Space Hulk

The cover art always looked so bad-ass. I love how it looks like he's shooting off to the wall for no apparent reason.

Space Hulk is a video game based on the 1989 board game with the same name developed by Games Workshop. To be brutally honest I didn't play this game much - it was too confusing for my small mind to work out; but when I read the game manual it always made me excited about it again.

Developer: Electronic Arts
Platform: PC (MS-DOS)
Release: 1993
Genres: First person shooter / tactical

Basic Plot

Space Hulk is based on the Warhammer 40,000 universe. The player takes control of a squad of Space Marines as they roam through huge derelict spaceships called "Space Hulks" fighting alien Genestealers as they go.

The rough plot is that these Space Hulks are infested with Genestealers. The ships drift in and out of another dimension called the "warp" and the Genestealers invade any planet that the ship crosses paths with. Sworn to protect humanity, the genetically enhanced Space Marines board these Space Hulks and eradicate all Genestealers on board.

Terminator View Screen

Gameplay

Space Hulk is a first person party-based combat game.

The gameplay is divided into two sections:

• The Terminator View Screen provides a first person view of each of the space marines in your squad.
• The Planning Screen gives you a top down strategic view of the map, and allows you to give orders to your marines from that perspective.

Each map begins with your squad starting at one location. On the map, Genestealers will continually spawn from a set of areas throughout the ship. The objectives for each map are either to eliminate all of the Genestealers on board, or to retrieve an object of some kind.

Although the combat is real time, the player is able to pause the action in order to give orders to their squad whenever they choose (which is similar to the mechanics of Baldur's Gate).

One game mechanic which was purposely implemented was the contrast between the heavy and slow moving Space Marines, and the quick and agile Genestealers. Giving the player's characters such as flaw creates a real tension within the game, and the game has been praised for the atmosphere it helps to provide.

The campaign, which involved a squad of marines investigating an emergency beacon, included 21 missions. There were an additional 30 tutorial and standalone missions to play.

Planning Screen

Positives

I love the Warhammer 40,000 universe and this was a pretty decent attempt at transitioning it into a video game. It had a great atmosphere, 

Negatives

TOO. HARD. If you play modern first person shooters then you may want to re-think whether this game is for you. It had a very basic view screen for each squad, quite small, and movement was limited to 4 directions (you couldn't just "look around"). And you had to keep track of up to 5 different marines at one time!

Memorable Moments

I was about 10 years old when I tried to play this game. Every single time I tried to play my entire squad would be dead before I could work out how to do anything. It was a very tricky game and required a combination of quick reflexes and good strategic thought. I'd be keen to play the board game some time.