Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior

I really wanted to enjoy my time with 40k Fire Warrior but there really isn't a whole lot to write home about here. I'm not sure I will even finish the game. The level design is pretty straight forward and bland (outside of a secret objective each mission that the game doesn't tell you about), which would be fine if the gunplay was good. The gunplay is not good. Guns actively feel like they are fighting against you. The Pulse Rifle, Pulse Carbine, and Autogun all feel like spray and pray weapons. Accuracy is not a thing with these weapons. Weapons that seem like they should really pack a punch (Shotgun, Sniper Rifle, Plasma Gun) lack any real good feedback or effect that makes them feel like powerful tools. Most weapons have a secondary fire that might make them a little stronger or accurate, but it doesn't help to make most weapons feel better. Grenades can be your best friend but they feel hit and miss. Game balance feels all over the place. Some mobs of enemies will just shred you and force you to restart from your last checkpoint. Other times it just feels like mobs are just paper and you blow through them quite easily. Most enemies feel spongy most of the time and I'm not sure if that is because the weapons feel meh or if the enemies are actual sponges. Enemy AI can be on point and take cover or just stand in front of you and tank damage. The audio in Fire Warrior gets repetitive real fast. You will hear the same "pew pews" for most missions. Not much to say here. I did enjoy the terrible voice acting. Aiming in the game is rough. It may have felt better back in the day, but it feels sluggish and with the help of the weapons accuracy being low, combat just sucks. Now, you can turn on the auto aim feature which did help me a little bit, but it didn't save this lackluster experience for me. Maybe on sale this might be worth it for you but there are much better games that you can spend your money on.

A lot of people really love to bash Fire Warrior but it's really not all that bad. Fire Warrior was the game that pretty much got me into Warhammer 40k so i have a little bit of a soft spot for it. I played this game originally on the PS2 back in 2003 when it came out and after currently playing this version on GoG i have to say that the PS2 version is still pretty much the superior platform to enjoy this game on. The PC version has various issues such as wonky aiming, no mouse support inside the game menus, graphical bugs that are not present in the PS2 version and is even missing dialogue in-between mission loading which is simply replaced with a quick flash of text that disappears within 2 seconds due to load speeds on modern computers making it impossible to understand what the hell is going on in the story. Fire Warrior has it's ups and downs but it does portray the 40k lore rather accurately and is even one of the few 40k games to get boltguns correctly. If you can get past the mediocre gameplay and enjoy Warhammer 40k and want to experince 40k in first person then give Fire Warrior a shot but i do highly suggest playing the PS2 version if you really want to play this and can some how get your hands on it. The developers at least redeemed themselves by making a much better game called Battalion Wars for the gamecube so that's good i guess.

The controls are a bit wonky and take some time to get used to. The Audio is weird in that some voice lines come out fine and others are barely audible (like when a character is literally a foot in front of you and you cant here him). Also wish the enemies had more to say (hearing "It's Quiet." when an artillary barrage is coming down is just stupid). The Shooting is fine, but the aiming is a bit weird in that no 2 shots hit in the same spot (i.e. volume of fire over percision). Had to force V-sync, AA, and had to turn my mouse sensitivity almost all the way down to get the game to look good. It's an OK game. A few problems here or there but it's not unenjoyable. Everything at least works how it's supposed to, and there are fun moments throughout.

Is this game good? By today's standards, no, not at all. Was this game good back in the day? Ehhh. This game was my childhood, I can remember sneaking out of my room to play it late at night when my parents were asleep, and I was so happy to see its on GOG Lets start with the good: This game gets the 40k universe right. The art style is perfect. And, it's also nice to see a 40k game not focus on the Spehs Mareens! for the 60th time. The weapons feel correct for a 40k game (bar the Tau weapons which are really short range and inaccurate. My experience playing against Tau in tabletop says otherwise). The voice acting, for the most part, is very good, particularly Severus and Admiral Constantine Now the bad: There is a bug in the game in which all the Imperial guard enemies constantly say "It's quiet". The audio options are very limited, sometimes I couldn't hear what people were saying and there is no way to adjust this. The gameplay is also really janky, but this is because it is a bad PC port. Turning on auto aim helps a lot, but this is a game from the early 2000s. In conclusion, if you are not a 40k fan, DO NOT BUY THIS GAME. But, if you are and want to experience a game from a time in which 40k games had a bit more polish than they do now (DOW III *cough*) then go ahead and pick this up. It's only $6, so if you don't like it, its no big deal.

Most reviews make this out to be a failure of a shooter mocking it as a relic of a bygone age of emulating better games. While this game has not aged outstandingly well I'd say a fair number of small issues have been glaringly over nitpicked by the community. The games runs surprisingly decent with few bugs on my end, and while the sound design isnt great it is still quite servicable. The guns are mixed bag but I'd still say the shooting is still satisfying, with the imperial guard being fun to fight against. Is this Halo quality? No, not by a longlas shot. But its better than its made out to be and should be given a fair shake.