Wordsmith's Anvil

  Image Credit: Saber Interactive Space Marine II was an absolute first for me in one regard.     I have literally never played a game where the very first gear and appearance your character has is absolutely badass, and virtually anything that comes after that makes him look like a goon. Congratulations, Saber. You played yourself.     Titus starts off the game in the Death Watch, rounding out a century of service to the emperor for coming close to heresy without actually crossing the line. As such, he is a commander and is dressed to the nines with a skull helmet, red cloak, dark grey armor, and is an absolute monster on the battlefield. So much so, in fact, that upon his death he is essentially reanimated with additional parts in order to continue serving the Imperium.     No retirement plan?  What a sucker.     After his reanimation, Titus is reinstated into the Ultramarines as a lieutenant. Definitely a downgrade from his former ran...

  Image Credit: Streum On & Games Workshop Well... It's certainly been a minute.     You'll have to excuse my absence, I was doing a replay of the oh-so-glorious Rogue Trader . It still sits pretty at a solid 8/10, but I think that rating could improve with the addition of all the DLC they have planned for it. It's so damn good.     But I digress.     We're not here to discuss Games Workshop at its finest, courtesy of Owlcat. We're here to discuss Games Workshop at its most mediocre. Oops. Did I just tip my hand a little too early? Chances are, if you've already done your research on this 2021 game, you've likely made a conclusion one way or another.     Necromunda: Hired Gun takes place in the underhive city for which it gets its name. It's dark, gritty, covered in skulls, and everyone wants to kill you. Sound like Warhammer yet? You play as a bounty hunter working in this underground where your main hangout is the local dive bar and you...

Image courtesy of Complex Games I've definitely gone down a bit of a rabbit hole in the last year or so when it comes to Warhammer 40,000. It started with Owlcat's  Rogue Trader and then continued with Neocore's Inquisitor . Now granted, both of these titles were really more brought to my attention because of the respect that I have for the developers. Owlcat has been my favorite studio since the long-gone glory days of BioWare, and Neocore captured my interest with their spin on King Arthur . Nevertheless, these studios have introduced me to the wide world of 40K and everything it entails, and I've been more than intrigued enough to pursue other titles to delve further into the grim darkness of the future.     Chaos Gate takes Warhammer 40K and puts an XCOM spin on its tactics. We play the newly elevated commander of a ship filled with Space Marines and led by a rigid old commandant, a mouthy tech-priest, and a pushy Inquisitor who will stop at nothing to combat an is...

 Images courtesy of Neocore Games Neocore Games has been a favorite game studio of mine since I played their King Arthur: Knights Tale and fell in love with the gameplay, gritty art, and the story of Mordred's foray in Avalon. As such, I've purchased a couple of their games and explored the transitions they've undergone as a company over the years. Perhaps one of their biggest ventures into grandiose territory has been when they cooperated with Games Workshop to create an ARPG in Warhammer 40K's expansive universe.     This is where Inquisitor comes into play. I'm going to be simply calling it Inquisitor the entire time so that there's no confusion about which version I'm speaking of. The game came out several years ago, and thus it has already gone through several updates and patches and virtually all the DLC has been lumped into the same package. Both Martyr, the original game, and Prophecy, its expansion, are now available as a complete title that tells ...