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• gamedeal user

  Nov 14, 2014

  This is an early review from a 40k fan that was very disappointed with the first Space Hulk game by these guys. ======= I'm pretty early into Ascension right now (Blood Angels/Hard/Sin of Damnation), but based on my experience a few hours into the campaign -- THIS is the Space Hulk game I wanted, and here's why. [h1]Graphics[/h1] The immediate obvious upgrade are the visuals. Everything looks remarkably better now. Especially glorious are some of the improved animations. My favorite being the new Genestealer finisher moves; fittingly brutal and memorable ends to our heroes of the Imperium. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] Tactical options are similarly improved -- and vastly expanded. Think XCom/Jagged Alliance 2 style trade-offs between accuracy and AP, and fine-tuned % chance to hit instead of D6 rolls. Every mission completion will make you feel like a master of calculated risk, instead of a broken peasant berated by the shrieking laughter of the dice gods. Weapons are way more interesting now. Bolters overheat during extended firefights ala Incubation. Melee is now way less of a near-certain death sentence, as it is possible to improve a Terminator's melee skill via leveling and perks. The heavy flamer now has template options which are *excellent* -- you can choose to shoot a long narrow stream of fire, a short wide one, or in-between. Squad customization and leveling is well implemented and a huge plus. With customization and leveling comes a much deeper feeling of ownership and attachment to your every success and disaster. On hard difficulty, I assure you, you will sacrifice your rookies in desperate moves to support and protect your veterans. [h1]Campaign and RPG Elements[/h1] Did I mention the campaign? No more linear mission list. It's now a branching campaign with random flash missions on the side. Did I say campaign? I meant 3 campaigns. And now your squads can stick together through all 3 campaigns as a persistent force, leveling up and unlocking perks together the whole way through. One last thing I need to mention is probably my favorite improvement --how much faster and fluid the enemy turn is. Now all of your Terminators fire as all of the Genestealers rush you simultaneously. It looks epic and delivers a much more intense payoff when you brace for an assault and hit the end turn button. It's about as far removed as possible from the tedious (and frankly boring to watch) combat resolution of the previous title. It actually feels like combat now. [h1]Suggestions[/h1] I do have some suggestions for the developer. I want a hotkey for reloading. I want icons over unit cards so I can see who is out of ammo, or has an overheated or jammed weapon. I think the deployment process during mission start should be improved. I want music in the loadout screen. I posted these suggestions in the forum last night. Soon after, in my thread and many others, I saw the developers quickly respond and let us know that suggestions are very welcome, and will be used for internal discussions. That kind of customer interaction should be commended, and it's the main reason why I decided to spend a chunk of tonight writing this review, rather than just playing all night and keeping my excitement to myself. [h1]Conclusion[/h1] Overall there are a ton of changes both big and small that elevate this game far above its predecessor. If you like combat-focused turn-based strategy games, and the idea of spraying alien guts all over the walls of a space derelict sounds like your kind of party, then all I can say is -- the xenos must be PURGED, brothers.
• gamedeal user

