@@andrewescocia2707 I remember being jealous as the Amiga version just aimed the gun in the direction you were pointed but in the PC version you could aim on the rectangle.
We had Quake 3 arena on all of ours with the .exe files disguised as various revision notes, changing the icons etc. The computing teachers asked us how we were playing that, but we would not tell them.
My brother did this, but I think it was gauntlet and games like that. When they figured out it was us I took off running lol. After that those teacher's were on my ass.
Let alone a video game. ;) I remember the one time Chris Stuckmann did a game review, well, let's just say that was the last game review he ever did. :P Welp, I like Oliver so let's see how he did. :) (Haven't watched it yet.)
Had a friend who was obsessed with the psx version of the game. I can't remember the number of times I came over to his place only to find him on his 4th or 5th try at a stage and ending up taking an hour or more to let him finish his current run.
I had the 2nd edition. I loved Games Workshop as a kid with pocket money but as an adult the 1000%+ markup on plastic and metal figurines and accessories has always been rough haha.
I remember seeing the 3do game in a magazine back in the mid 90s and thinking to myself "Games will never look better than this!" Good times. Great review. Do more games Oliver, this work well with your review/narration style.
Deathwing has the board game accurate difficulty option: if a genestealer touches you, you die. Don't know if I'd call it fun exactly, but with a full squad of players who speak the same language it's certainly and experience.
It creates an asymmetric strategy. The marines have more firepower than the genestealers. A stormbolter on overwatch can hold down an entire corridor alone. Marines have at least a 50-50 chance to win close combat, which isn't great when there can be three more genestealers piling on behind. Marines could kit out stormshields and power hammers if they liked to have a better chance but give up their ranged firepower. Genestealers in 2nd ed Warhammer could definitely rip a terminator apart. They're dang beasts with multiple attack dice and high Strength! Terminators who let a genestealer squad run up to them will die. Terminators don't have a pile of hp counting down, the norm for all infantry models is 1 Wound. If someone beats their Toughness and they fail their 3+ on a 2d6 (lowered by the high Strength of the tyranids) they die.
The PS1 space hulk left a pretty strong impression on me back then. I was quite happy to finally get Space Hulk DeathWing all these many years later. One of my fav online games to play, even if it does have some serious stuttering issues.
I remember attempting to play the original PC version of the game. Not an experience I enjoyed. I did enjoy playing Space Hulk and Space Crusade though. … and HeroQuest, of course. All of which sit proudly on my shelves to this day.
The 2016 Deathwing game actually got me into 40k its style and atmosphere was unlike anything I’d ever seen at the time and inspired me to build a PC lol. Both of which id say are my main hobbies. Grateful for its existence.
Just a note, I'm fairly certain the commander's mouth animtion going 100mph is due to the old games of this era being tied to the CPU clock. That's also why totally unpatched original copies of the game will have sped up chipmunk voices on a modern system as well. Sound's been fixed since, but not the animation.
I loved that 1993 game, it was tense as hell. Switching between marines to hold off the Tyranids was hard work Also I'm willing to defend Deathwing (the enhanced edition). Not the deepest game but the feel of the terminators and their weaponry was awesome
I had the Deathwing- Enhanced Edition on my wishlist on Steam and got when was on discount. I love it to bits. Sure it is not perfect, but the atmosphere from a FPS perspective is bang on. The details on the environment are simply breathtaking
The genestealers look pretty weak. It looked like they had been downgraded to little 'nids. As the genestealer player you had some limitations. You could keep sending in waves of genestealers, but you had to choose where to spawn them. The terminator player could wipe out an entire wave of them if you ran them right against a stormbolter on overwatch. You had to find dead angles and cover, or just try to run everyone up and make the terminators bolter overheat against the pile of corpses and hope there was enough left to get him.
@@SusCalvin Thing is, they kind of had to weaken the genestealers because of the numbers they throw at you in Deathwing, the addition of 'special' units and how they made autoguns and missile launchers of the hybrids deal crazy damage. That being said, the whole 'left for dead volume of enemies' thing is something of a downside to me and as the review mentioned, the essentially constant attacks by the 'stealers blows the tense atmosphere it could otherwise have. (And makes sealing doors almost pointless as new ones just spawn on your side of the doors immediately 89% of the time.)
@@Sorain1 That's what made 'stealers scary in the original game and kept things tense. They are dangerous things, a 'stealer is a huge multi-limbed clawed monster.
"Space Marine! Actress, Gina Davis has been stolen! Your mission, to destroy all the 'Gina Stealers'." "But Captain... surely because the Aliens steal our genes, like a parasite reminiscent of a famous movie creature which shall not be mentioned they should be called 'Gene..." "No! It's definitely a woman's name!"
Dimebag505 Dark Crusade nails the feel of 40K, though I found it tough as nails (especially when fighting Necrons or Chaos - the AI is a cheating bastard).
@@Ammoniumbicarbonat Dark Crusade is often considered the best expansion but it has the worst balancing issues of the Dawn of War 1 games, Dawn of War 2 is good and has good games across the board and I'd recommend Retribution to anyone new to 40K or Dawn of War, people criticize Dawn of War 2 for its smaller scale and lack of base building but its an apples to oranges scenario compared to Dawn of War 1, at any rate I'd recommend Dark Crusade or Retribution
I did actually have the mobile game, though not on an N-Gage, but on a regular feature phone. It did not have the first person mode, only the board game mode, but it worked really well. Back then, you would buy jar files online, so no physical copies existed.
You forgot Alien Assault, a faithful fan recreation of the original board game, which had its name changed under threat from Games Workshop : www.indiedb.com/games/alien-assault I still own all my original Space Hulk stuff. I worked at a RPG store in the early 90s & bought the entire game & all expansions on a 40% off sale one time. An awesome deal. But harder to get friends to play than something like Warhammer Quest which was my group's favorite.
Alien Assault actually released as Space Hulk a year and a half earlier. GW stamped that out on account of being an unlicensed fangame and the team tried to obtain a license in the proper manner but were rejected, leading to the rebranding.
4:50 : Actually, the Deathwing campaign in the game is its' own thing, original to the game and does not include missions from the Deathwing expansion. 8:25 : THQs Space Hulk did come out, I had a copy archived somewhere. However, the promised version with FPS mechanics seems to have never materialized
Yeah I had it on my Motorola v360, never had a Nokia N-gage myself so it's possible the FPS element was version specific and we missed it not like everyone was trying to archive stuff at the time yet.
A _magazine review_ of the Space Hulk console game of the mid-90s got me into Warhammer. I found a Games Workshop, flicked through the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook, and thought "wow, _this_ is where those genestealers come from!" Opinions of and interest in Games Workshop and their games have waxed and waned over the years, but I'll always have a soft spot for those pumpkin-headed Alien knockoffs.
I LOVED! Space Hulk Vengeance of the Blood Angels. I remember beating it and it took Forever! And so many play throughs. When I finally beat it I had to go run and tell my parents. They both weren’t impressed, lol. So glad I found this review of the games.
