Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior

Let's remind ourselves. 2003. If you have not been playing Battlefield 1942 for the last year, you might have seen Elite Force 2, jedi Academy, Planetside 1, Rainbow Six 3, Tron 2.0 - Call of Duty 1 came out the same month as this. Halo came out in 2001. So did Max Payne on PS2. Even by those days standards 'Fire Warrior' by Kuju Entertainment was underwhelming, laughable, bad. A UK developer with no background in FPS trying to make a Halo-like FPS for Sony in a time when those were still rare on the PS2. (Killzone came out in 2004). Trying to be a typical PS2 console shooter of it's time, it was technically inferior by all accounts and the gameplay and level design was next to non-existent. Character models, Animations ... pick your poison. According to one of the (contract) developers the studio ran out of money for a while and they released the game later with little to no additional work. Do you play it today for 'historical reference'? I recommend to rather watch a 3 min YT video instead. I regret my purchase, but could not resist my 'digital hoarder' syndrome.

The game just doesn't play well at all. The story is alright, despite breaking some lore rules here and there, but when its such a chore to get to the next story beat, you don't even care. Not recommended

Fire Warrior is by no means a good game; but it's not a horrible game either. While it supports higher resolutions on modern machines (playing in 1080), it crashes often if you are playing on a refresh rate different from your monitor's. So make sure you set that up properly. Besides that, the control are pretty bad, to the point where you should not play this without auto-aim. Even then, you will probably have to tweak the scrolling speed... By going in and out of the game to change the settings. Yes, even though it came out in 2003, long after we were used to the comforts of changing options in-game, Fire Warrior is one of THOSE games that makes you change everything (and I mean everything) outside of the game. Once you actually get to play the game, it's not that bad. The setting of war(hammer) in the first few missions and a few others is very nice. And playing as a Tau is a novel idea. At times you are even acompanied by fellow soldiers who, unless the plot demands it, are about as weak as paper. But they add a nice little layer of atmosphere, and drop ammo for your beloved Pulse Rifle; so every bit helps. Not that you need help anyway, since the enemy is pretty dumb and poorly scripted; a very standard early-2000s FPS trope. You will never not stop hearing a soldier saying "It's quiet" while you are exchanging shots with another one 30 feet in front of him. Unfortunately the levels can get a bit repetitive, and some of them are heavily devoid of rifle ammo, making you have to use the inferior humanoid weapons (ew). If you haven't guessed it by now, Fire Warrior is the kind of game you have to make fun in your head. There's not much else to do other than that, besides pass through bland corridors shooting everything in sight. But if you ever wanted to play a Tau soldier in a large battle against the Empire, you will probably like it.

This game may not be the best fps ever, or the best 40K game, but is fun as hell and an old time classic. The 40K is represented in a very cool way and the campaign is very fun to play, I really enjoy this game and I was eager to have it on PC on GOG. Oh btw, glory to the TAU and FOR THE GREATER GOOD

It's almost hard to remember a time when the 40K license was a novelty in games; a handful of SSI-style strategy games used it in the past, which made Fire Warrior a novelty to 40K fans. The question "can we make a shooter out of it" was all too common in the Halo-dominated gaming market of 2003, and Fire Warrior is the predicably mediocre result. The game focuses on the T'au race, eschewing the popularity of the human races in an unusual but somewhat laudable choice. The plot hits many familiar notes for a 40K storyline, starting with an against-the-odds rescue mission, and culminating in fighting the forces of chaos corrupting a human colony; but the pace is plodding and there is very little characterization. The voice acting is average to bad (there are some somewhat problematic accents), and the screenshots tell you all you need to know about the graphics. Gameplay-wise, it feels like a budget 2003 shooter, with heavy design inspiration from Halo- with recharging shields and two weapon slots. It's design nods to other, better games like Deus Ex from time to time as well. Enemies jerk when shot, but the lack of feedback on hit-scan weapons and slow speed of projecties makes the shooting feel anaemic, with no sense of impact. Enemies kind of look like their 40K counterparts, but their mindless, suicidal attack patterns make them a chore to fight. Level design is typically bland but sinks to bad from time to time, with some frustrating boss fights and unobvious destructable level elements that hinders progress. Mostly however, they're featureless, linear corridors peppered with troops to mow through. The only thing that made Fire Warrior distinctive at the time was it's license; a distinction it does not have today, with a new 40K game being released seemingly every other month. Now. it is merely a dull, below-average Halo clone. Relic picked up the license in 2004 to make Dawn of War; if you want to fight humanity as the T'au, that's the game to play.