Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun - Purge the Heretics!

 

(Nintendo Switch code provided by Focus Home Entertainment) 

By Sam Coles: 

The Warhammer 40k spin off franchise of Warhammer, has been going on for over 40 years and has enjoyed popularity throughout said duration. Games set in said universe have been mixed to say the least, from the awful Fire Warrior to the excellent 2011 release of Space Marine, which is getting a sequel soon (at the time of writing). So, who knew we would get an old school shooter from a developer based in Bristol, UK, but here we are with Boltgun. A shooter set in the 40k universe, however this time it is done in the style of the original Doom, with over-the-top violence with a metal soundtrack. Is it any good? Let’s find out!  

The narrative of Boltgun is rather paper thin, as it should be for a Doom style game where the gameplay does most of the talking. You play as an Ultra Marine, the white bread of the Space Marine chapters although easily the most iconic. Where you are sent to a planet to, you guessed it to purge the local heretics. What I love about the cutscenes although they are far and few, is that they take inspiration from 1990s games like Dark Forces, with basic yet well drawn animations it gives me a warm feeling of nostalgia in my belly. Although the lore of Warhammer 40k is vast and unique, I like how this game keeps things basic and to the point, as most players just want to tear enemies in half and blow them to kingdom come.  

As I have already detailed, Boltgun’s gameplay is in the style of old-school first-person shooters specifically Doom from 1993. The environments are 3D polygons, which give me an original PlayStation vibe where they almost replicated the texture warping from said platform. However, like Doom the enemies, items and weapon pick-ups are 2D sprites, so they will always be facing you no matter what angle you look at them replicating the style of that era and it looks outstanding.  

When you start the game, you start off with just your chain sword which can tear through basic grunts, but it is not long until you find your titular Boltgun. The chain sword works well as a good back up when you are in close quarter situations, it is a good companion to your Boltgun but ultimately it will fall to the wayside as you expand your arsenal. Not only do you get the Botlgun, but you also get a shotgun which just feels great to use as you blow someone into a bloody mist, a plasma gun, the Heavy Bolter (a personal favourite) and the Vengeance Launcher. The guns feel fantastic to use, and unlike a lot of old school fps games each weapon has a purpose, as you switch between them in each encounter to deal with the various heretics you will purge.   

Not only that, but the game also has a taunt button which I want in all fps games now and it is almost required in a Warhammer 40k game. I found myself getting into character, where I would almost spam the button after every kill as my Space Marine shouts a battle cry as he splits an enemy like a wishbone.

 

The game has massive and sprawling levels for you to explore, it is fairly typical of a 1990s first person shooter, where you find secrets and different colour keys to unlock new areas. The arenas are huge, with enormous enemy counts and I am going to say this right out the gate, this game is hard. I died numerus times in this game, it doesn’t mess around you have to keep moving during firefights because otherwise you will turn into a bloody pile of jam on the slice of toast that is the floor. It is very fast paced this game and requires quick reflexes, but the game does give you the tools to combat such endeavors, as you get power ups to give your weapons a little more kick like extended magazines to name a few.  

As I have said briefly before, the visuals ape the style of 90s fps, and it looks fantastic with the beautifully drawn sprites coupled with the gothic inspired architecture of the 40k universe. It is a surprisingly colourful game given its grim subject material it is based on. The only real issue with the visuals on Switch, is that the draw distance can be rather low, where it can be hard to see if there is a power up in the distance or an enemy ready to blow you into chunks. Not only that, but I also found performance would really struggle in places especially during moments where there is a large enemy count on screen. Maybe this is due to the Switch’s hardware, but I don’t see a reason for this given its simple art style and this platform can run games consistently with larger scales, perhaps it is an engine issue.  

Overall Warhammer: 40,000 Boltgun is an amazing game, even on the Nintendo Switch. It takes all the fun elements of the Warhammer: 40k universe specifically the Space Marine chapters and turns it into a gory, violent and over the top shooter! Even if you know nothing about Warhmmer: 40k, you can enjoy this regardless, as it requires no knowledge of the lore, and you can just get stuck into the gore fest! I highly recommend it!  

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Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion Remastered - The forgotten relic.

