Servius
6th Sep 11, 10:26 AM
Hey all,
I often like to come on game forums and post hints and tips I've learned about how to play a game as I go along. So, here is where I'll post my tips about Space Marine.
1) You have a regenerating shield. That's what that gold outline around your health bar is. I never figured out what that was during the demo, so I figured maybe others might have missed it too. Though DannyLee's being a snoot, this really is a shield and not power armor. It works just like Master Chief's. I guess you can think of it like the Rosarius in DoW: a power shield that weakens as it takes damage, though it eventually recharges once you stop taking damage.
2) Your health won't go down until your shield is down. This means you can hold off on doing executions until then.
3) You will sometimes want to hold off on executions because you're still vulnerable to damage during the QTE, but your basic melee attacks are so fast that you can usually go untouched if you stick with basic melee attacks against basic enemies (Grots, Sluggas, and Shootas).
4) Exploding things (barrels, pipes, etc.) as well as Shootas will wear down your shield while you're in melee combat. So try to take them out first before getting into a melee scrum
5) COVER IS STILL USEFUL! Despite the hype, cover still make sense. Use it in the early part of a fight to reduce your exposure to Shootas while you try to pick them off. Once the Shootas are gone, or once the Sluggas are in your face, then leave cover to chop them into chum. If you have to engage in melee before you're able to kill off all the Shootas, try to fight in a position that provides cover from the Shootas. The cover will keep your shield from getting blown off, and your fast melee will do the same, so you can stay in the fight a lot longer. If you stand out in the middle of an open space with Sluggas on the ground and Shootas on raised platforms, you're going to take a lot of damage. The battle when you can acquire the power axe is the best example of this.
6) Mounted heavy weapons have infinite ammo until you tear them off their mounts. Once you do that, their ammo becomes finite. The game will also force you to drop them after the little engagement is done. You can't bring them with you. Same with the jump pack, unfortunately.
7) Your two buddies are pretty ineffective offensively (they will often completely ignore enemies and just look at you, Leandros in particular it seems), but they're also immortal. So, especially if you're the shooty type, let them take the melee heat (since they can't be killed anyway) while you hang back and snipe with the Stalker. This is an excellent tactic to use in the early stages of a fight when you're trying to pick off the Shootas before open melee begins.
8) The Vengeance is a frag grenade launcher, but the grenades are remote-detonated, and you can have up to 5 of them undetonated at a time. Firing a 6th will explode the 1st. The Melta Gun is basically a shotgun. The Stalker is a lower-powered sniper rifle (though still more powerful than the Bolter) while the Lascannon is a high-power sniper rifle.
9) Some weapons are straight upgrades. Once you choose the upgrade, you can't go back. This is true of the knife > chainsword, the bolt pistol > plasma pistol, and the Bolter > Kraken Bolter. The Thunder Hammer is not necessarily a straight upgrade of the Power Axe though. Since it has a trade off (you can only use your Bolter and pistol if you use the Thunder Hammer), you are able to swap the Thunder Hammer back for a Power Axe. It seems you can also swap a Thunder Hammer or Power Axe for a Chainsword, though I'm not sure why this is the case, since I can't seem to find any advantage the Chainsword has over the Power Axe. If there's no trade-off, I can't see any reason why anyone would ever want to swap back. I may be missing some advantage the Chainsword has over the Power Axe. NOTE: I think the Chainsword may be better at hitting multiple enemies in your forward arc, but at the expense of doing less damage. The Power Axe, on the other hand, may hit harder (has better armor penetration), but doesn't swipe as large a forward arch. This is just a theory right now. It's based on the visual attacks made by each weapon, particularly the 4th attack in each weapon's progression. The chainsword's seems to hit at least an 90 degree arc in front of you, whereas the Power Axe seems to hit only a 45 degree arc.
