Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Speaking to Joystiq, THQ bossman Danny Bilson wasn’t lending support to the idea of a Space Marine sequel, preferring to emphasize upcoming MMO, Dark Millennium. He said: “We’ve already announced the Imperium in the MMO as a class you can play… and if you combine that it’s very active, as opposed to the more turn-based stuff. I’m not sure there’s room for Space Marine.”

Oddly, this awkward statement lends a bit of credibility to yesterday’s “leak”, which THQ later dismissed as “pure speculation”. It might well have been speculation, but it does sound like some of it is on the mark, and it’s not like they’ve not had some big info leaks before. Might be interesting to look back, come 2013…

Relic’s mildly disappointing orc-eviscerating game Space Marine is getting a 4-player co-op mode later this month, with THQ dating the roll out of the free upgrade for the 25th. It’s called EXTERMINATUS. Which, quite coincidentally, is my middle name. There will be two scenarios in this mini-expansion, in which you can play as tactical marines, heavy-weaponised devastators or whoosh-bam marines. You’ll be fighting orcs and chaos, according to EG.

Nor will this be the end of DLC for the game, say Relic, with paid and free additions to come.

Time for another one of our in theory regular but in practice highly irregular comparisons of the last week’s top ten best-selling PC games on Steam, and at UK retail. Obviously there are all manner of ways in which these are not fair or entirely meaningful comparisons, not least in that Steam’s metrics can tend towards the cryptic, that Steam’s includes pre-orders but UK retail (via Chart-Track) doesn’t and that it’s laughably hard to find many PC games on British high streets these days, but it’s always fun/horrifying to get a flavour for the stark differences between what people are buying digitally and what plastic boxes their attention is caught by.
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Ticked off that you’re stuck in the boring blue power-armour of a boring blue Ultramarine in Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine‘s singleplayer campaign? While you can’t stop Captain Titus from banging on about his Chapter, thanks to one modder’s hard work you can now make him look like he belongs to another, less vanilla entry in the Codex Astartes. Newly added to the mod, at last, are helmets – so you can look like a proper Space Marine, not the 40K equivalent of that bloody Stallone Judge Dredd movie.
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A lot of people are asking us to find out why Space Marine – and its demo – have disappeared from Steam in the UK, despite being a Steamworks game. I.e. it is not for sale on the download service that it requires in order to run. Whaaaaaaat. We’ve tried to get to the bottom of this, but all we can get is a No Comment – we’ll update with more if we can get it. I have my theories, but it would imprudent to share them without evidence. Sorry about that: what a ridiculous and frustrating situation. Especially as the UK has already had to wait several days longer for the game than everyone else, thanks to conniving dunderheads in the retail industry.

In the meantime, if you acquire the PC version of the game from anywhere else, rest assured you can still activate and play it on Steam despite it being invisible on the store. This includes Direct2Drive and Gamersgate for £35 each, but retailer ShopTo.net is selling the Steam activation code directly for an eminently reasonable £23. Given the net result wherever you buy the game is that you have to activate it on Steam, it seems sensible to pick the cheapest route you can find. Anyone spotted a better deal?

Relic’s orkshoot came out today for people who happen to live in North America, but a mysterious and intractably evil force is preventing exactly the same collection of ones and zeroes from unlocking on PCs in other parts of the world. We’re not expecting Space Marine review code ourselves until a bit later this week – instead of being allowed access to the version already live across the pond – and, mysteriously and worryingly, no American reviews have been posted yet. Hmm.
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Relic’s manly man-killing simulator – Space Marine – is but a week away from unleashing it’s own brand of intense violence, blood and gore upon the world, and THQ have sent us another video to herald it’s arrival. Here we get to see the “Thunder Hammer” turning orcs into clouds of red mist. Delightful. Read the rest of this entry »

The demo for Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine is now live on Steam, unless you live in the UK, where it is mysteriously absent. I’ve contacted THQ again to ask why this might be.

It can apparently still be downloaded in the UK via this link.