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[nenjin]

It looks like a fanboy will always be harsher in his reviews. It looks like this game can’t compare with your idealized vision of the board game.

I think this response in the comments sums up that article pretty well.

First off.....Emperor, I can't even believe I have to say this. It's a computer game based on the board game. 50% of his complaints come from a total lack of appreciation of that fact. "In a board game I can move my terminators 3 steps and turn him in a second." Well, guess what? This is a video game. In video games they call that "No animations."

"There's no changing music or drama during overwatch or when shit is getting crazy." Well, ok, I guess that's one feature you could randomly expect out of a computer game, based on your board game experience. I don't even remember someone striking up music during overwatch in real life. TBH, I don't remember it being that exciting either, no more so than any other board game experience.

"Doors are hard to see." With his lack of foresight I suppose his lack of actual sight shouldn't be that surprising. What'll be more confusing for new players is why they need a 6 to shoot or punch through a door.

"You don't get the joy of shrieking and shouting at the other players over dice rolls." OMFE, this is a downside? The reason I stopped playing Space Hulk with people is because of this.

"The game is buggy." No doubt about that. The only part of his review I agree with.

Frankly, this RPS review reads like a knee-jerk fan response. I don't even know who that writer is. His opinion stands in marked contrast to Alec Meer's thoughts.

I mean, yes. If we get down to brass tax, this game is a weebit expensive for what you get out of it. You're mostly paying for the visuals, the audio and multiplayer. A stripped down SP game would, to me, be worth about $10.

But these are all KNOWN quantities. We knew exactly how many missions, how combat looks and sounds and everything else.

Sure, could SPACE HULK have more? Yeah. It was made in practically no time at all though, and for the time they DID have I think they did a fine job. (Bugs aside.) It's atmospheric, flavorful, completely faithful to the board game, and even threw in a customizable banner. It's far short of things they said they might do pre-release....but they're clearly planning on DLC, if they can manage it.

This is the first RPS review in a long time that has left me not only disagreeing with the opinion, but completely rejecting it too. It reads like a forum post from an angry, butthurt fan who didn't get the game he was seeing in his head. Considering he fucking writes for RPS and has exposure to both the people and the materials.....he seems like he knew nothing about the game prior to touching it. The Single Player campaign is exactly as exciting as you'd expect a SP game of a MP board game to be. I actually had one heart stopping moment in the first prequel mission when two of my terminators were flanked on both sides by Genestealers, and one of my Terminators was turned the wrong way. The other Terminator managed to cut down three genestealers at point blank range. The drama is there in single player, and if he doesn't see it, he doesn't want to.

Some of the things he mentions are flaws. Not having a "No walking animation" button. Hotseat with Marines/Genestealers being screwed up because the marine player can see the content of the blips, if I read that right. The Tyranid AI occasionally not going for blood when it should. Those are pretty minor concerns.

Oh and look I already have a 30 meg patch for the game.

So. I find the review highly heretical, worthy of a purge and honestly lacking the balance I feel you get out of most RPS reviews. For a Wot I Think, he completely trashes it and gives the good things about it exactly zero mention.

[Mephansteras]

Well, I for one appreciate your review of his review, nenjin. Makes me feel better.

[Knirisk]

Well, I for one appreciate your review of his review, nenjin. Makes me feel better.

Agreed. I've never played the original boardgame, but I may pick this version up when the price drops a bit to $15-20 or so.

[Cthulhu]

I for one love it.  It's got some flaws but it's still super sweet.

Although it can only get sweeter if we get some B12 multiplayer going!

[Sirus]

Man, I'd love that. I have the board game, but no one to play it with and thus it gathers dust.

Any impressions on how well it runs? Do you need a dedicated gaming computer to get anything out of it?

[nenjin]

Doesn't seem very taxing.

Minimum:
OS: Windows XP
Processor: 2 GHz Dual Core
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT / ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT or greater
DirectX: Version 9.0
Hard Drive: 2 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
Recommended:
OS: Windows 7
Processor: 2 GHz Dual Core
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 9000 series / ATI Radeon HD 3000 series or greater
DirectX: Version 9.0
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Hard Drive: 4 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible

[Sirus]

...Er, I don't think I can run it 
Gotta save up money for an actual decent laptop so I can play all this cool stuff...

[Robsoie]

You can try Alien Assault ( http://teardown.se/alienassault.html ) if your system is too old, it's an excellent alternative to Space Hulk and as long as you don't increase the ingame resolution it should run very well on every computer.
And even now it remains a great game in the same genre, i'm still having lots of fun with it.