I bought Space Hulk for Amiga because I really liked the Space Crusade board game. Played for 10 minutes and got so scared that I didn't play it again for many months 😂
I completed the 3d0 game without cheat codes and I want to find that version for the pc because I miss it. The secret was to not continue if you lost one of your most decorated marines and just start that mission over. The more missions a marine gets through, the more stripes he gets. The more stripes a marine has, the more ass he can kick hand to hand without dying. When you have a lot of highly decorated marines the aliens don't seem so intimidating. You also have to use good strategy which is why it's so fun!
GREAT video man. LOVE that you started with the old board games! I think we're from the same era, I too played the Amiga one and loved it, still holds up as one of the best. Then it was PS1 for me, which was also awesome. After that I've not found one yet that captures the same incredible tense and tactical atmosphere, as the series seems to have lost something. Or maybe I've just not come across the right version yet?
I remember getting this game as a kid. It was tuned down for Germany, because they thought it was too brutal for us kids. The guns didn’t kill the enemies (at least that’s what 5he handbook said, which we obviously ignored) but created black holes and stuff, to throw the monsters back into the void. Aaah, good times 😁
That's an aspect that really ratchets up the tension, and is sadly missing from Deathwing. Space Marines are supposed to be bred and conditioned to have all fear and pain stamped out of them, and Terminators are supposed to be some of the toughest of the tough of their Chapters. Deathwing plays that 100% straight, resulting in the squad members being completely interchangeable and uninteresting, which kind of misses half the appeal of a cooperative horde shooter.
I liked Both of Full Control's Space Hulks (and completed both); the first I liked most as it was basically the board game which is what I was most familiar with. Space Hulk Tactics is my favourite of the bunch, but took me a while to get a hang of the changes (plus predetermined 'dice rolls') and a major gameplay revelation that only came late in my campaign: just shove a spare Terminator over a Genestealer Spawn point and prevent them from creating blips at critical sections.
Space Crusade was great, I still long for the days of imagination and that small world feeling and horror of reading the blurb on the back of the box. No RPG has captured that, especially today where TTRPG's are all comedy / slapstick even the spoopy ones. :(
due to them adding stats in Ascension the ability to detect genestealers was linked to your terminators Awareness stat normally the starting amount was enough to sense them (get the blip on the map) but sense genestealers also got semi randomised stats and abilities due to the new mutation system sometimes you could get a very sneaky one that could only be seen by line of sight
Special mention for the 40K video games Deathwatch (which is very much like turn based Space Hulk in many regards) though the maps are more open; Dawn of War II Retribution (which includes several missions set aboard a space hulk, and which like the original game offers options to play the mission with other factions like the Eldar or Imperial Guard); and Kill Team (where orks have repurposed part of a space hulk as an assault fortress, and where the player(s) discover the bowels are infested with tyrannids). This is completely aside from other video games inspired by Space Hulk (and/or Cameron's Aliens film more generally), of which there are quite a few!
Hi, I have the mobile game JAR file. It was released. It was a MIDP MIDlet. No physical release and not N-Gage specific though it should run on that. It's actually really good, it's just the regular boardgame, on a mobile.
I just saw on the PlayStation store (US) that both Deathwing & Tactics (PS4) are on sale as a bundle for $11.99 until October 1st, 2020. I've always been interested in this series and the price seems perfect especially after watching this video. Thumbs up so people can see this deal. Thanks!
Vengeance of the Blood Angels is probably my favorite. I liked the variety of fighting against Stealers, Hybrids, Magus, Patriarchs and even Chaos Marines, fighting against a mix of some of those really had to make you play carefully. I remember beating the PS1 version's campaign a few years back, hard as nails, especially mid- late game. Additional missions also don't pull many punches either. If I have one criticism for it, is that it can become disorienting to constantly switch between different Marines and cycling through the right commands. Also think it could of done well to have some sort of Splitscreen/ Multiplayer. I'd love to see a sequel/ spiritual successor to the game one day.
Space Hulk for 3D0 was what got me into Warhammer 40k. I was a HUGE fan of Alien and this reminded me of it, only with this crazy setting that felt so foreign to anything I'd ever seen or read in comics or books. I loved the 40k universe because it was dark, but wasn't the usual Space Capitalism Goes Awry. My mom's friend lived in a tiny apartment, so she took in her friend's kid and his girlfriend who were both 18 because we had an extra bedroom. They were the ones who showed me the actual tabletop of 40k. They also tried getting me into Magic the Gathering, but it wasnt my thing. 40k was just too good to resist though, so as a tween, I learned everything I could to try and play when they had invited a couple people over for games. They humored me I think, because I never died, but I had to have been bad lmfao. When I got older and way better at art was when I started really getting into it though, pretty much just because drawing 40k stuff is fun and really satisfying.
I was never into the whole WH40k stuff though I like the lore. I first played SH on the Amiga, then the 3DO. I bought the first SP on Steam in the 2010's and enjoyed it. Then I bought Ascension and got annoyed with the darkness and that you couldn't see the map so refunded it. Then a year later I decided to give Ascension another try and once I got used to it I loved it way more than the first modern one. Not knowing the layout of the map made the missions far more interesting. I got SH: Deathwing on Steam and loved the FPS look of it but found it too run & gun and a bit unplayable when you get swarmed. I would have loved to play it if it was slower paced and more tactical despite being a fps game. And although the graphics were beautiful, the sound was horrible. It just played sound files for weapon fire and generic wind sound file noises for air pressure. Nothing was location specific. So if you fire your gun in a massive cavernous chamber it sounds the same as if you are walking inside some claustrophobic metal pipe when in fact they should sound way different. I want game devs to take sound way, way more seriously. Then I bought SH: Tactics and thought the graphics were beautiful. But I stopped playing it because I got very frustrated by the fact that there are random warp gate portals everywhere. I found it difficult to formulate any tactics and allocate action points wisely when an enemy can just appear from a hole in the wall at lots of places. I just reinstalled Tactics and am giving it another try so hopefully the warpgate issue will be something I can look past.
Here's a bit of lessor known trivia. There was another Space Hulk style game called Dark Crusade. This was long before the RTS. The game was scrapped after only a few levels were made, some PC gamer magazines had a full page ad for it. Many of the FMV sequences were reused for Warhammer Final Liberation. It's hard to tell much from the screenshots. But I believe you were to play in a regular squad of Space Marines fighting Ork and Chaos forces.
Space Hulk II Vengeance of the Blood Angels will always be one of my favorite games of all time on the PS1. Careful planning, and trying my best to not lose a single squadmate. I ended finishing the campaign with zero deaths. Up until now, I was not able to find a Space Hulk game that brings that visceral feel of tight hallways crammed with unimaginable horror in every corner. Taking different perspectives of squadmates and ordering them to one point and pray they reach there in one piece. The recent Space Hulk and Space Hulk Tactics were okay but didn't satisfy my thirst for worthy successor for that game. The gimmick FPS cams kinda ticked me off. Deathwing, man there's so much potential but falls short.
