're not the only one who couldn't get a clear reading on the tone. When neo-nazis started showing up to tournaments, the creators had to make a public announcement reminding people that 40K is satire.
I guess you would have said similar things if you did review the previous space marine game, though with a less positive spin. Keep being awesome, sir.
Yahtzee: “Are Space Marines supposed to be unironically badass or satirically silly?”
40k fans: “Yes.”
My favourite piece of Ork lore is that the reason most their technology works is because they THINK it will work. They literally will creations to life through their psychic energy
Warhammer's mix of actual commentary, badass space soldiers and hilarious satire is what makes it so great.
Humanities strongest soldiers are both incredibly cool and indoctrinated weirdos who religiously worship a proto fascist telepath who was really quite shocked when his proto fascism turned into fascism and now he cant do much but sit there and angrily watch.
The emperor deciding that fascism, one of the most ineffective, religion obsessed and morally bankrupt forms of governance was the best way to create a morally good non-religious logic based human empire is one of the funniest bits to me.
Fascism is definitely not religion-obsessed. It's a secularist authoritarian ideology, much like Marxism (in practice, anyway). Coincidentally Mussolini was a former Marxist. Hitler was a guy who cynically subverted the Christian churches in Germany to make the religion about the state, literally supplanting Jesus in the process.
What's hilarious is how he presented himself as a godlike figure, denying that he was a god every step of the way, while festooning himself with golden armor and glowing swords and halos. The point is really that while it is comically over-the-top, that we humans are not that far away from committing comically over-the-top actions when stressed by enemies within and without. And that hypocrisy is inevitable in authoritarian states.
@@CrizzyEyes
You have NOT read your history, facsism and religion go hand in hand.
the imperium is a religious theocracy.
FFS not every bad regime is automaticly fascism.
I start to think people dont even know what the fuck fascism means anymore
The only people who call the Imperium fascist are those that have no idea what a fascist state looks like on the inside. You judge by looks, not by systems.
On an organizational level, religious level and state system level the Imperium is a Holy Roman Empire jacked up on extreme space steroids. The only thing that fits less in the HRE and more in any modern state is the over-the-top bureaucracy.
The Imperium is a feudal absolute theocracy, planets can rule themselves as long as they pay their tithes and follow the state religion (to the letter) thats the polar opposite of a fascist state, where central rule from one location is one of the important key components.
@@CrizzyEyes Nah. Every single fascist is obsessed with the occult like nobody else. From actual Nazis to todays Neonazis, they can't stop getting into Runes and weird prophecies and a divine calling and all that. They're as little secular as you can get without becoming an actual Theocracy.
I don't understand why absurd silliness and badass have to be mutually exclusive. Thats the draw for quite a few things, I've found.
Youre meant to simultaneously think space marines are both badass and ridiculous. Its a fascist empire of massively religious humans fighting for survival against a universe that hates them, it's all cool but its also all ridiculous and over the top.
Aye, the answer to which one is in almost all cases 'Yes.' Just maybe to differing degrees.
Very much this.
I mostly picked up on the barely submerged homoerotic themes with a religious bent.
There's more than one use for a bolt thrower.
>Fascist
>religious
Pick one. The former is a hyper rationalist materialism, the latter is the exact opposite.
@@stev3548 you genuinly don't know what you are talking about.
"So glaube ich heute im Sinne des allmächtigen Schöpfers zu handeln: Indem ich mich des Juden erwehre kämpfe ich für das Werk des Herrn." -Adolf Hitler
"I believe I act in the will of the allmighty creator: By resisting the jews I fight for the work of the lord" -Adolf Hitler
"Julius Ceasar played by a concrete mixer" is an amazing descriptor for Leandros.
According to the original creators of the setting, 40K was not intended to be satire, merely over the top sci fi that was a bit tongue in cheek. (Since people in the comments seem confused about that)
A bit tongue in cheek is a bit satire. Not a lot, but still a bit.
@@leadpaintchips9461 The only clear example of satire in the setting that has a real-world counterpart I can name at top of mind is the Orks being football hooligans. But stuff like an inquisitor named Obiwan Sherlock Clousseau is obviously just meant to be stupid fun.
