Recent reviews by Dimes4Crimes

For a game that excels at a compelling combat loop and satisfying gameplay, it stumbles on so many critical points that it feels almost amateur.

This review is a cautious yes as there's nothing wrong with the game, yet it has a lack of necessary features and questionable design choices that make me question where it started to go wrong.


For Warhammer fans it strikes perfectly true on delivering the experience of a space marine tearing through hordes of heretics, and you will feel like an absolute badass every second you're hopping around blowing the heads off meagre cultists and running circles around greater demons. Not only the gameplay but the environmental design is so perfectly grimdark that I did slow the pace on some of the levels just to take in the love put in to some of the incredible set pieces you can find in this game.

The gameplay for a boomer shooter is well beyond sufficient. Weapons feel powerful and responsive as they should (With some exceptions) and introducing the Strength vs Toughness system from the tabletop game is both an interesting mechanic and a brilliant callback to its wargaming origins. The level design for the combat areas use verticality and a mix of open and closed spaces well for varied encounters.


I feel like the main problem I, and a few of my friends, have had with the game is that the level design (in terms of exploration and progression) seems to completely break any and all rules of good flow. Often you will find yourself lost in samey looking hallways trying to find the door for the key you just picked up. This is so bad in some cases that you will often be intentionally lead in the opposite direction of where you're meant to go by respawned enemies and trails of loot drops.

It's a wonder how they managed to nail down all the other systems fairly well, yet stumble at something as critical as guiding the player through the level. This may be excused if there were some sort of minimap or world view to use to get your bearings but there is nothing like that. Your hints for where to go are relegated to a few short lines from your servo-skull companion (which you can very easily miss in the middle of combat) and simply remembering where the hell you saw that red key.

The other main critique I have is about how they could expand the combat system even more. In Boltgun, you are given (at most) 8 guns to choose from to slay hordes of enemies with, along with your chainsword for a quick melee weapon. The weapons are well varied and are suited for different situations and enemies, using the standard boltgun to take out cultists en masse or the melta to tear through tougher targets. The only weapon found to be lacking any sort of purpose is the melee.

Simply put, there is absolutely no advantage meleeing an enemy to death compared to spending a tiny bit more ammo taking them out from a distance. It not only deals fairly pitiful damage to anything tougher than a space marine, but you are left completely exposed and stuck right next to your target until you decide to retreat or tear through them. While it is extremely satisfying to say the least, it rewards absolutely nothing mechanically. If they were to take from dooms glory kill system and reward melee kills with extra health or ammo then it would fit very nicely into Boltguns gameplay loop, but sadly the chainsword is relegated to a pitiful last resort or for the true fan who enjoys the power fantasy of cutting a man in half with a chainsaw sword.



Is it worth the £18? without a doubt. Nothing mentioned in the review will make or break your experience with the game and with there being a severe lack of good FPS Warhammer 40k games there's not much room to complain, yet it does have some fairly obtuse problems that could've been fixed with a little more development time or a day one patch. With any luck maybe some of these can be addressed and bring this up to one of the greats like Dawn of War.

A solid 8/10 if I ever saw one.

A great game with an even better developer team, constant updates and bug fixes keeps the game fresh while keeping the look and feel familiar. Rock and stone.

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