  Nov 16, 2014

  Total Control's last foray into Space Hulk was a faithful conversion of the board game, and subsequently lauded by existing fans while crushing new players underfoot due to the difficulty. Whichever side of the fence you found yourself on however, it was still a bit soulless. It put the board game on the screen, but beyond that, it didn't exactly push back the boundaries. It also suffered from unfair comparison to X-Com, and received generally middling scores in reviews. A success in my eyes, but a view that pushes me into the minority. Ascension seems to be almost a slap in the face style challenge to those who made those comparisons and criticisms. More RPG elements? Fine. More of an arcade style play? Fine. You want percentages instead of digital dice? You got it. You want to name your marine Susan? Oh hell, if you must! Considering how much I liked the board-faithful game, I was fully prepared to dislike Ascension with all the fan-offence of a true alienated geek. The result is, however ... surprisingly fun. It's a different game - let's get that out of the way immediately. It looks vaguely similar, but plays very differently. So much so, the discount offered to owners of the first game surprises me slightly. It won't quench the angst of the self-entitled few who feel downtrodden by such evil injustice as FC not giving them a whole new game, but it's a welcome gesture. So what's it like? Whereas it does contain the board-game set missions, it cloaks them in much more theatricality, and offers many side-missions to flesh out the story behind each campaign. The missions seem much more connected now. The three campaigns are flavoured for the three Chapters included, the Space Wolves, Ultramarines, and the staple of Space Hulk, the Blood Angels, but you're free to play them with whichever Chapter you prefer. Instead of an unlucky dice roll jamming your stormbolter, weapons now have a rising heat mechanic which prevents unlimited sustained fire, but which also means the first bolt out of your weapon won't result in a jam. It's a nice little touch which evens out the bumps in play and makes your imminent misfortune a touch more predictable, and subsequently allows you to plan for it. There are now deployable items, sensors and the like that emit a revealing pulse, while using a very familiar sound. It adds another welcome level of tactics and evokes a smile at the aural homage. Melee combat no longer seems like assured death. When it does come however, the marine no longer falls over as though someone unplugged his Terminator armour. There are more death animations now, thankfully. The animations all round seem more polished, as indeed does the rest of the game. You'll be surprised to find upon teleporting in that you can't see a great deal. With some exceptions, the Hulk is very, very dark until explored by your marines. Some will complain about this, as it does add an additional level of difficulty to the game. However, it also does what it was most likely intended to do. The game feels much more claustrophobic and oppressive. You don't feel like rushing ahead, because frankly, you don't know what might be out there. Sure, you can see the 'ping' markers for movement, but until you can see exactly how the corridors are laid out, your decision of how to proceed must be a considered one. Now I know what Hicks and Drake felt like, creeping along one step at a time despite having enough firepower to level a small village. The ability to rename and customise your marines adds that little bit of empathy, and makes their death all the more of an event to be avoided. No longer are they replaced by the faceless masses. When Percival the III, space marine sergeant extraordinaire goes down under a hail of genestealer claws, he leaves behind some considerable boots to fill. Hicks Jnr will just have to man-up. There are skills now, allowing you to customise your marines further as they gain experience, assuming you don't get them slaughtered that is, which can still happen. Extra movement is always welcome, as is increased to-hit percentage, or do you want to make a melee powerhouse called Francine? There are loads of nice touches, like the heavy flamer having different patterns, the thermal view through the shoulder-cam, which is generally an improvement over the first game in all ways, and even in-mission goodies to find and collect. So that's some of the good stuff, but is it all worthy of the Emperor? Well ... no, not quite. There are customisation options, certainly, but considering you can have ten marines in the game at once, the options are quickly exhausted. There are not many heads to choose from, so my marines all go with helmets, except the valiant sergeant of course. It stops them all looking like interbred cousins from space. There's a law somewhere that says if you're going to offer customisation options, make them many and varied. If not, there should be. There are some performance issues, especially with framerate when all ten marines are deployed, although FC seem to be already tackling that. Likewise, there are some bugs that have been reported and seem to be receiving due attention. No custom chapter: Other developers have set the bar on this, so high that we almost expect as standard now some type of interface to allow you to design your own chapter from the ground up in honour of the game origins, which was essentially about you tediously painting very expensive figurines and inventing your own chapter if you chose to do so. It's lacking here, which is a shame. Bolter sounds: It's a minor quibble, sure, but in the first game, bolters sounded ferociously chunky as they unleashed a thunderous volley. They now spit and plink. This is likely a case of FC not being able to please everyone. They came under criticism the first time around for the bolters sounding so loud. Damned if you do ... Voice actors: If there's more than one, I'll apologise. "Vengeance of the Blood Angels" from 1993 already showed how to do Space Hulk voice acting well. FC could do worse than buy an old Sega Saturn and copy of Vengeance off E-bay, fire it up and check it out. Instead of a load of very distinct voices giving a true sense of a squad in combat, we have the same monotone for all marine responses, and even the briefings. It's not a game-breaker by any means, but it is a missed chance for immersion. It's things like that which elevate a game from good to great. On the whole, it's a fine game, or will be once some of the technical problems are fixed. Is it perfect? No, but my complaints are not deal-breakers, and some are not really complaints, but a list of wishes. It was perhaps released a touch early, but that can be dealt with. If you can live through a few teething problems, and if you're a fan of Space Hulk, or indeed 40k in general, then there is much to enjoy here, which is what I should be doing instead of writing ridiculously long reviews. Back to the Hulk I go, in the Emperor's name, of course.
• gamedeal user