(Nintendo Switch code provided by Nightdive Studios) 

By Sam Coles: 

If you grew up as a child or teenager during the 1990s, you would remember that first person shooters were about as common as ripped jeans. Anyway, games like Doom set the benchmark for games within the genre going through, but Goldeneye proved that FPS games could work on a console. However, out of the sea of games within the genre at the time there is a little forgotten relic called Turok, originally exclusive games for the N64 platform they were stuck on said platform until Nightdive Studios remastered them for modern platforms.  

Turok 3 was a bit of an outlier in the series because it was the timing of its release, for one it was released on the N64 in the year 2000 when most moved onto the PS2. Plus, it was lost to time for ages as the source code wasn’t easily accessible unlike the first two games because they got PC releases which the third did not. Now, Nightdive Studios have brought us a remaster of the game on Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo Switch which the latter I played on, and they kindly sent me a code for. So, does this live up to the first two? No, but it is not a bad game by any stretch but let’s get into it.  

Turok 3 takes place after the events of the second game, where the titular Oblivion is about to destroy the world. Josuah Fireseed, the protagonist of the second game has a nightmare of a child who he tries to save, but the child is killed by Oblivion’s servants. He is awoken from his nightmare, where Oblivion’s forces have turned up at his home where he kills a few and is unfortunately gunned down by them where he slowly dies. His sister Danielle finds him in pain, she promises to finish his mission with her younger brother Joseph. They are found by Adon, the alien being that helped Joshua in the second game, where she asks either Danielle or Joseph to take on the mantle of Turok.  

The plot is nothing particularly special, but if you cast your mind back to the N64 you would know that having full voice acting and animated cutscenes was a bit of a chore for the system. The memory limitations of the N64 mostly due to the use of cartridges, severely handicapped the system for both audio and cutscenes. However, Turok 3 really pushed the N64, and with its original release had really bad performance issues which have been fixed in this remaster.  

Now the gameplay, Turok 3 is a first-person shooter and if you followed the series at the time it was known for its “Gun Porn” due to the creative of its arsenal. That is still the case, as this game still carries over most of the weapons from the second game with a few exceptions, but you still have the Cerebral Bore, a fan favourite of obliterating enemy’s brains. Before you begin a play through you must choose your character, you can either play as Danielle or Joseph besides visual differences they will have slightly different play styles and weapons to use.  

If you like over the top weapons and running and gunning, then pick Danielle as she gets access to miniguns and more ridiculous weapons. If you like a covert approach, choose Joesph who has access to subtle weapons like a silence pistol as well as being able to squeeze into tight spaces. Both have different styles of play, but ultimately it does not change too much as the overall path is the same throughout this 3 hour romp.

That is my problem with Turok 3, its linearity and enemy variety compared to Turok 2. Now, I know Turok 2’s levels were too big in places, and you could end up back tracking to the beginning to the level to find that one missing objective but at least they added variety with enemies as well as locales. Turok 3 lacks the enemy variety of the second game, you are mostly fighting guys with guns, or guys with swords that throw grenades with the odd dinosaur and alien cropping up here and there. Whereas in Turok 2, the enemies would change in each stage, you start off fighting humanoid dinosaurs, gorilla like creatures in the Death Marshes and then fighting insect aliens in a hive like level. Turok 3’s combat gets a bit stale, especially in the latter half of the game.  

What have they improved in this remaster? Well as I have said, the original N64 version was unplayable with how low the framerate was as it would get to single digits in the original. The bottleneck points of the original with the framerate are now gone, as the game even on Nintendo Switch runs at a locked 60 frames per second. Not only that the textures have been given a significant boost, although the character models during cutscenes still have a bug-eyed look to them but give it a break it is an N64 game originally. The game also has a combat wheel which slows the game down like the newer Doom games, plus makes it easier to switch to a specific weapon instead of using the d-pad to laboriously get to the one you want. However, that is about it, as the game is left mostly untouched with its content minus the multiplayer which is curiously missing considering they included it in the Turok 2 remaster.  

Overall, I think this game was ambitious for what it was doing at the time on native hardware, but if you play it now it feels rather generic when compared to the first two and it is abundantly clear why it is often forgotten. It only clocks in just over 3 hours with a single play through, with the current asking price is too much. It is not a bad game by any stretch, just something that exists and lacks the personality of the first two games, if you want my recommendation buy the remasters of the first two instead.  

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