10) Like Mass Effect, Space Marine is a pretty straight-up corridor (on rails) shooter. There are no alternate paths between you and where you're supposed to go. You will also often be prevented from backtracking by the use of drop-downs which are insurmountable since you don't have a jump pack and can't jump. Having just finished playing Deus Ex, I'm kinda sad to say there are also no working doors, no tunnels, no destructible structures or any other way to hop of the rails. Unfortunately, this means that every playthough will likely be almost identical. As temprus points out below, there are little side-alleys that you can find which usually contain the skull drones, but they're just dead-ends, you still have to backtrack to the rail line to continue on.
11) The Thunder Hammer prevents you from using any ranged weapons except your pistol and Bolter. So, for fans of the Stalker, Vengeance, or Lascannon, you should stick with the Power Axe.
12) Based on Ramrod's comment below, it seems you can swap out any combination of Vengeance, Melta, Stalker, and maybe even Lascannon. Just ensure you're currently holding the gun you want to get rid of when you're looking at the gun you'd like to get instead. NOTE: If you are carrying a Thunder Hammer, since you can't select either of the two swappable ranged weapons, you will only be able to swap out for the one you most recently held. For example, if you have a Vengeance and a Stalker, but you last used the Stalker before equipping a Thunderhammer, you will not be able to swap a new weapon for the Vengeance, only the Stalker.
13) Your two buddies are equipped differently, and they behave differently because of this. Leandros (the younger one) has a Bolter and a knife. The older one has a Bolter and Chainsword. Whenever you move, Leandros will often slowly walk to a position behind you. Since he has a Bolter and knife, the Bolter is the stronger of his two weapons, and he will hang back and shoot because of that. The older fella, by contrast, will often take a position in front and will use his Bolter until enemies are in melee range and will then switch to his Chainsword. If no targets are in melee range, he'll switch back to his Bolter, but because he has a Chainsword, he won't move to the back. By having a melee and shooty buddy, this allows you to focus on one or the other and always have someone in your group who is at least passable at the other.
14) The Stalker's bolts seem to hit harder than the Bolter's. Thus, the Stalker's advantage may not simply be just the scope and the lack of sway, it's ammo may also hit harder. You can 1-shot a Shoota with the Stalker, but not with the Bolter.
15) Titus is right-handed. As such, whenever you take cover, shooting from the right side of the cover will grant you more protection.
I often like to come on game forums and post hints and tips I've learned about how to play a game as I go along. So, here is where I'll post my tips about Space Marine.
1) You have a regenerating shield. That's what that gold outline around your health bar is. I never figured out what that was during the demo, so I figured maybe others might have missed it too. Though DannyLee's being a snoot, this really is a shield and not power armor. It works just like Master Chief's. I guess you can think of it like the Rosarius in DoW: a power shield that weakens as it takes damage, though it eventually recharges once you stop taking damage.
2) Your health won't go down until your shield is down. This means you can hold off on doing executions until then.
3) You will sometimes want to hold off on executions because you're still vulnerable to damage during the QTE, but your basic melee attacks are so fast that you can usually go untouched if you stick with basic melee attacks against basic enemies (Grots, Sluggas, and Shootas).
4) Exploding things (barrels, pipes, etc.) as well as Shootas will wear down your shield while you're in melee combat. So try to take them out first before getting into a melee scrum
5) COVER IS STILL USEFUL! Despite the hype, cover still make sense. Use it in the early part of a fight to reduce your exposure to Shootas while you try to pick them off. Once the Shootas are gone, or once the Sluggas are in your face, then leave cover to chop them into chum. If you have to engage in melee before you're able to kill off all the Shootas, try to fight in a position that provides cover from the Shootas. The cover will keep your shield from getting blown off, and your fast melee will do the same, so you can stay in the fight a lot longer. If you stand out in the middle of an open space with Sluggas on the ground and Shootas on raised platforms, you're going to take a lot of damage. The battle when you can acquire the power axe is the best example of this.
6) Mounted heavy weapons have infinite ammo until you tear them off their mounts. Once you do that, their ammo becomes finite. The game will also force you to drop them after the little engagement is done. You can't bring them with you. Same with the jump pack, unfortunately.