Take me hat off to you I can remember getting it for the 3do console was maybe around 12-14 years old I think ,damm I sucked, was absolutely terrified of it remember struggling when you first encountered the chaos marines I think there called, that game had atmosphere in abundance
While not titled Space Hulk there are a number of other good games in the 40k universe, my favourite being Warhammer 40kk Inquisitor martyr and just released Warhammer 40k Space Wolf
I’ve got the original board game from 80s and the expansion set. I also had the mobile version on my phone back in 2009 ish. Used to play it on the way to work when mobile games were a fairly new thing. It was top down only view and played the same as board game was good. Was an old flip top Motorola phone lol.
Vengeance of the Blood angels is not nearly as hard once you realise you can parry 100% of the time if you input the command at the right moment in their animation. Parry -> Attack -> Win
The first amiga Space Hulk was insanely hard. I had a typical love-hate relationship with it. I loved the Space Hulk 2 for PC tho. Huge technological improvement.
I really enjoyed this episode man. I love Warhammer so when I saw you talking about Sapce Hulk, now that's my jam! Not gonna lie, didn't even know those older games existed...shame on me I guess.
Ah Space-Hulk.... I remember Seeing Vengeance of the Blood Angles on PS1.... I never played it since.... I was young back in 1995 and the Gene-stealers always scare me...... But when I started playing Dawn of War back in 2013 I grew a fascination with the Warhammer 40K universe, and learned Space-Hulk was in the same Universe.
It's funny. Over the years I've actually been getting into board games more than video games. Solo rules in board games really help make it fun even if you can't get a group together. Games like Decent,Sword And Sorcery,Star Trek Frontiers and of course, Gloomhaven,really have a good amount of depth . Always liked Space Hulk even though I've only played two of the video games.
Agreed. It's sometimes tough to get a crew together, especially with campaign styled games such as Descent. In that same vein of Descent, I've been playing Imperial Assault solo for a bit and having a good time both with the App and with the Automated Imperial variants.
@@batmandalorian5504 Yes. Imperial Assault is a good game. Just like Descent was a fantasy version of the Doom board game,Assault is a Sci Fi version of Descent with some streamlining. I played it with my 15 year old cousin and he liked it. I still like Star Trek Frontiers the best when it comes to Sci Fi games,it plays great solo,but Assault is fun. For best App use in a board game you should try Lord Of The Rings Journey In Middle Earth. Really well done combo of video game elements with a board game. If only you could combine the best elements of Descent with Sword And Sorcery and Gloomhaven you'd have an RPG board game that would be better than almost any video game RPG.
@@kellinwinslow1988 Yep Doom > D1 > D2 > IA >Doom2016 family. I played some Descent 2 and painted the minis for my friend who owns it, but I didn't like it quite as much as IA. I think the IA system "feels" a little less clunky than D2 due to the Dodge roll compared to the Miss in Descent. I recently completed my collection of Imperial Assault so I'm not in place where I can start investing in another FFG expansion-heavy game, but I do think LotR looks cool and I would like to play it. I don't have a problem with Apps in board games per se as long as the game can function without the App. That is another reason why I enjoy IA; the App is not essential for the game to work. It just allows yet another way to play. I think it is mandatory in LotR, which is slightly off-putting to me.
@@batmandalorian5504 I've never played 1st edition Descent so I can't say anything about it. In fact the first time I ever played Descent was this year so I'm a bit late to the party. 1st edition is really hard to find now,at least at a price I would pay. Kind of like trying to get Battlestar Galactica. That's a game I wish wasn't out of print. I really enjoy 2nd edition though. Have about half of the expansions for it and it plays pretty smoothly. Set up is also faster than Gloomhaven I can say that for sure after playing both. I use the app for Descent as well and it works pretty good for solo play. Yes Lord Of The Rings needs the app. It's a bit of a shame and I was hesitant about getting it but I'm glad I did. It really brings it to life and cuts down on a lot of busy work so you can get into the game faster. It may be true that it won't be around forever but the amount of time I've played it more than makes up for it.
I still have my first edition Space hulk with the Genstealer and deathwing expansions, i also have a book that was released that added rule sets for additional races, i have fond memories of pitting my Grey knight squad against my friends Chaos terminators, and back then Grey knights were stupidly broken so campaign only ever allowed a 5 man squad of them.
*I HAVE SHORT HAIR* *AND I 'M FACED WITH A FEW COMPL-EE-CAY-TIONS~* Sorry, sorry, couldn't resist the Deathwing trailer music reference. Nice to see you covering videogames for once, though.
The PC version of Space Hulk introduced me to Spaces Marines, which at that time i mistook for Colonial Marines from Aliens. The first time i read the name i thought it was a gamma guy from space that turns into a purple 4 armed monster instead of a green man. At first the image of the Terminators gave me some security and assurance until i saw the Terminators droping like flies at the (multiple) hands of the Genestealers
My brother still has the old board game and the extension packs. Still love it. Still don't get how the genstealers can rip through all that armour lol. And as they can why do the humans bother?
That comes from the wider lore. The Terminator armor wasn't specifically made for the hulks but rather to have infantry fight with the power of tanks. And though the spacehulk games overwhelmingly feature gene stealers, there can also be many, many different other creatures on board of these things which stand no chance of really dealing with terminator armor. As such, the games portray something of a worst case scenario.
Very well made run through of all the games. I’ve played them all , and although I like everyone , my favourite is still the one for the Amiga 500 , closely followed by Deathwing. As a sidenote , I also like Space marine for PC. I know it’s more of a space crusade game , but it fills some of the holes in my inner 12-year old boys action thirst. Thx for upload my good man.
I really liked spacehulk deathwing, everything about it oozed 40k lore. It does lack some greater sense of purpose compared to other games but it’s format is closer to left4dead than anything else and the teammate AI is remarkably reliable. Overall it’s better than suggested.
I played the old 1993 game a lot back on my ancient 386 but never made it too far. I remember playing a demo from a PC Zone cover disk that featured a pretty good (for the time) animated sequence of a boarding craft being launched at the hulk from the marine ship; I was disappointed to see that it didn't seem to have made it to the full game.
I loved the original Amiga version. Rock hard due to RNG. I'm sure I finished it though. Last mission had lightning claw and thunder shield termies. All the combat was a dice roll so I remember having to repeat missions over and over. None of the later games have grabbed me much unfortunately
Ironically space hulk Vengeance of the blood angels (ps1) was made me fall in love with 40k. And yes after spending 100's of hours in the game I earned my medal. It was so challenging and intense that when I won and only I and either Aradiel or Asmodie made it off the half I had to do a celebration dance. So yeah my first 40k army was Blood Angels which I gifted to my little brother and he still plays. The intensity and constant attention to my environment made me fall in love with the living nightmare that was Vengeance of the Blood Angels
I had the Amiga version of the game, but never worked out how to play it (without just dying really quickly). I don't think it was evident to me (as a child) that it was meant as a game of strategy rather than action, and it would be a few years before I picked up concepts like 'overwatch' from playing other GW games. I did more recently play Templar Battleforce on Steam though, which is not a GW game (different setting, different lore) but is clearly part of the same genre established by Space Hulk (squad of armoured super-warriors who have to slowly move around a map and make carefully use of reaction attacks to survive against a more numerous enemy).