  Sep 26, 2015

  Update January 2016: Looks like at least the most game-breaking bugs have finally been fixed, after 5 months of absolute silence. Unfortunately they didn't release any patch notes so it's anyone's guess right now as to what they actually did and didn't fix. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Original review: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DO NOT BUY THIS IN ITS CURRENT STATE. Although this game is enjoyable for what it is, the latest patch makes the game unplayable. A fix was promised 4 months ago and then all communication stopped. So far they have not delivered. I will remove this review once (and if) they patch it, so if you're reading this it means it has not yet been fixed. If you recently bought it, try getting a Steam refund.
• gamedeal user

  Sep 14, 2015

  I really like this game. I really do. But i can't recommend it in its current state. Or past state. The problem with Space Hulk Ascension, it is riddled with bugs. Yes alien bugs, but also game breaking bugs that make it impossible to advance in a chapter campaign. And there is no end in sight, no betterment, because the development studio (Full Control) was closed and there is only the janitor left who they condemned to fix it. At least this is the impression given by the fact that with every new build it gets even worse. Do not buy this game! Especially not with this rediculous price tag on it. They want this much cash for a defective product, however support is practically not existent and there is no advisory whatsoever.
• gamedeal user

  Feb 24, 2015

  So now that I've played this game over 60 hours and finished all campaigns twice(except DLC ones), I think it's time to share my opinion on it, since very few of my friends have bought it. Many people think that Ascension is just some expansion for the ordinary SH with some niceties here and there, but it's not just it imo. It had gone far from the tabletop game and has a lot of new elements, that fit perfectly. I'd say it's a well done sequel, and its gameplay entertains me much more, than the original(tabletop is fine, but it was quite boring in PC version, never could make myself play more than 1 mission in a row). So what we have here: 1) Fully customizable squad in terms of weapons and appearance. Different heads, bodies, holy symbols and all that. You can give every terminator a name of your choosing. 2) Weapons with different stats and mechanics. Combi-flamer, combi-melta, combi-plasma, melee weapons from chainfist to thunder hammer and lightning claws, they all have different bonuses and have their own uses. 3) XP and level system. Your terminators gain XP for completing mission and killing enemies, and when you gain a new level, you unlock new weapons, new perks(skills), new equipment like mines and power field generators and raise one of their 6 stats. This allows for building your team in your own unique way. I enjoy this RPG elements very much. Also, terminators are divided into several classes: melee, ranged, heavy, librarian, sergeant. They all have access to weapons, exclusive to their class, and they all gain perks in different way. 4) 45 missions in 3 campaigns, not counting the random(flash) missions. The game doesn't look as repetitive as the previous installation of the tabletop. Various tyranid enemies make the gameplay more interesting in a long run, it's not just standard GS and Broodlord in the original. Here you have debuffing genestealers, exploding genestealers, MK Scorpion-like("Come over here") genestealers. It's fun! Well, I guess that pretty does it. All that is left to say is one thing the devs screwed up with: MELEE COMBAT. Forget the melee. Never build your strategy relying on melee advance. It's a fawkin' roulette. I say it as a player who chose Space Wolves for my first playthrough(they are "decent" melee fighters, but poor shooters and don't have Ranged class terminators at all, which is a HUGE disadvantage). It was painful and I walked through hell of save\load game since I hate to lose my characters. P.S. Always take a librarian in a squad. ALWAYS.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 18, 2014

