Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior

... starring a fire warrior. =)

I read about this game in White Dwarf as a kid. Yes the controls are bad. Yes it's a bit of a Halo clone, but oh my is it nostalgic. Sound and graphics is not the best for its time but the game has the aura of early shooters and is actually quite fun. My 4/5 is for fans if Warhammer 40.000 - if you aren't a fan I would probably give this game a pass.

Just like the Ps2 game with slightly improved graphics, controls and feel is exactly like it was n 2001, perfect little nostalgia trip

It's a very middling game. I always thought the tau and hiveworlds are the only two aspects of 40k I actually really have any interest in. Checking out this game was just more for taking a peak at what ideas they had. Turns out they didn't really have much of any story ideas to tell, and the gameplay is just another shooter and a very mediocre one at that. I still think it had some cool concepts here. playing an ordinary soldier of the firecast, who is still provided leniency of incredible capability through superior alien technology is a great choice. You're not supposed to be a god, but if you end up doing the absurdly improbably it still kinda works. There's tons of room for higher enemies, but it also makes regular imperium soldiers act as a threat. I think if they leaned more into your growth as a soldier mattering eventually seeing you in a battlesuit taking on even stronger opponents and deadly threats while starting out as a wet paper bag soldier that needs to be far more tactical could have made for something incredible. That's still just pointing to what could have been or what could still be. Overall it was just a neat peak into some cool manual art, the cover of this is really cool and easily the best part of the game, the tutorial is lacking, the gameplay is lacking and boring while the audio shorted out for me constantly. There's not really much of a storyline other than your a new firewarrior earning their ranks as you help fend off the imperium. It's not really anything to write home about in any aspect but it was still enough for me to just go "It's a fine game but not really memorable beyond the concept."

Fire Warrior is a product of its time. That is to say, a pretty standard FPS with small amounts of platforming. A lot of people have judged it harshly based on this, but I think if you give it a chance, it can give you that nostalgia bump, even if, like me, you never even played it when it came out. I would say one of it's major it's pros is it's voice cast. For whatever cut scenes there are, you have the likes of Brian Blessed, Peter Serafinowicz, and Sean Pertwee, which is an insane cast for a mid-budget FPS based on what was, at the time, a niche hobby. It also really digs in to the aesthetic of Warhammer 40,000, and everything looks right. Some negatives are, as others have noted, the enemies can be a bit bullet-spongey, but I think the weapons available at each stage scale up in line with the enemy toughness, so it doesn't get any more out of hand really than it starts. Another negative is that, to me, while the story is fine (not a revelation, but not boring), it doesn't particularly lean into the Tau lore. I think this is because at the time, the Tau were a new faction, and a lot was yet to be established, but I hink the story would have worked exactly the same with very little changes if, for example, the protagonist had been and Inquisitor, or an Imperial Guard, which is a bit of a shame. Either way, if you're a Warhammer fan, it's worth a try. If you're not, then unless you're a big fan of early 00s shooters, it's probably a miss.