Thank you for a great review. I played the boardgame for years but also switched to the computer version due to games taking forever to set up and forgetting the rules. I have not played Tactics yet, but my clear fave is Ascension. I use the games video options to make the game a bit more visible. I like that it is hard to play but I also make sure to build up my spacemarines with skills before going for the top levels. You can custom your mission, which is a nice touch. Can´t wait to play Tactics! :)
I played this one with my cousins and brother and we had a BLAST! This was their gateway to 40K so it was worth every penny to me :) It was basically "Hey guys, look at this ridiculous game that's kinda like Broforce. Except you play as these ork guys... you'll love them!" And they did. So then they played Space Marine 1 for more orks. Just in time for us to play Space Marine 2 when it came out. And now one of them even just finished the tutorial of Rogue Trader so we can play that together!
'Space Hulk' on the Amiga was the first game i ever completed. There was a bug on disk 2 that froze the game after completing one of the levels. I had to send it to EA and they rewrote it for me. I thiught they'd replace the dusk itself, but they didn't.
I was actually a big fan of the Space Hulk: Ascension game. It was my introduction to the series (but I have played other 40k games before) and I loved the hardcore atmosphere. And now you can't even purchase it anymore, what a shame!
I bought 1995's Blood Angels with my first PC along with Duke 3D. It looked great and I liked the animations but I could never figure out how to play it. I bought Deathwing at a Steam sale a couple of months ago but I haven't played it yet.
Blood Bowl is where it's at! Always been my go to GW game, physical or digital. Rue the day if you ever meet my halfling team on the field!! "For cake and fizzy pop"!!
I know I'm a bit late to the party here, but this only just came up on my recommendations, and I thought I'd add a little. The Space Hulk mobile game was released, but not in the form that you showed. It was a top down, turn-based strategy game (that looked like your screen shots, just minus the FPS element) and played... alright, if a bit slow. I don't know what platforms it was released on other than Symbian, as that's what I had it on. Hope that helps in a way, 2 years after the fact? lol
I loved the 3DO version - one of many great titles on that system. I played for hours. The names of comrades was great. Challenging but engaging - planning and playing (FPS). Eerie atmosphere. Hard to play with the D pad; clunky. I’d play a revamp of it.
A very good retrospective here Oliver. I just wanted to add a note about Tactics, the servers across all platforms were taken down within 6 months of the launch of the game with no word as to why, from what I could see, which annoyed me and a friend, who both bought it for the intention of playing against each other, deeply disappointing.
Doing a bit different can be a blessing or a curse depending on the execution. Personally, I still think the Mordheim setting would make for a great setting for a action rpg like Diablo or a group RPG like Baldurs Gate 3, where you can either lead a small group around your character or go multi-player with different players characters... with a pvp option to compete against other player groups for experience and loot.
Ahhh you were the one person who bought a 3DO lol. I had every console growing up back then in America and knew kids who had like a Pc engine (turbo grafx here) but I never ever met any kid who owned a 3DO. Later in life I knew one guy who said he owned one as a kid, and that was because his parents were very rich so I was totally not surprised they would buy him one of those $900+ consoles. I do remember getting the PlayStation version of the 3DO space hulk and loving it, I was a huge space hulk fan and had the board game and the original ms-dos game when it came out. Also I prefer the PlayStation 1 version of space hulk to the 3DO. The music and sound effects of the genestealers just sounds so much better to me. I can’t stand the sound of the genestealers in the newest space hulk enhanced edition on Steam. Maybe the Ps1 version of space hulk was easier because I don’t remember it being that difficult. It’s possible they made it easier over the 3DO original version. Also really sad space hulk and ascension were both removed from Steam, I have no idea why.
Terminators aren't weaklings. It's the genestealers who are darn beasts! The way armour negation and attacks worked in 2nd ed, it's not unlikely that a genestealer can rip a terminator apart. If the terminator allows the genestealer to get close, that is. Inside the terminator suit is a normal marine, like a squad full of veteran sergeants. They got 1 Wound like most other infantry models. More Toughness than a baseline human. 3+ armour save with 2d6, but high-Strength weapons (like genestealer claws) could reduce that and those buggers have multiple attacks. A genestealer is a dang beast in close combat, this is exactly the environment they were created for. There was rules for using other factions in your Space Hulk game, fan-made or White Dwarf submissions. You could send in guard stormtroopers into space hulks. They could walk two abreast, turned a bit easier and two ranks could fire at once.
Close combat in vengance of the Blood Angels was completely broken. You just had to hammer the attack button fast enough and you would autowin every time. Obviously only works when the player is in control though.
In the early 90s I bought a pc gaming magazine with a demo of space hulk, installed it on all the school computers, it was a golden age.
3.5 floppy or was it a cd?
@@andrewescocia2707 I remember being jealous as the Amiga version just aimed the gun in the direction you were pointed but in the PC version you could aim on the rectangle.
We put StarCraft on ours lol
We had Quake 3 arena on all of ours with the .exe files disguised as various revision notes, changing the icons etc.
The computing teachers asked us how we were playing that, but we would not tell them.
My brother did this, but I think it was gauntlet and games like that. When they figured out it was us I took off running lol. After that those teacher's were on my ass.
Never thought I'd ever see 40k on this channel.
This channel has 181k
Let alone a video game. ;) I remember the one time Chris Stuckmann did a game review, well, let's just say that was the last game review he ever did. :P Welp, I like Oliver so let's see how he did. :) (Haven't watched it yet.)
Never thought this channel would do a critique of video games.
Yeah, I'm painting space marines and decide to give the 40k lore videos a break and see what Oliver Harper is up to... SPACE MARINES!
@@DeltaAssaultGaming
Warhammer 181k
Had a friend who was obsessed with the psx version of the game. I can't remember the number of times I came over to his place only to find him on his 4th or 5th try at a stage and ending up taking an hour or more to let him finish his current run.
Stressful to watch I imagine? lol
Most excellent retrospective Sir! I have Space Hulk on PS4 if you do ever fancy a game online?
Make sure its recorded 👌 would love to see it
Sounds good mate!
K Phizzle great idea
A message from the king!
E-celebs, the scourge of YT.
I had the 2nd edition. I loved Games Workshop as a kid with pocket money but as an adult the 1000%+ markup on plastic and metal figurines and accessories has always been rough haha.
I remember seeing the 3do game in a magazine back in the mid 90s and thinking to myself "Games will never look better than this!" Good times. Great review. Do more games Oliver, this work well with your review/narration style.
Thanks, Dirk!
Loved the tabletop game! I even customized the rules so I could play solo.
Do you have those rules anywhere I can download them?
There were solo play rules in the Deathwing expansion for 1st.
Deathwing has the board game accurate difficulty option: if a genestealer touches you, you die. Don't know if I'd call it fun exactly, but with a full squad of players who speak the same language it's certainly and experience.
It creates an asymmetric strategy. The marines have more firepower than the genestealers. A stormbolter on overwatch can hold down an entire corridor alone. Marines have at least a 50-50 chance to win close combat, which isn't great when there can be three more genestealers piling on behind. Marines could kit out stormshields and power hammers if they liked to have a better chance but give up their ranged firepower.
