Regaining that advantage is the story of Space Hulk. While the narrow corridors are death traps, you can turn the tables at the intersections by setting your Terminators on Overwatch.For some reason lost to board-game logic, the Space Marines can barely shoot during their own turns, but can lay down unlimited, sustained fire during the Genestealer turn. So if you have two Space Marines covering a doorway, one from the front and one from the side, every Genestealer coming through the door is going to get it from the front and the flank. With those odds, it’s probably curtains for Mr. Genestealer. Figuring out how to take these positions, and escape from them once you’re ready to move on, is a tough but rewarding tactical puzzle.
Trouble is, once you’ve mastered setting up these kill zones, there’s also not a whole lot left to do. It’s basically a meat grinder on autopilot; a board game where the dice roll themselves and there is always a clearly right and wrong way to approach a situation. Certain mission objectives do change things up, like having to march across a huge map while fending off Genestealers from every side, or gathering your forces after a bad teleporter insertion. But these twists are really there for flavor, and don’t substantially change what you’re doing.
There’s still quite a lot of tension, but it's entirely luck-based. Weapons can jam, and it takes a command point (a special reserve of extra action points shared among your whole squad) to unjam them. Genestealers, once they get into melee range, are almost guaranteed to bring down a standard Terminator, so the stakes are high for these shots. Nevertheless, your job is to set up the most favorable context for a ton of different dice rolls. Too often in Space Hulk, I felt like the passenger on these missions, not their commander.
That’s not a deal breaker if you’re on board with this theme. Space Hulk nails the overwrought seriousness of the Space Marines and the deep, abiding menace of exploring a Genestealer-infested starship. Each squad member has beautifully customized armor, and the audio and voice acting are very good, though I felt like bolters firing in a confined metal passageways should be a little more dramatic than they are here.
The art is generally attractive, although one section of the Space Hulk looks like almost every other. It's the animations that are seriously lacking – and that’s a problem, because you'll see Genestealers getting gunned down the exact same half-dozen ways over and over again in a single game, and horrifying moments like a Blood Angel getting eviscerated by Genestealer claws are wasted. On the other hand, I loved the touch of an “armor cam” in the upper right showing the grainy, pixelated view of each Terminator as he moves through the starship.
Throw another Genestealer on the barbie.
As you might expect, Space Hulk gets a lot better when playing against another person, especially a friend. With a stranger as an opponent the multiplayer can be a little airless, as this is a slow-paced game. The long pauses after someone clicks “end turn” don’t help either, though these happen in single-player as well.
But if you can play with a friend while chatting over Skype, then suddenly all Space Hulk’s dumb luck turns into an emotional roller coaster as key moment play out. It's the story of the hero-Terminator who goes on a tear with his assault cannon and single-handedly clears an entire corridor of charging Genestealers, or the sergeant who was brought down from behind just as he reached the safety of the exit square. This is clearly what this game was meant for, especially since humans can be far craftier with the Genestealers than the AI is. I found playing the Genestealers just about as fun as playing the Space Marines – a test of patience and opportunism in the manner of Left 4 Dead multiplayer. Of course, a chunk of that fun was from the fact that I talked like a Space Marine for the entire game: “Brother Noctis, my holy beer flagon has run dry. In the Emperor’s name I command you to bring me an Imperial Stout from the refrigeratorium.”
THE VERDICT
Ultimately, Space Hulk is a fine game, a pleasant diversion. I rarely wanted to play more than one mission at a time, but I was also happy to return after a few hours. I’m have to doubt that there's much replay value to the 12 campaign missions, though multiplayer will extend their life considerably. The main problem with Space Hulk, though, is that its designers couldn't let it deviate from or build on the simple rules of a board game experience that lacks tactical depth.
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