It does not have multiplayer unfortunately, but there's a mission editor and lots of user made additional campaigns, sounds etc for it (most had been lost with the time, but some people fortunately still have them uploaded there : http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Alien_Assault )

[Cthulhu]

Alien Assault is good, I played it back before they had to change it to Definitely Not Space Hulk.  The promotion elements were a very nice touch.

Still, the multiplayer component seems a little wangly here, I'd be interested in playing with somebody around here to see how it works.

EDIT:  Just played my first game!  I was the genestealers, on Suicide Mission.  He put his flamer on point and died facing the wrong direction.  booooring

EDITEDIT:

Multiplayer impressions!

I've played two games so far, both as Genestealers and both on Suicide Mission. 

The game doesn't appear to use Steam for multiplayer which sucks.  Instead they have their own impressively primitive account service, which requires you to add people via their email address.  Thankfully you don't need it to play, but if you don't use it you can't play with friends.

Multiplayer itself has some nice touches and some issues.  When you go into multiplayer you can challenge a random opponent or a friend, as well as picking your preferred team.  Instead of a regular matchmaking service it actually sends the player an invite and they have to accept it, which could take a while.  Once they accept it tells you, and you can get in the game.

Multiplayer's pretty asynchronous, which is nice.  You can play in real time with both players online at the same time for the whole game, or you could have two or more games at once and switch between them, or even a full-on PBM style game where the players are never on at the same time.

My first game sucked.  The guy didn't have an account and put his Flamer on point.  He also somehow managed to get himself attacked from the side and that was the end of that game.

Second guy actually knew how to play, and beat me.  Sooner or later we need to do some B12 games.  PM me if you want my account email.

[Cthulhu]

Bimp, nobody interested?

I've learned the hard way that this game is not very fun against bad players.  Maybe it's different in the bigger missions, but I'm still mostly doing suicide mission and it's gotten to the point where I just kind of sigh and get the mission over with when I see the other guy doing dumb stuff.

That's one thing that kind of worries me.  It's a pretty minimalistic game, and that's one thing when it's a board game and you play once every few weeks or months.  But when you can play over and over again, the puzzle nature of the game might start to show through in a bad way.  A lot of these missions seem to have a pretty clear "best" strategy.  Maybe it gets more complicated in the later missions.

On the first mission with the CAT, I rushed Squad Gideon forward and spaced them out, leaving just the autocannon to cover the closest spawn point, then basically relayed the CAT across both squads, winning in like two turns once I'd gotten it to the meeting point.  At first it was funny, then it was kind of disappointing seeing how impossible it was for the genestealers to do anything.  One muhreen can hold off a million genestealers even if he dies, since the one that kills him will block the corridor.

[Xantalos]

SHPESS HHUUULK
...
Is this out?

[Aklyon]

SHPESS HHUUULK
...
Is this out?

Yes. SPACE HULK

[Cthulhu]

I'm kind of mad at SPACE HULK right now.

I'm playing as the genestealers again, this time on Extermination.  I was winning.  I was winning fucking baby-mode extermination as the genestealers!

The guy had two bolters up top and the hammer, autocannon, and third bolter on bottom.  Decided to just hang out and overwatch both sides rather than cut one off, which was dumb, but whatever.  Extermination is easy.  Unfortunately, he got complacent with his autocannon.  I didn't count the shots, but if he didn't reload he has to be down to one or two shots.  There's seven genestealers piled up right outside the entrance ready to pounce on him, and since I managed to get one actually in the entrance I can bring another six down the hallway in blip form and let him reveal them.  Two more managed to get past him and are looping around, but I've got them waiting for when we go for blood.  Another five are on their way up top help whatever's left from the fight below kill the last two guys.

It's perfect.

He has no chance.

Spoiler: He's been offline for an hour. (click to show/hide)

Yeah, I know that means I win, but still.  I don't get to reap the real reward of my careful preparations.  I don't get to kill those terminators.

[Mephansteras]

I hate stuff like that. It's one of my biggest problems with online multiplayer, you get all these people who just won't let things finish out.

Granted, it's possible the guy's computer just crashed or something...but still frustrating.

[nenjin]

I'm terrible at SPACE HULK. Took three runs at Suicide Mission and managed to flame A PART of the objective once, at the cost of every single Terminator I had.