Genestealers in 2nd ed Warhammer could definitely rip a terminator apart. They're dang beasts with multiple attack dice and high Strength! Terminators who let a genestealer squad run up to them will die. Terminators don't have a pile of hp counting down, the norm for all infantry models is 1 Wound. If someone beats their Toughness and they fail their 3+ on a 2d6 (lowered by the high Strength of the tyranids) they die.
The PS1 space hulk left a pretty strong impression on me back then. I was quite happy to finally get Space Hulk DeathWing all these many years later. One of my fav online games to play, even if it does have some serious stuttering issues.
Yes yes yes! such an amazing board game! nice to see you looking at this stuff. That Amiga version was HARD! (nice music though)
Olive Harper making Warhammer videis, now that was unexpected
I remember attempting to play the original PC version of the game. Not an experience I enjoyed.
I did enjoy playing Space Hulk and Space Crusade though.
… and HeroQuest, of course. All of which sit proudly on my shelves to this day.
Mine are in a loft or garage awaiting rediscovery lol.
Nice change of pace. More reviews like this to compliment the movie reviews would be fine by me
The 2016 Deathwing game actually got me into 40k its style and atmosphere was unlike anything I’d ever seen at the time and inspired me to build a PC lol. Both of which id say are my main hobbies. Grateful for its existence.
Just a note, I'm fairly certain the commander's mouth animtion going 100mph is due to the old games of this era being tied to the CPU clock. That's also why totally unpatched original copies of the game will have sped up chipmunk voices on a modern system as well. Sound's been fixed since, but not the animation.
I loved that 1993 game, it was tense as hell. Switching between marines to hold off the Tyranids was hard work
Also I'm willing to defend Deathwing (the enhanced edition). Not the deepest game but the feel of the terminators and their weaponry was awesome
I had the Deathwing- Enhanced Edition on my wishlist on Steam and got when was on discount. I love it to bits. Sure it is not perfect, but the atmosphere from a FPS perspective is bang on. The details on the environment are simply breathtaking
The genestealers look pretty weak. It looked like they had been downgraded to little 'nids.
As the genestealer player you had some limitations. You could keep sending in waves of genestealers, but you had to choose where to spawn them. The terminator player could wipe out an entire wave of them if you ran them right against a stormbolter on overwatch. You had to find dead angles and cover, or just try to run everyone up and make the terminators bolter overheat against the pile of corpses and hope there was enough left to get him.
@@SusCalvin Thing is, they kind of had to weaken the genestealers because of the numbers they throw at you in Deathwing, the addition of 'special' units and how they made autoguns and missile launchers of the hybrids deal crazy damage. That being said, the whole 'left for dead volume of enemies' thing is something of a downside to me and as the review mentioned, the essentially constant attacks by the 'stealers blows the tense atmosphere it could otherwise have. (And makes sealing doors almost pointless as new ones just spawn on your side of the doors immediately 89% of the time.)
@@Sorain1 That's what made 'stealers scary in the original game and kept things tense. They are dangerous things, a 'stealer is a huge multi-limbed clawed monster.
I forget how much I appreciate your uploads, then I see one and lose my shit
"Space Marine! Actress, Gina Davis has been stolen! Your mission, to destroy all the 'Gina Stealers'."
"But Captain... surely because the Aliens steal our genes, like a parasite reminiscent of a famous movie creature which shall not be mentioned they should be called 'Gene..."
"No! It's definitely a woman's name!"
Must thought I'd point out there is someone named Rupley in the patron section of the video. . .Rupley. . .
The Dawn of War games are really good too, especially the later version where you can play a version of risk
Even III? I heard it was badly designed.
3 is ok, but still prefer the first one and the add ons
Dimebag505 Dark Crusade nails the feel of 40K, though I found it tough as nails (especially when fighting Necrons or Chaos - the AI is a cheating bastard).
@@Ammoniumbicarbonat Dark Crusade is often considered the best expansion but it has the worst balancing issues of the Dawn of War 1 games, Dawn of War 2 is good and has good games across the board and I'd recommend Retribution to anyone new to 40K or Dawn of War, people criticize Dawn of War 2 for its smaller scale and lack of base building but its an apples to oranges scenario compared to Dawn of War 1, at any rate I'd recommend Dark Crusade or Retribution
I did actually have the mobile game, though not on an N-Gage, but on a regular feature phone. It did not have the first person mode, only the board game mode, but it worked really well. Back then, you would buy jar files online, so no physical copies existed.
You forgot Alien Assault, a faithful fan recreation of the original board game, which had its name changed under threat from Games Workshop :
www.indiedb.com/games/alien-assault
I still own all my original Space Hulk stuff. I worked at a RPG store in the early 90s & bought the entire game & all expansions on a 40% off sale one time. An awesome deal. But harder to get friends to play than something like Warhammer Quest which was my group's favorite.
Alien Assault actually released as Space Hulk a year and a half earlier. GW stamped that out on account of being an unlicensed fangame and the team tried to obtain a license in the proper manner but were rejected, leading to the rebranding.
Oh yeah Alien Assault was the best. It's a shame they didn't finish the sequel.
4:50 : Actually, the Deathwing campaign in the game is its' own thing, original to the game and does not include missions from the Deathwing expansion.
8:25 : THQs Space Hulk did come out, I had a copy archived somewhere. However, the promised version with FPS mechanics seems to have never materialized
Yeah I had it on my Motorola v360, never had a Nokia N-gage myself so it's possible the FPS element was version specific and we missed it not like everyone was trying to archive stuff at the time yet.
Just FYI, a really good non-licensed version of this is Templar Battleforce, on phones and Steam.
Cool! Thanks for letting me know.
A _magazine review_ of the Space Hulk console game of the mid-90s got me into Warhammer. I found a Games Workshop, flicked through the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook, and thought "wow, _this_ is where those genestealers come from!" Opinions of and interest in Games Workshop and their games have waxed and waned over the years, but I'll always have a soft spot for those pumpkin-headed Alien knockoffs.
I absolutely loved the sega saturn space hulk game from the 90s. That was my first introduction to warhammer
I LOVED! Space Hulk Vengeance of the Blood Angels. I remember beating it and it took Forever! And so many play throughs. When I finally beat it I had to go run and tell my parents. They both weren’t impressed, lol. So glad I found this review of the games.
I bought Space Hulk for Amiga because I really liked the Space Crusade board game. Played for 10 minutes and got so scared that I didn't play it again for many months 😂
I completed the 3d0 game without cheat codes and I want to find that version for the pc because I miss it. The secret was to not continue if you lost one of your most decorated marines and just start that mission over. The more missions a marine gets through, the more stripes he gets. The more stripes a marine has, the more ass he can kick hand to hand without dying. When you have a lot of highly decorated marines the aliens don't seem so intimidating. You also have to use good strategy which is why it's so fun!
GREAT video man. LOVE that you started with the old board games! I think we're from the same era, I too played the Amiga one and loved it, still holds up as one of the best. Then it was PS1 for me, which was also awesome. After that I've not found one yet that captures the same incredible tense and tactical atmosphere, as the series seems to have lost something. Or maybe I've just not come across the right version yet?
