Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior Review for the PlayStation 2

Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior Review for the PlayStation 2
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Overview

Despite having a rich background setting, Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior is a pretty generic science fiction FPS for the Playstation 2. Its gameplay has all the basics you get in most every first person shooter, and that’s all. Without much of anything to make it stand out, it’s no surprise this game was mostly ignored. It is also available for Windows PC.

I found the story kind of interesting, and this game even has a book associated with it. The opening cinematic sequence shows an invasion of human soldiers, and you play an alien who must lead the resistance and save the day. Like most games of this type, you start out with limited weapons and eventually pick up more along the way. You can never carry more than two at a time, which kind of sucks because it lends more to the lack of diversity in gameplay. I felt like I was stuck using mainly the same gun to shoot the same bad guys over and over again.

Gameplay (3 out of 5)

The levels are laid out in a very linear fashion, meaning that there is very little you can explore off the beaten path, and even then you’ll likely just hit a dead end. The enemy soldiers you fight are pretty generic in that almost all of them fall into the ‘stand still and shoot at you’ variety while the occasional smart one may take a little extra effort to kill. The levels are just as boring as the AI, and the only challenge is getting past the large numbers of enemies. There’s very little strategy to the gameplay.

Each level has at least one or two ‘find the button’ or ’locate the key’ parts where you will always find the button or key within the vicinity of where you need it. The task is so simple that it is more of an annoyance than a challenge. Some of the really great FPS games include mini puzzles in the gameplay to help break up the monotony of non-stop shooting, but this game didn’t try too hard. On top of all that, you have to play all the way through each level before you can save the game.

Graphics (3 out of 5)

The graphics are very average for a PS2 game, and made worse by a general lack of diversity in setting and opponents. You mostly run around in tight areas, meaning you don’t have much room to explore and are pretty limited in terms of finding cover from enemy fire. The animations aren’t half bad, but are like the rest of this game in that nothing about them stands out from any other first person shooter.

Multiplayer (N/A) (1 out of 5)

This game did at one time support online multiplayer action, but the times I have gone looking for other players there were none to be found. Given the age of the game and the fact that it’s a fairly unpopular title on an outdated console, I doubt you’d be able to find anyone to play with.

Overall (3 out of 5)

I picked up Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior out of the bargain bin at my local used game store, so I got it for only a few dollars. If you are a die-hard Warhammer 40k fan, you might get a little more out of it than I did, otherwise it’s just another generic shooting game for the PS2. It is compatible with the 80GB PS3.