Ghazghul is literally a riff on Margaret Thatcher, ie, Mag Uruk Thraka. Dark Angels whole, entire bit is a closet-gay joke. Satire is right in the bones of the setting
@@ambion19 Ghazkul is literally not, the guy who created him explained that it's just Tolkien's black speech for something like "big ork." Also I know where Dark Angels' name is from, but that's not satire either, obviously.
@@ambion19 The creators have come out and said that Ghazghul isn't a Thatcher ripoff, even though that's a hard pill to swallow.
To answer the initial question: the way I understand it, it's kinda supposed to be a "sum of it's parts" deal. You have a bunch of things that are designed to be cool thrown in with shit that's intended to be ridiculous. Like, the Adeptus Mechanicus have got that cool, creepy, body-horror cybernetics thing going on, but they're also basically just like, space crows? Like they've got all this horrifying tech and fucked up their bodies with cybernetics all in service of being better able to touch all the shiny things
Julius Ceaser being played by a concrete mixer is a perfect way to describe Calgar 😂
Yahtzee will never accept that Hans Giger and Hans Geiger were two different blokes.
Warhammer 40k is a very specific type of British tongue-in-cheek humor that was popular in the 80s.
See also 2000 AD, which shared a lot of writers and artists with Games Workshop.
So many people saying that 40k is satire because they're afraid of being judge for enjoying something someone else thinks is goofy.
Yes, 40k is goofy and takes itself super seriously. That's it's charm.
2:42 Typo in the on-screen dialogue text, video is literally unwatchable
unsub & shit myself to death
Glad I decided to Google "space marine review" because even though I know I don't like the game based on 5 minutes of playtime, I did find this channel and I believe it's fucken brilliant. Looking forward to binge videos on a hungover day
Jokes and irony aside, it's impressive that Yahtzee only realized at the end of the review that a Warhammer 40k game is directed towards Warhammer 40k fans
The times where the Guard literally bow to you and refer to you as the Emperor's Angels was kinda badass.
in a nutshell, Warhammer 40K is the tabletop game form of Arnold's "Commando".
5:20 understandable sentiment. Basically just consider him the sm equivalent of the kid who always asks the teacher about homework at the end of the day.
"Dear Princess Celestia . . ."
I thought he was talking about Calgar there, might be wrong tho because of the helmet
@@amanofnoreputation2164 savage
The film was World War Z, and it blew chunks. I have gained nothing in remembering it.
I was rather confused at choosing to remove Titus from the Deathwatch to return him to the Ultranoobs with their bright blue armor and then ALSO choose that your eventual Big Bads are the fucking Rubric Marines and THEIR bright blue armor, but now with Egyptian bits.
It's also doubly confusing how they chose to make a side story companion piece with six 'distinct' characters, but because THEY'RE all Ultraboobies, they're all the *same*. At least if we'd stuck with Deathwatch we'd have gotten people with different accents and potentially some actual fucking personality like the Space Wolf we only ever hear on comms in the first mission and then watch heroically die.
It's also not a "reveal" in that same mission to learn that the Deathwatch member we're playing as is Titus, his fucking face is prominently displayed on the 'box art.' We know who it is, game, you don't have to be coy in the subtitles by calling him 'Deathwatch Squad Leader' or w/e and putting a dumb filter on his voice.
I guess I figured the cliche they were going for was that you start out as a squad of unnamed badasses that all die horribly to establish how big of a threat the 'Nids were, so I was surprised to survive and actually be Titus haha.
While extremely badass, the problem with that would be that nobody that hasn't at least watched a few lore videos would have understood anything that happened. And i'm not saying that to come off as arrogant, it's just a unfortunate truth that Girlymans kids are still kinda the posterboys of 40k while the deathwatch are (if i remember correctly) one of the least played faction.
I feel like including the thousand sons as a enemy was already a gamble
@@rigel9228 If you're going to have Chaos Marines, Thousand Sons are the best choice. Emperor's Children would be more interesting, but that would get the game rated R18 immediately, so that's out. Death Guard are too tanky, so they would be boring opponents. World Eaters would be too similar to the Tyrranids in just rushing you. Night Lords wouldn't really suit a head on combat scenario. Your last options are Black Legion and Word Bearers, but they are quite generic. Alternatively, you could go for successor Warbands like the Red Corsairs, but they aren't really well known enough.