I remember getting this game as a kid. It was tuned down for Germany, because they thought it was too brutal for us kids. The guns didn’t kill the enemies (at least that’s what 5he handbook said, which we obviously ignored) but created black holes and stuff, to throw the monsters back into the void. Aaah, good times 😁
The panicked radio shatter and blood curdling screams from Vengeance of the Blood Angels has stuck with me all these years later.
That's an aspect that really ratchets up the tension, and is sadly missing from Deathwing. Space Marines are supposed to be bred and conditioned to have all fear and pain stamped out of them, and Terminators are supposed to be some of the toughest of the tough of their Chapters. Deathwing plays that 100% straight, resulting in the squad members being completely interchangeable and uninteresting, which kind of misses half the appeal of a cooperative horde shooter.
I liked Both of Full Control's Space Hulks (and completed both); the first I liked most as it was basically the board game which is what I was most familiar with. Space Hulk Tactics is my favourite of the bunch, but took me a while to get a hang of the changes (plus predetermined 'dice rolls') and a major gameplay revelation that only came late in my campaign: just shove a spare Terminator over a Genestealer Spawn point and prevent them from creating blips at critical sections.
Thanks for the new video Oliver. I love all your videos! Anyone play the Nightmare combination board /VHS game back in the early 90’s?
Space Crusade was great, I still long for the days of imagination and that small world feeling and horror of reading the blurb on the back of the box. No RPG has captured that, especially today where TTRPG's are all comedy / slapstick even the spoopy ones. :(
"Death has walked here!"
I'll take that medal. Suffered through the SH2 campaign at the age of 15. Tough as nails but extremely rewarding.
due to them adding stats in Ascension the ability to detect genestealers was linked to your terminators Awareness stat normally the starting amount was enough to sense them (get the blip on the map) but sense genestealers also got semi randomised stats and abilities due to the new mutation system sometimes you could get a very sneaky one that could only be seen by line of sight
still playing the 3DO Space Hulk. I need to start the PS Vita version.
Special mention for the 40K video games Deathwatch (which is very much like turn based Space Hulk in many regards) though the maps are more open; Dawn of War II Retribution (which includes several missions set aboard a space hulk, and which like the original game offers options to play the mission with other factions like the Eldar or Imperial Guard); and Kill Team (where orks have repurposed part of a space hulk as an assault fortress, and where the player(s) discover the bowels are infested with tyrannids).
This is completely aside from other video games inspired by Space Hulk (and/or Cameron's Aliens film more generally), of which there are quite a few!
I had that mysterious phone version of the game! I can't remember much, but I recall being surprised at how good it was.
Hi, I have the mobile game JAR file. It was released. It was a MIDP MIDlet. No physical release and not N-Gage specific though it should run on that. It's actually really good, it's just the regular boardgame, on a mobile.
Looks like you can get it here. Probably can run on Android using J2ME Runner
dedomil.net/games/1465/category/1
I just saw on the PlayStation store (US) that both Deathwing & Tactics (PS4) are on sale as a bundle for $11.99 until October 1st, 2020. I've always been interested in this series and the price seems perfect especially after watching this video. Thumbs up so people can see this deal. Thanks!
I loved Heroquest as a kid.
Vengeance of the Blood Angels is probably my favorite. I liked the variety of fighting against Stealers, Hybrids, Magus, Patriarchs and even Chaos Marines, fighting against a mix of some of those really had to make you play carefully. I remember beating the PS1 version's campaign a few years back, hard as nails, especially mid- late game. Additional missions also don't pull many punches either.
If I have one criticism for it, is that it can become disorienting to constantly switch between different Marines and cycling through the right commands. Also think it could of done well to have some sort of Splitscreen/ Multiplayer.
I'd love to see a sequel/ spiritual successor to the game one day.
Space Hulk for 3D0 was what got me into Warhammer 40k. I was a HUGE fan of Alien and this reminded me of it, only with this crazy setting that felt so foreign to anything I'd ever seen or read in comics or books. I loved the 40k universe because it was dark, but wasn't the usual Space Capitalism Goes Awry.
My mom's friend lived in a tiny apartment, so she took in her friend's kid and his girlfriend who were both 18 because we had an extra bedroom. They were the ones who showed me the actual tabletop of 40k. They also tried getting me into Magic the Gathering, but it wasnt my thing.
40k was just too good to resist though, so as a tween, I learned everything I could to try and play when they had invited a couple people over for games. They humored me I think, because I never died, but I had to have been bad lmfao. When I got older and way better at art was when I started really getting into it though, pretty much just because drawing 40k stuff is fun and really satisfying.
I was never into the whole WH40k stuff though I like the lore.
I first played SH on the Amiga, then the 3DO.
I bought the first SP on Steam in the 2010's and enjoyed it.
Then I bought Ascension and got annoyed with the darkness and that you couldn't see the map so refunded it.
Then a year later I decided to give Ascension another try and once I got used to it I loved it way more than the first modern one. Not knowing the layout of the map made the missions far more interesting.
I got SH: Deathwing on Steam and loved the FPS look of it but found it too run & gun and a bit unplayable when you get swarmed. I would have loved to play it if it was slower paced and more tactical despite being a fps game. And although the graphics were beautiful, the sound was horrible. It just played sound files for weapon fire and generic wind sound file noises for air pressure. Nothing was location specific. So if you fire your gun in a massive cavernous chamber it sounds the same as if you are walking inside some claustrophobic metal pipe when in fact they should sound way different. I want game devs to take sound way, way more seriously.
Then I bought SH: Tactics and thought the graphics were beautiful. But I stopped playing it because I got very frustrated by the fact that there are random warp gate portals everywhere. I found it difficult to formulate any tactics and allocate action points wisely when an enemy can just appear from a hole in the wall at lots of places.
I just reinstalled Tactics and am giving it another try so hopefully the warpgate issue will be something I can look past.
Here's a bit of lessor known trivia. There was another Space Hulk style game called Dark Crusade. This was long before the RTS. The game was scrapped after only a few levels were made, some PC gamer magazines had a full page ad for it. Many of the FMV sequences were reused for Warhammer Final Liberation.
It's hard to tell much from the screenshots. But I believe you were to play in a regular squad of Space Marines fighting Ork and Chaos forces.
I distinctly remember playing Space Hulk in an old Pre-Smart phone. I think a Sony W810i?
Enjoyed it a lot for a small phone game.
Space Hulk II Vengeance of the Blood Angels will always be one of my favorite games of all time on the PS1. Careful planning, and trying my best to not lose a single squadmate. I ended finishing the campaign with zero deaths. Up until now, I was not able to find a Space Hulk game that brings that visceral feel of tight hallways crammed with unimaginable horror in every corner. Taking different perspectives of squadmates and ordering them to one point and pray they reach there in one piece. The recent Space Hulk and Space Hulk Tactics were okay but didn't satisfy my thirst for worthy successor for that game. The gimmick FPS cams kinda ticked me off. Deathwing, man there's so much potential but falls short.
Take me hat off to you I can remember getting it for the 3do console was maybe around 12-14 years old I think ,damm I sucked, was absolutely terrified of it remember struggling when you first encountered the chaos marines I think there called, that game had atmosphere in abundance
hardest and scariest game I ever played
Great to watch during breakfast. Have you played the "Shrieks and Creaks" board game?