7) Your two buddies are pretty ineffective offensively (they will often completely ignore enemies and just look at you, Leandros in particular it seems), but they're also immortal. So, especially if you're the shooty type, let them take the melee heat (since they can't be killed anyway) while you hang back and snipe with the Stalker. This is an excellent tactic to use in the early stages of a fight when you're trying to pick off the Shootas before open melee begins.
8) The Vengeance is a frag grenade launcher, but the grenades are remote-detonated, and you can have up to 5 of them undetonated at a time. Firing a 6th will explode the 1st. The Melta Gun is basically a shotgun. The Stalker is a lower-powered sniper rifle (though still more powerful than the Bolter) while the Lascannon is a high-power sniper rifle.
9) Some weapons are straight upgrades. Once you choose the upgrade, you can't go back. This is true of the knife > chainsword, the bolt pistol > plasma pistol, and the Bolter > Kraken Bolter. The Thunder Hammer is not necessarily a straight upgrade of the Power Axe though. Since it has a trade off (you can only use your Bolter and pistol if you use the Thunder Hammer), you are able to swap the Thunder Hammer back for a Power Axe. It seems you can also swap a Thunder Hammer or Power Axe for a Chainsword, though I'm not sure why this is the case, since I can't seem to find any advantage the Chainsword has over the Power Axe. If there's no trade-off, I can't see any reason why anyone would ever want to swap back. I may be missing some advantage the Chainsword has over the Power Axe. NOTE: I think the Chainsword may be better at hitting multiple enemies in your forward arc, but at the expense of doing less damage. The Power Axe, on the other hand, may hit harder (has better armor penetration), but doesn't swipe as large a forward arch. This is just a theory right now. It's based on the visual attacks made by each weapon, particularly the 4th attack in each weapon's progression. The chainsword's seems to hit at least an 90 degree arc in front of you, whereas the Power Axe seems to hit only a 45 degree arc.
10) Like Mass Effect, Space Marine is a pretty straight-up corridor (on rails) shooter. There are no alternate paths between you and where you're supposed to go. You will also often be prevented from backtracking by the use of drop-downs which are insurmountable since you don't have a jump pack and can't jump. Having just finished playing Deus Ex, I'm kinda sad to say there are also no working doors, no tunnels, no destructible structures or any other way to hop of the rails. Unfortunately, this means that every playthough will likely be almost identical. As temprus points out below, there are little side-alleys that you can find which usually contain the skull drones, but they're just dead-ends, you still have to backtrack to the rail line to continue on.
11) The Thunder Hammer prevents you from using any ranged weapons except your pistol and Bolter. So, for fans of the Stalker, Vengeance, or Lascannon, you should stick with the Power Axe.
12) Based on Ramrod's comment below, it seems you can swap out any combination of Vengeance, Melta, Stalker, and maybe even Lascannon. Just ensure you're currently holding the gun you want to get rid of when you're looking at the gun you'd like to get instead. NOTE: If you are carrying a Thunder Hammer, since you can't select either of the two swappable ranged weapons, you will only be able to swap out for the one you most recently held. For example, if you have a Vengeance and a Stalker, but you last used the Stalker before equipping a Thunderhammer, you will not be able to swap a new weapon for the Vengeance, only the Stalker.
13) Your two buddies are equipped differently, and they behave differently because of this. Leandros (the younger one) has a Bolter and a knife. The older one has a Bolter and Chainsword. Whenever you move, Leandros will often slowly walk to a position behind you. Since he has a Bolter and knife, the Bolter is the stronger of his two weapons, and he will hang back and shoot because of that. The older fella, by contrast, will often take a position in front and will use his Bolter until enemies are in melee range and will then switch to his Chainsword. If no targets are in melee range, he'll switch back to his Bolter, but because he has a Chainsword, he won't move to the back. By having a melee and shooty buddy, this allows you to focus on one or the other and always have someone in your group who is at least passable at the other.
14) The Stalker's bolts seem to hit harder than the Bolter's. Thus, the Stalker's advantage may not simply be just the scope and the lack of sway, it's ammo may also hit harder. You can 1-shot a Shoota with the Stalker, but not with the Bolter.
15) Titus is right-handed. As such, whenever you take cover, shooting from the right side of the cover will grant you more protection.