  Good recreation of the SH boardgame, surprisingly good actually. The community asked for difficulty tweaks and the team answered with a patch that gave full customization, a new DLC and plenty of bugfixes and other tweaks. This means: the game is good, the DEVs listen to the community, hence this game is a worthy investment.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 30, 2014

  Genre - Games Workshop Sci-Fi Board Game Conversion I have played the original Space Hulk and was unsure whether to invest in this game also. All I can say is I am glad I did. It appears the developers have learnt from the first game that a straight board game conversion needs some tweaks to make it more fun on for the average PC gamer. Gone are the random bolter malfunctions and now if you fail it is more down to bad tactics and not just being very unlucky at the wrong time. Don't get me wrong there will still be instances you have to re-load within a level to avoid a bad timing incident. You now get persistent upgrades for your Terminators, which makes it feel more like a squad based RPG. I have lost some men on the way and on normal mode they are replaced with equivalent levels, so you don't feel you have to re-load everytime you let a man die (Hooray for casulties of war, shame there are no records of them like XCom and Cannon Fodder). The Genestealers themselves now have different mutations making them a more interesting threat, e.g. some burst into acid, whilst others are just tougher to kill. There are three chapters included each with their own campaign and there are optional and alternative routes to complete each one. Basically this is Space Hulk the sequel, and it is a lot more Aliens than Alien vs Predator.
• gamedeal user

  Mar 1, 2015

  Edit: 27-01-2016 A new series of fixes have been released and seems the game bugs are being repaired at last. Praise The Techpriests. End of edit: 27-01-2016 Review: Do you like Alien and Aliens, to feel like Gorman giving crappy commands from the safety of the APC while his men got killed fighting their way out of the alien nest? Do you like Games Workshop tabletop games and have an open mindset about a pc game not being identical to its tabletop counterpart and you are not a graphic vvhore who will complain because the texture in that hidden surface noone else would notice doesnt have a bazillion pixel resolution? Like Turn Based Strategy, slow paced gameplay with a cup of tea at 3:00 in the night? If the answer is yes, buy this game. Highly recomended, and its hard and im not even deep into the first campaign and already regret not having acquired it earlier. Edit: Would like to add some clarifications about Space Hulk Ascension for those undecided: In this game you will lead one or two squads of Terminators in a series of engagements in opressive and dark corridors aboard abandoned ships. you will have to keep your men together, advance together, make good use of opportunities, keep a constant watch of your flanks (being exposed = being dead). Your men will level up (max level is 10) and unlock a series of skills, gear and weapon access. Its nothing too deep but it is OK, you can play with builds, try to go full melee, range specs, mixed with psychic or medic support, etc (here is when the "racial" traits of each chapter come in handy). The game offers a small but very interesting amount of weapons to customize your men, each with its own pros and cons, altough their descriptions might seem misleading at first. The difficulty levels can be customized but you wont get achievements if you select a custom difficulty. Regarding the DLC packs: they are not mandatory to enjoy the game but they enhance it a lot by adding 3 long new campaigns and 3 more or less interesting chapters (with some new specializations and weapons) to an already good game. If overall you are enjoying the base game and like the Warhammer universe they are a recomendable purchase. I guess im missing some important stuff but hope this little edit helps to enlighten a bit. End of Edit. Btw, the game looks amazing and has enough customization options for the terminators. Its a turn based strategy game, not an mmo to stand afk looking good with some cosmetic items in the city capital of Dorkland online. May The Emperor forgive me for having Mordheim City of the Damned labelled as favourite game instead of Space Hulk Ascension, but these two titles are probably my favourite turn based games, ever.
• gamedeal user