This was my introduction to Warhammer 40k. I have been there for the most part from then on.
Seeing a review of a game I worked on on your channel is funny : D
Great review as usual !
What! Which version did you work on?
@@OliverHarper Space Hulk Deathwing, I'm sound designer / composer at Streumon studio :)
While not titled Space Hulk there are a number of other good games in the 40k universe, my favourite being Warhammer 40kk Inquisitor martyr and just released Warhammer 40k Space Wolf
I’ve got the original board game from 80s and the expansion set. I also had the mobile version on my phone back in 2009 ish. Used to play it on the way to work when mobile games were a fairly new thing. It was top down only view and played the same as board game was good. Was an old flip top Motorola phone lol.
Vengeance of the Blood angels is not nearly as hard once you realise you can parry 100% of the time if you input the command at the right moment in their animation. Parry -> Attack -> Win
The first amiga Space Hulk was insanely hard. I had a typical love-hate relationship with it. I loved the Space Hulk 2 for PC tho. Huge technological improvement.
I really enjoyed this episode man. I love Warhammer so when I saw you talking about Sapce Hulk, now that's my jam! Not gonna lie, didn't even know those older games existed...shame on me I guess.
Ah Space-Hulk.... I remember Seeing Vengeance of the Blood Angles on PS1.... I never played it since.... I was young back in 1995 and the Gene-stealers always scare me...... But when I started playing Dawn of War back in 2013 I grew a fascination with the Warhammer 40K universe, and learned Space-Hulk was in the same Universe.
It's funny. Over the years I've actually been getting into board games more than video games. Solo rules in board games really help make it fun even if you can't get a group together. Games like Decent,Sword And Sorcery,Star Trek Frontiers and of course, Gloomhaven,really have a good amount of depth . Always liked Space Hulk even though I've only played two of the video games.
Agreed. It's sometimes tough to get a crew together, especially with campaign styled games such as Descent. In that same vein of Descent, I've been playing Imperial Assault solo for a bit and having a good time both with the App and with the Automated Imperial variants.
@@batmandalorian5504 Yes. Imperial Assault is a good game. Just like Descent was a fantasy version of the Doom board game,Assault is a Sci Fi version of Descent with some streamlining. I played it with my 15 year old cousin and he liked it. I still like Star Trek Frontiers the best when it comes to Sci Fi games,it plays great solo,but Assault is fun. For best App use in a board game you should try Lord Of The Rings Journey In Middle Earth. Really well done combo of video game elements with a board game.
If only you could combine the best elements of Descent with Sword And Sorcery and Gloomhaven you'd have an RPG board game that would be better than almost any video game RPG.
@@kellinwinslow1988 Yep Doom > D1 > D2 > IA >Doom2016 family. I played some Descent 2 and painted the minis for my friend who owns it, but I didn't like it quite as much as IA. I think the IA system "feels" a little less clunky than D2 due to the Dodge roll compared to the Miss in Descent. I recently completed my collection of Imperial Assault so I'm not in place where I can start investing in another FFG expansion-heavy game, but I do think LotR looks cool and I would like to play it. I don't have a problem with Apps in board games per se as long as the game can function without the App. That is another reason why I enjoy IA; the App is not essential for the game to work. It just allows yet another way to play. I think it is mandatory in LotR, which is slightly off-putting to me.
@@batmandalorian5504 I've never played 1st edition Descent so I can't say anything about it. In fact the first time I ever played Descent was this year so I'm a bit late to the party. 1st edition is really hard to find now,at least at a price I would pay. Kind of like trying to get Battlestar Galactica. That's a game I wish wasn't out of print. I really enjoy 2nd edition though. Have about half of the expansions for it and it plays pretty smoothly. Set up is also faster than Gloomhaven I can say that for sure after playing both. I use the app for Descent as well and it works pretty good for solo play.
Yes Lord Of The Rings needs the app. It's a bit of a shame and I was hesitant about getting it but I'm glad I did. It really brings it to life and cuts down on a lot of busy work so you can get into the game faster. It may be true that it won't be around forever but the amount of time I've played it more than makes up for it.
The expansion 'Deathwing' did offer solo play, which I haven't attempted yet.
I still have my first edition Space hulk with the Genstealer and deathwing expansions, i also have a book that was released that added rule sets for additional races, i have fond memories of pitting my Grey knight squad against my friends Chaos terminators, and back then Grey knights were stupidly broken so campaign only ever allowed a 5 man squad of them.
Ah, that campaign book is well expensive on the second-hand market. Some buyers want over £100 for it!
*I HAVE SHORT HAIR*
*AND I 'M FACED WITH A FEW COMPL-EE-CAY-TIONS~*
Sorry, sorry, couldn't resist the Deathwing trailer music reference. Nice to see you covering videogames for once, though.
The PC version of Space Hulk introduced me to Spaces Marines, which at that time i mistook for Colonial Marines from Aliens.
The first time i read the name i thought it was a gamma guy from space that turns into a purple 4 armed monster instead of a green man.
At first the image of the Terminators gave me some security and assurance until i saw the Terminators droping like flies at the (multiple) hands of the Genestealers
My brother still has the old board game and the extension packs. Still love it. Still don't get how the genstealers can rip through all that armour lol. And as they can why do the humans bother?
That comes from the wider lore. The Terminator armor wasn't specifically made for the hulks but rather to have infantry fight with the power of tanks. And though the spacehulk games overwhelmingly feature gene stealers, there can also be many, many different other creatures on board of these things which stand no chance of really dealing with terminator armor.
As such, the games portray something of a worst case scenario.
@@ravenknight4876 thanks for the great info. Still love that game.
The best space hulk game isnt a a space hulk game, it is Battle Isles 4 Incubation and you can get it on GOG in the Battle Isles pack.
Very well made run through of all the games. I’ve played them all , and although I like everyone , my favourite is still the one for the Amiga 500 , closely followed by Deathwing. As a sidenote , I also like Space marine for PC. I know it’s more of a space crusade game , but it fills some of the holes in my inner 12-year old boys action thirst. Thx for upload my good man.
I loved Space Marine on the 360! Multiplayer was awesome, having hoards of Orks run at you was intense.
Oliver Harper : YES ! And swinging that chainsword thru showers of orchblood made the adrenalin skyrocket.
Playing Space Crusade with my brothers in the early 1990's, some of my fondest childhood memories.
We didn't even understand the rules completely... but that still didn't slow us down!
Vengeance of the blood angels is one of my favourite games.
I really liked spacehulk deathwing, everything about it oozed 40k lore.
It does lack some greater sense of purpose compared to other games but it’s format is closer to left4dead than anything else and the teammate AI is remarkably reliable. Overall it’s better than suggested.
Maybe Darktide can do a better job at capturing that Left4Dead squad-based shooter feel? I do agree though, Deathwing nailed the 40K atmosphere.
I played the old 1993 game a lot back on my ancient 386 but never made it too far. I remember playing a demo from a PC Zone cover disk that featured a pretty good (for the time) animated sequence of a boarding craft being launched at the hulk from the marine ship; I was disappointed to see that it didn't seem to have made it to the full game.
