TECH

Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior
PlayStation2
(THQ)

When I told my 12-year-old nephew that I’d just got Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior for my PS2, I expected him to shit his pants. I mean, this was Warhammer, some sci-fi gunk he’d been talking about since his wee days of Pokemon, Digimon and his little sister’s silly obsession with Paul Frank clothes. (You know, those fashionable fabrics with those little Furious George monkey faces pasted on them.)

But what does the kid say?

"Oh. Warhammer. That’s so fourth grade."

He’s in the sixth, by the way.

Way back when, he used to call me begging me to order him these Warhammer action figures. When I asked him what they were, he told me they were cool army guys from the future that came cast in metal, that he painted himself. He also got to paint giant rats and other monsters from the Warhammer collection.

Being the great uncle I am, I searched online to find out what this Warhammer stuff was. Turns out he was right: cast-metal figures you painted. Not porn. Not even violent video games. So I made my stepdad buy him the toys. (The hell if I’m gonna get my nephew something that isn’t gonna piss off his parents.)

Anyway, it turns out there have been other video games involving the Warhammer universe, but nothing like Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior. This baby is rated "M" for "Motherfuckin-kickass," and it is. It’s an FPS (first-person shooter), which means it’s like Doom, Wolfenstein 3D and Columbine.

In this game you play a storm trooper with some pretty nifty weapons like the pulse carbine (your standard-issue portable assault weapon with photon grenade launcher), the lasgun (rapid fire and a great close-up killer), the shotgun (heads go splat) and the sniper rifle.

The gameplay is much like Doom. You run around alien planets trying to find color keys to open doors to find the next level. While some find this boring and look for a lot more side-quests in FPS games, I find that the idea of killing as many others as possible is great. It’s nice to have little chats with amusing aliens on otherworldly landscapes, but I’d much rather blow their brains out; it’s nice to "control the plot," but it’s much more fun to bury others in lots of plots.

Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior may be a little brainless, but it makes up for it with plenty of brawn. Lots of the planet surfaces look alike, but don’t most cities, spaceships and high school corridors?

If you like to kill, this disc is for you. If you like to kill with your friends, there’s a split screen. If you like to kill with lots of others, the game is also online.

—George Tabb