  Sep 14, 2017

  Ultimately I can't recommend this game. Not because it's a terrible game or a terrible adaptation of the board game I've never played, but because there are just too many issues and "rough edges" as well as lackluster design decisions. It's quite a hefty price with almost 30 bucks (without DLC, which I will address later). What is SHA? It's a video game version of a classical WH4k board game. You will take command of up to 2 squads of 5 so called Terminators each. Terminators are Space Marines in Tactical Dreadnought Armor. Basically they're walking tanks (more on that later). Each mission challenges you with completing certain objectives in long winding corridors and after a mission every surviving Terminator gets XP. Level ups mean you can invest into better skills (percentage increases) and get new weapons and equipment. That's pretty much it. 1. The game is, sadly, abandoned and the latest BETA patch fixes supposedly most of the issues. At least I did not encounter any bugs on my UM playthrough. But it has to be said that the official version of the game is currently bugged and the devs are no longer working any improvements or new features. 2. The performance is abysmal, even when turning off the shoulder camera (pro tip: do it, you'll never look at it anyway, but you gain a lot of FPS). I'm running a pretty good PC and the graphics aren't good, but corpses and flames really bring the game down to its knees. It's not a fun experience. 3. Lack of variety. Basically you'll go from 1 mission to the next to either activating/deactivating something by moving a Terminator onto that space and pressing a button, killing all genestealers, and/or evacuating all your Terminators. The missions get repetitive, there's no real story here, just a few loading screen infos with a bit of fluff, no voice over, no real mission briefings, no sense of drama, which 40k is so known for, no cutscenes, nothing, it's just a bit bland. Likewise Terminator customisation is lacking in terms of appearance and weapons. Every Terminator is mostly going to be the same variant. There's no RPG like connection to your guys other than maybe the sergeant and librarian of your squads. They will all field the same weapons and upgrades (the best ones of course) if they can do so. I've had the most fun with heavies since their weaponry is truly unique, but for the first 4 or 5 levels you only unlock variants of your standard storm bolter (one with more shells fired but decreased accuracy and another one with less ammo but more accuracy I think). Nothing in that regard is very interesting in itself. I didn't see any compelling reasons to test and switch equipment. 4. The upgrade system is a bit lackluster. Only a few of the 6 selections are really worthwhile: You want your Terminators to hit more, be hit less and move faster. That's really all there is to it. The problem here is that "only" completing the campaign for each chapter WITH that chapter means you'll unlikely get past level 5 with any Terminator, unless you maybe spawn camp. There are a lot more unlocks at even higher levels. You kinda have to play the other campaigns with that chapter as well, which somewhat defeats the purpose for me personally. 5. XP: I get it. You kill stuff, you get more experienced, but I feel this is too restrictive, since the gameplay doesn't really favour that approach. Also spawn camping is a thing. Basically you'll just "fool proof" a mission and have Terminators on overwatch over the last remaining spawn point(s), continuously killing genestealers and raking in xp. Since missions don't have timers and genestealers spawn endlessly, well... also, at some points during each campaign you will only have access to 1 of your 2 squads, meaning the other squad won't gain any xp for that time. 6. The general gameplay. This game is played almost exclusively in long corridors with intersections and the occasional small rooms. This leads to what I refer to as the Terminator Shuffle: You will advance slowly, preferrably using the heat reduction trait (your weapons reduce double the heat buildup - they jam when they overheat - with steps or heat reduction skill, so you'll never find yourself completely out of resources if you can move forward at a steady pace), until you find an alcove or an intersection where you can possibly switch Terminators around, letting your front man reload or cool down, getting your flamer guy in the front to scorch 10 enemies at once, etc. You will then hope you have more than 4 AP already for each Terminator, because overwatch is essential and takes 2 AP per turn, leaving you only with 2 AP to move, reload or reduce heat at the start, which sucks...it is a very slow paced game, which requires a lot of patience. Yes, you can speed up the walking animations (walking tank anyone?), but that just sounds and looks stupid... :/ Terminator congo lines are a thing, because the big guys are so fat they can't shoot past each other, which imho defeats the whole purpose of these missions...but who am I to judge? 7. Enemies...I think I've made the mistake to play my first campaign on easy, so I didn't get anything higher than a 2 HP melee genestealer. Supposedly there are more in the game. I couldn't say. If that is really tied to the difficulty setting, then that kinda sucks. 8. Melee combat...is the worst. Especially when you play a chapter that is focussed on melee like the Space Wolves and have reduced ranged hit chance. To put this into perspective: The different melee weapons you can equip give you either a bonus hit chance or a defense rate. MISSING an enemy means that they can counter attack. Should their attack role succeed they will then have to roll to tear through your armor. Should they succeed your Terminator is doneso. Dead. Gone. Forever. Yes, your Terminators, those walking tanks, who can only walk in a line to get slaughtered, are killed with 1 successful hit. On the other hand you yourself only ever deal 1 damage in melee range. So, if an enemy has 4 hps you need to hit him successfully 4 times, which makes melee relatively unfeasible if you ask me. Every upgrade of your toughness gives you only 10% resistance. The best weapon I've encountered later on had 30% resistance. Getting your toughness to level 5 takes at least 3 level ups. That means you only have an 80% chance to not die should you get hit. That is a terrible dice roll when you die in 1 hit and your whole strategy hinges on your guy surviving, because you only have 5 or 10 guys. So, melee should always be a last resort, but then I ask myself, why even invest into it in the first place and not just invest in ranged hit chance? It's a weird concept, especially factoring in that you also need to level up your melee hit chance (which is ofc separate from ranged hit chance) to even HIT the enemy somewhat reliably. And a 90% hit chance still isn't all that reliable to be honest. I'll be watching this. 9. There are optional missions which give some sort of chests with permanent or temporary buffs. Couldn't say I've ever seen one though. Same as with the enemies. 10. Obscurity: The games does a terrible job of telling you things. There's a lackluster tutorial and that's it. Everything else you kinda have to remember by hard. You can't even access your loadout during a mission. You have to guess and calculate stuff in your head. How many reloads has my heavy left? How much melee defence does my guy have? Couldn't say... 11. Graphics and animations are lacking as well. Especially the flamer guy can't shoot diagonally. Well he can, it just isn't animated. Etc. etc. If you really like WH40k and/or Space Hulk, give it a try maybe, but all others don't need to bother I think :/
• gamedeal user