I loved the original Amiga version. Rock hard due to RNG. I'm sure I finished it though. Last mission had lightning claw and thunder shield termies. All the combat was a dice roll so I remember having to repeat missions over and over. None of the later games have grabbed me much unfortunately
Ironically space hulk Vengeance of the blood angels (ps1) was made me fall in love with 40k. And yes after spending 100's of hours in the game I earned my medal. It was so challenging and intense that when I won and only I and either Aradiel or Asmodie made it off the half I had to do a celebration dance. So yeah my first 40k army was Blood Angels which I gifted to my little brother and he still plays. The intensity and constant attention to my environment made me fall in love with the living nightmare that was Vengeance of the Blood Angels
I had the Amiga version of the game, but never worked out how to play it (without just dying really quickly). I don't think it was evident to me (as a child) that it was meant as a game of strategy rather than action, and it would be a few years before I picked up concepts like 'overwatch' from playing other GW games. I did more recently play Templar Battleforce on Steam though, which is not a GW game (different setting, different lore) but is clearly part of the same genre established by Space Hulk (squad of armoured super-warriors who have to slowly move around a map and make carefully use of reaction attacks to survive against a more numerous enemy).
Oliver with a 40k video? As a wise man once said: A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one
Thank you for a great review. I played the boardgame for years but also switched to the computer version due to games taking forever to set up and forgetting the rules. I have not played Tactics yet, but my clear fave is Ascension. I use the games video options to make the game a bit more visible. I like that it is hard to play but I also make sure to build up my spacemarines with skills before going for the top levels. You can custom your mission, which is a nice touch. Can´t wait to play Tactics! :)
I played this one with my cousins and brother and we had a BLAST! This was their gateway to 40K so it was worth every penny to me :) It was basically "Hey guys, look at this ridiculous game that's kinda like Broforce. Except you play as these ork guys... you'll love them!" And they did. So then they played Space Marine 1 for more orks. Just in time for us to play Space Marine 2 when it came out. And now one of them even just finished the tutorial of Rogue Trader so we can play that together!
The second PC version, which I got on Steam, is my favourite video version of it.
'Space Hulk' on the Amiga was the first game i ever completed.
There was a bug on disk 2 that froze the game after completing one of the levels. I had to send it to EA and they rewrote it for me. I thiught they'd replace the dusk itself, but they didn't.
I remember them demoing the first computer game at the Golden Demon awards at the NEC. Thought it was incredible at the time.
I was actually a big fan of the Space Hulk: Ascension game. It was my introduction to the series (but I have played other 40k games before) and I loved the hardcore atmosphere. And now you can't even purchase it anymore, what a shame!
I've never heard of or played Space Hulk. I'm familiar with Space Crusade from MB Games and I own HeroQuest.
I do think that ascension has an option to crank up brightness, so u could see layout. I'm fuzzy on that tho.
Really nice retrospective.
Great review and a cool new direction for your channel
I got introduced to Warhammer through the 3D0 game, and I play and collect the blood angels as a result.
I bought 1995's Blood Angels with my first PC along with Duke 3D. It looked great and I liked the animations but I could never figure out how to play it. I bought Deathwing at a Steam sale a couple of months ago but I haven't played it yet.
I had it on the Sega Saturn (still got it up in the loft) could never get anywhere on it
Chaos Codex was my favourite book.
Blood Bowl is where it's at! Always been my go to GW game, physical or digital. Rue the day if you ever meet my halfling team on the field!! "For cake and fizzy pop"!!
7:45 Games Master golden joystick - C'est classique. Is it true that none of the contestants got to keep the joystick?
I know I'm a bit late to the party here, but this only just came up on my recommendations, and I thought I'd add a little.
The Space Hulk mobile game was released, but not in the form that you showed. It was a top down, turn-based strategy game (that looked like your screen shots, just minus the FPS element) and played... alright, if a bit slow. I don't know what platforms it was released on other than Symbian, as that's what I had it on.
Hope that helps in a way, 2 years after the fact? lol
I loved the 3DO version - one of many great titles on that system. I played for hours. The names of comrades was great. Challenging but engaging - planning and playing (FPS). Eerie atmosphere. Hard to play with the D pad; clunky. I’d play a revamp of it.
There’s so many Warhammer games it’s insane. These like 15 on the PS4 alone.
A very good retrospective here Oliver. I just wanted to add a note about Tactics, the servers across all platforms were taken down within 6 months of the launch of the game with no word as to why, from what I could see, which annoyed me and a friend, who both bought it for the intention of playing against each other, deeply disappointing.
Doing a bit different can be a blessing or a curse depending on the execution.
Personally, I still think the Mordheim setting would make for a great setting for a action rpg like Diablo or a group RPG like Baldurs Gate 3, where you can either lead a small group around your character or go multi-player with different players characters... with a pvp option to compete against other player groups for experience and loot.
Love your work Oliver.
Much appreciated!
Ahhh you were the one person who bought a 3DO lol. I had every console growing up back then in America and knew kids who had like a Pc engine (turbo grafx here) but I never ever met any kid who owned a 3DO.
Later in life I knew one guy who said he owned one as a kid, and that was because his parents were very rich so I was totally not surprised they would buy him one of those $900+ consoles.
I do remember getting the PlayStation version of the 3DO space hulk and loving it, I was a huge space hulk fan and had the board game and the original ms-dos game when it came out.
Also I prefer the PlayStation 1 version of space hulk to the 3DO. The music and sound effects of the genestealers just sounds so much better to me. I can’t stand the sound of the genestealers in the newest space hulk enhanced edition on Steam.
Maybe the Ps1 version of space hulk was easier because I don’t remember it being that difficult. It’s possible they made it easier over the 3DO original version.
Also really sad space hulk and ascension were both removed from Steam, I have no idea why.
I have space hulk 3rd edition, painted and all. I really enjoy it and wouldn't mind getting 4th edition.
Terminators aren't weaklings. It's the genestealers who are darn beasts! The way armour negation and attacks worked in 2nd ed, it's not unlikely that a genestealer can rip a terminator apart. If the terminator allows the genestealer to get close, that is. Inside the terminator suit is a normal marine, like a squad full of veteran sergeants. They got 1 Wound like most other infantry models. More Toughness than a baseline human. 3+ armour save with 2d6, but high-Strength weapons (like genestealer claws) could reduce that and those buggers have multiple attacks. A genestealer is a dang beast in close combat, this is exactly the environment they were created for.
There was rules for using other factions in your Space Hulk game, fan-made or White Dwarf submissions. You could send in guard stormtroopers into space hulks. They could walk two abreast, turned a bit easier and two ranks could fire at once.
Close combat in vengance of the Blood Angels was completely broken. You just had to hammer the attack button fast enough and you would autowin every time. Obviously only works when the player is in control though.
Great review Oliver, thank you.
From where did you source the live action footage at 2:13?
It was a short film shown at a Games event in the 90s. Here is the link to the full video.
ua-cam.com/video/gZBplpT3Iy4/v-deo.html
Oliver Harper thanks! What a magnificent artifact! Lacking a bit of sound design but the terminators are great :)