@malcolm_in_the_middle James Workshop seems to like it's games pretty heavily faction segregated, but I can see Word Bearers working if they can throw all different kinds of demons at you
@@malcolm_in_the_middle Death Guard aren't too tanky or that they would be boring opponents, the problem with Death Guard is that nearly every other 40K game has Nurgle worshippers as their enemies.
I'm a huge fan of Nurgle, but having them as every baddie ever does get tedious.
After following Yahtzee's reviews since 2008, I had a pretty good idea of how this review was gonna go before i even clicked the thumbnail.....and it went exactly how I thought it'd go hahaha
I am growing to despise irony, cynicism, apathy, satire, snark, and irreverence.
Everything is so utterly drenched in these things, why does _everything_ have to be terrified of anyone perceiving it as cringe or taking itself too seriously? What if I want to take it seriously?
I am absolutely STARVED for sincerity.
Agreed. It's sooooo easy to be critical / cynical / sarcastic / etc. Much harder to actually sincerely build something good.
That's also why even now, people still love Lord of the Rings for example.
@@lightworker2956 Absolutely, 100%.
it's also why absolutely no one is watching these new Star Wars or Hobbit movies and thinking "this is the greatest thing ever, i'm going to get these on dvd and 20 years from now i'll still be watching them, or any time i see them come on tv or notice it playing somewhere, i'll stop and just sit through the entire thing bc of how good it is."
4:08 Imagine revving a chainsaw in front of a Space Marine and him asking "what's that for?"
Being a Warhammer fan is annoying cause everytime you meet another Warhammer fan you gotta roll a dice and see if ”Is this guy in on the irony and the comments about fascism and how it grinds humanity into a pulp?” or ”This guy is an unironic actual nazi who think the imperium are the genuine good guys”.
This is the only franchise where people constantly feel the need to go “REMEMBER ITS SATIRE”
You don’t see people saying that to ppl who like the Empire in Star Wars or the COG or UNSC in Gears and Halo.
Idk where this sudden fear of apparent Nazis comes from.
@@negativezero8174 no, you kinda have to remind people that the Empire in Star Wars are literal stand ins for Nazis (which Andor at least for once REALLY beat people over the head with) and that the UNSC in Halo are clearly fascists who approve of child kidnapping programs to make super soldiers (before they even knew of the covenant) which tends to get forgotten between all the John Halo action.
@@Keasarr "no, you kinda have to remind people" You must be extremely fun to be around.
@@negativezero8174 lol, chud. Go cry into your Calgar bodypillow.
'Visually Spectacular'
Is a great description of W40K
For those of you wondering if Warhammer 40k is supposed to be taken seriously or not allow me to tell you the 100% cannon lore about space marine super poop.
When a space marine gets poisoned to the level that they will certainly die, they will instead go comatose and start violently trying to expel the poison from both end. There is a hatch designed into their power armor exclusively for this purpose. Thus space marine super poop.
I loved that the campagin was over in under 20 hours, but they clearly put a full games worth of effort packed in around the crazy new tech.
That moment when Titus is finally able to join a large force of Ultramarines and march into battle against a gigantic warp demon is an example of atmospheric brilliance even if the mission design was simplistic. The spectacle not fucking up with the crazy new tech running is the most important goal, especially for 40k.
I watched Luetin09's video on Titus before playing and I think that was pretty critical to enjoying the narrative, but I understand its important to let most of the audience skip the context if you want it to sell.
I wonder how Yhatzee reacted when he learned that if enough Orks believe something, that thing automatically becomes true.
Your description of Marneus Calgar should be written in stone to all eternity
If I've learned anything from watching fandoms like a birdwatcher watches... well, birds, it's that even when irony and satire are as obvious as the sun in the Sahara in mid-day, they either won't pick it up or actively ignore it. Goes a long way in explaining a lot of their opinions about the real world tbh.
40K is a universe where everyone is objectively terrible, and that makes them all much more likable. The irony is so over the top, that it can be enjoyed with sincerity.
It’s a great balance!
0:22 - exactly why I can't get into the series
I remember reading somewhere that the Orks were partially inspired by football hooligans lol
But we already fought them in Space Marine 1, Yahtzee.