Space Hulk Deathwing is a Left 4 Dead style horde shooter. In the main campaing its you and 2 AI buddies going through a "Space Hulk" a huge mess of different ships crashed and forcefully combined together into a giant hulk of metal, floating in space. Throughout the missions you explore this space hulk, fighting waves of Tyranids. There is multiplayer as well where you can play with friends but it seems dead from what I can see, no servers. +The game sounds great. From the guns, the footsteps of your huge armor to the terrifying noises of the Tyranids just before they attack you. It all sounds great. +The graphics look great. I was on low graphic settings and the game still looked good. You and your buddies in Terminator armor look great, I love how the flashlight you have is not centered. On your armor its mounted to your shoulder and while playing in first person you can notice that the light isn't centered in your view as it should be. Same for the guns, just because you can see the enemy doesn't mean the barrel of your gun is pointed at him. Another small detail I love is inside of your armor you can move your head but the armor itself doesn't really have a neck of its own, its more like a shell covering you all around and if you move your head downwards you can see a small writing on the inside of your armor which was really cool. Small details aside the game does look good from its HUD elements like your ammo count and all being attached to the gun you're holding, your radar and health info sometimes getting bugged out and restarting itself on its own, the enemies from the very small ones to the horrifying, larger then 2 Terminator armors on top of each other, Broodlords, the ships you visit with their halls, statues, different rooms serving different purposes, huge machinery on top of you at certain times, it just looks great. You know you're one big dude but even with how huge you are everyting around you not only looks but feels so much bigger. +Gameplay is very fun. Very L4D like. There's a ton of Tyranids constantly attacking you, you have certain missions to complete, try not to die. L4D already has a great gameplay loop and this feels like a Warhammer 40K skin over it which I'm a huge fan of. +Cool customization. In the singleplayer the customization consists of "what weapons will you take, what weapons will you make your friendly AI take and what special psyker abilities are you gonna equip?" while in the multiplayer side of things you get a lot more customization you can change how your armor looks, how its colored, you can change a few things on your guns, its great. +Voice acting is surprisingly great. It mainly consists of giving you info at the beginning and end of each mission, your characters don't talk that often in game and when they do they only repeat a few things like calling out certain enemies or taunting the enemy. Either way each line is delivered really well I think. +In the campaing you have pretty good control over your AI friends. You can choose what weapons they'll bring into the mission and more importantly you can give them orders easily. You need a door behind you locked so no one attacks from behind? You can do it yourself or just look at the door, hold space, choose the lock door option and your AI will do it for you. You need your Apothecary, the medic, to heal someone? Just hold space and choose that option. You need them to move somewhere or follow you? Just hold space and choose it. You need them to break down a locked door and enter the room? Hold space and tell em to do it. Its great. +When you get the Enhanced Edition you get the original game alongside it. No need to play the original, Enhanced is better. Mainly in the optimization part, the original used to lag even on the lowest graphic settings but in here I don't remember the game lagging at all on low settings. If I had a stronger PC I could probably play it with the graphic settings on medium or high without any issues. -The time to praise your control over the AI has ended. Now it is time to talk shit about them. They're essentially brain dead. Sure you have good control over them from the weapons they use to the things you want them to do but they're definitely not good at it. Certain weapons that are actually really good simply become trash in their hands. Some doors seem fucked and your AI cannot open them, break them, lock them nothing. The option won't even pop up while you look at said door. Most of the game is spent in tight corridors or huge, open areas. In tight corridors you'll constantly get attacked from behind cuz your AI refuses to look behind them even while something is actively stabbing them in their back. They're better in open space but now they'll stay in one place and refuse to move, getting swarmed and quickly dying. Sometimes they'll get in front of you and refuse to move, eating up all your bullets thank god there's no friendly fire. While the orders you can give your AI easily with just the space key and your mouse is impressive the way your AI actually handles things is not. -The only way to unlock armor and weapon customization is through online gameplay. Multiplayer is dead, there are no servers. So you have 2 options if you wanna unlock that sweet customization options. Either bring along a few friends or play the online missions with AI buddies. Oops, sorry, I lied the AI cannot be brought into the multiplayer matches so its either you all by yourself in a horde shooter (good luck) or you need to bring a few friends along. -One of the coolest things about this game is its weapons. They're big, they're chunky, they sound great, they're very effective. Some of your weapons are melee weapons which are still big, chunky, sounds great, looks great and are effective. Unless you're playing on the higher difficulties at which point melee becomes a death wish. It can still be very effective you can get a melee weapon and a shield which means you can't do anything at range but close up not only can you soak up a lot of damage and come out unharmed but you can deal a lot of damage too. But, even with that, after a certain point it doesn't make sense to bring them to missions anymore. The enemies you face become so big, fast and powerful that getting into melee range with those guys specifically means its game over. Use them on the first few missions or use them on easier difficulties. -This kind of ties into the "braindead AI" point from before but obviously as a horde shooter taking place usually in tight corridors sometimes you need to fall back to better positions, to defend yourself against the incoming enemies. In multiplayer with a competent crew and good communication that can be done no issues but in the campaing with your AI buddies its impossible. You might retreat to a better position sure but they'll stand and fight, no matter how suicidal it might be. You definitely get the feel that you're supposed to be careful, you're supposed to fall back when needed due to how much damage the enemy can deal in a short amount of time but while you feel it you can never really do it due to your AI who prefers death over retreating. Honestly great game. Left 4 Dead's gameplay loop is already very fun and having a 40k skin on it makes me oh so happy. It looks great, it sounds great, I didn't face any crashes or anything and while the AI might be stupid its not that bad. Fun game.
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