Space Hulk
for PC (DOS)
Also available for: Amiga (OCS/ECS)

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drathan:Popular Vote:
2.5/6
Company: Electronic Arts
Year: 1993
Genre: Strategy, Action
Theme: Science Fiction
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
Views: 8147
Review by drathan (2018-02-11)

There is a moment in James Cameron's 1986 film Aliens, when the marines are advancing through murky dark corridors. They are being commanded by their lieutenant from the comfort of his armoured personnel carrier. Each marine is equipped with a video camera which shows their point of view. In the APC the lieutenant views a row of monitors, each one displaying a video feed from a marine. Eventually the aliens with big pointy teeth and sharp claws come out of the shadows and attack the marines. One by one the marines are killed off, and their video feeds turn to static, as the lieutenant looks on helplessly.

Space Hulk is a fantastic recreation of that moment, because it is going to happen to you time and again. In the game, you control a team (or two) of heavily armoured space marines. Your marines are boarding an ancient space ship (the “hulk”) which is drifting through space. It just so happens to be riddled with nasty aliens with big pointy teeth and sharp claws which are almost the same as, but very legally different from, the xenomorphs in Aliens.

You control your marines through a bank of monitors showing their points of view. You can also switch to a tactical map view. The game is real time and turn based. How does that work then? In an ingenious piece of game design that sadly did not catch on, you have a limited amount of time to pause the game. While paused, you can review the map and plan your next moves, and then issue orders to your marines. But all the while your pause time is counting down. If you run out, the game starts up real time mode again. Which usually means sudden and violent death.

The game's levels include faithful recreations of the board game. This is perhaps the games biggest flaw. What makes a good board game does not always make a good computer game, and this may be an example of that. As a method of recreating that scene from Aliens, though, it has yet to be beaten.

Comments (9) [Post comment]

Mr Creosote:
Originally posted by Wandrell at 14:51 on December 7th, 2008:
Automatic weapons always have the jamming problem. But then you see in 40k they use bolters, weapons that shoot small rockets instead of bullets, so I suppose they don't need an ejection system for the shells, making them less prone to jamming.

Ok, obviously, my previous comment was meant in a humorous way. I don't mind so much that the weapons are jamming, but that they do so all the time. Incubation has weapons jamming, too, but there, it's always logically explainable and (most importantly) foreseeable when it happens. Overload the weapon and it might jam - makes sense. In Space Hulk, you fire the first shot from your brand new weapon and it jams immediately. Right.

Originally posted by Wandrell at 14:51 on December 7th, 2008:
But for me the worse was the short planning time. A few seconds to plan what to do, and then the aliend horde jumps over you cleaning the ship of space marines.

As I wrote, I like the pressure this limited freeze time provides. However, I what about this: In the briefing, a map of the hulk is always shown (or the commander tells you the scanners didn't work, which would be a plot element for those specific missions then). That map, however, is obviously way too tiny to make out anything. It would make perfect sense if the player had the chance to study the 'map' in the normal tactical view before beginning the mission at all. I.e. there wouldn't be a ticking clock then. After you've pushed the start button for the first time and your Terminators are in there, the normal freeze rules would apply. I think that would actually improve the game a lot, and it even makes sense plot-wise (as sketched previously).

Wandrell:

Automatic weapons always have the jamming problem. But then you see in 40k they use bolters, weapons that shoot small rockets instead of bullets, so I suppose they don't need an ejection system for the shells, making them less prone to jamming.

So it is just a balancing thing they made that didn't work well. But for me the worse was the short planning time. A few seconds to plan what to do, and then the aliend horde jumps over you cleaning the ship of space marines.

T-Pow:
Originally posted by Mr Creosote at 23:04 on December 6th, 2008:
Anyway, back on the topic of the game itself, we all seem to agree that it is no good. I really find it ludicrous that this technologically advanced elite squad consists of useless goons with crap weapons which jam all the time. You'd think after 40000 years, they could at least have got rid off that jamming problem. Silly.

Some problems seem to stand the test of time. ;)

By the way. There is a new Warhammer 40k game "Dawn of War". It has three expansions from which two are standalone.
It´s a sort of real time strategy game with focus on the troops and a second part will come out perhaps next year.
Published by THQ. So I think they have the license now.

Mr Creosote:

I doubt they're really concerned about their own Space Hulk computer game. Usually, those problems arise because of trademarks or because of licence options (licence to produce a new commercial game I mean). They don't want freeware competition should they ever decide to release a new computer game themselves, and they also don't want anyone using their trademarks without payment. I'm not saying it makes sense, but that's the story of numerous fan-made games (just read up on the Ultima inspired fan games, for example).

Anyway, back on the topic of the game itself, we all seem to agree that it is no good. I really find it ludicrous that this technologically advanced elite squad consists of useless goons with crap weapons which jam all the time. You'd think after 40000 years, they could at least have got rid off that jamming problem. Silly.

I really had high hopes for the game when it came out and couldn't wait to get my hands on it. A friend of mine bought it, I... 'borrowed' it from him. Remember it like it was yesterday: huge disappointment.

Wandrell:
Last time I checked they still had the game. What a loss, but ironic how Games Workshop leaves all the small games because it gives more money making expensive and low quality miniatures for Warhammer and Warhammer 40k, along with bad paints and complements, yet they still are worried about their old games.
Mr Creosote:
Quote:
Downloads of the game have been removed due to legal / license issues. We are working on getting the game approved, until then the downloads will be offline.

That's from March - doesn't look too good.

Wandrell:

I never played much this game, in the 40k universe the marines are supposed to be scary superfascist marines based on Starship Troopers (there are no good guys in 40k, by the way). But here, their super-super marines just are good at dieing quickly.

But there is (like with Heroquest) a fan made version similar to the board game: http://www.teardown.se.

T-Pow:

Yeah. I remember this game. It had a lot of good ideas but they should have left it turn based.
I played it that days for max. 3 hours and hated it. Never got further than the third or fourth level.

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