Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine E3 Previews

GameSpot and GamingExcellence have both conjured up E3-based previews for Relic Entertainment's newly announced action RPG, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine.

A snip from GameSpot:
One thing we do know is that your Space Marine will have access to plenty of different weapons at hand, including energy swords, chain blades, and huge, electrical hammers that will be effective for dealing with swarming enemies. There will also be ranged weapons, of course; we saw one Marine picking off Orks with a pistol, and another spraying bullets out of a belt-fed machine gun. What weapons you wield will be only part of the customization options in Space Marine--the footage also showed some leveling aspects, where the player will be able to upgrade attributes like strength, attack, and defense.

So far, only Space Marines and Orks have been confirmed to be in the game but, as the game is early in development, there's always the possibility that could change in the future. From the demo, the Orks look to be ferocious (and slightly stupid) enemies, perfectly in keeping with their "chop first, never ask questions" approach to battle. Relic is also being tight-lipped about online options in the game, but hinted that they look to do justice to the Warhammer universe's tradition as a shared experience.

And a snip from GamingExcellence:
Character customization was mentioned as a very high point of the title. In the demo they showed a Space Marine slapping on an Assault Pack, a powerful jet pack device, and crashing into a group of Orkz, scattering them. A few vicious hits with his Power Hammer was all it took to clean up the crowd. In that screen there seemed to be more options for you to switch up your weapons, equipment and level up. So depending on what directions they take this could be a fairly robust, replayable title.

One thing that really stood out was closer to the end of the movie they showed. In the cutscene you can see a Titan walking around and blasting the Orkz which is pretty cool. But just before an orbital bombardment strikes like a miniature nuke you can see what almost appears to be a Hive Tyrant marching towards the Marines. Between that and the bit at the beginning that speaks of the taint of Chaos, the evil that seeks to corrupt the universe, this promises to be a wild ride through the dark and gritty Warhammer '˜verse.