  Oct 10, 2017

  [b][u]5 Things You Should Know about [i]Space Hulk: Ascension[/i][/u][/b] [b]What Is It?[/b] PC port of the classic GW board game [i]Space Hulk[/i], with some notable additions over and above the board game's mechanics. I particularly liked how the difficulty levels are structured. [b]What's The Best Part?[/b] It's dark! (Not literally!) The game does a great job of replicating the atmosphere of the Warhammer 40K setting. It also faithfully recreates the ponderous tactical game play of the board game. This game is all about achieving tactical goals when facing uneven forces. Your guys are well armed, but they're also few in number and EXTREMELY slow. The Genestealers are plentiful and fast, but limited to melee range attacks. As such, the game requires a certain amount of patience to do well. One mistake can throw off a whole mission. It's "thinky" that way, and I like it. Protip: You can shoot doors to open them from a distance (and make them [i]stay open[/i].) There is [b]literally no reason[/b] you would ever want a door to be closed. [b]What's The Worst Part?[/b] It's dark! (Literally!) The game is REALLY dark. It's hard to see where the corridors and vents are, even when your men are just a few spaces away. The first couple missions, I was constantly zooming in and squinting to make sure I knew what the map layout was, then zooming back out for a tactical overview of my position. It's great for atmosphere and getting those grimdark feels, but it's not so great for actually playing. Fortunately, that's fixable. Go into [i]Options > Advanced Video Settings[/i] and push Gamma all the way UP, then push Vignetting all the way DOWN. This makes it MUCH EASIER to see the whole map while zoomed out. [b]Will I Like It?[/b] + Deep, thinky tactical game play + Faithful adaptation of the board game + New mechanics add to the experience + Nice graphics (when you can see them) - Defaults make it too dark to see what's happening (can be adjusted in settings) [b]Final Thoughts[/b] It's a good interpretation of the board game experience, and much easier to find than the board game itself. This has been a 5TYSK review. (#0016)