Warhammer 40,0000: Battlesector is Warhammer game number 543, and this one is made by Black Lab Games. It’s a turn-based tactical game, and while it’s a PC game in sense of story, progression, talent system, etc., it resembles the board game type of army battles people do face to face. With that, I mean you are limited to what force you can scrounge up with the army points you are given on each battle encounter. A bit gamey perhaps, but it holds true to the roots from what I gather. Regardless, it’s still a game with a typical campaign, story, and stoic Space Marines spouting platitudes. And well, it couldn’t be more boring!
First off, I just want to state that I’m not a Warhammer 40k aficionado. I do enjoy the grimdark setting, and I have spent many hours on YouTube listening to lore, and such – still, the intricate stuff is beyond me, I just know the lore at a face value – like Space Marines good, Tyranids bad. There is no dislike for the game for that reason, even if I find the Space Marine speech a bit much at times, so much that I zone out and miss important stuff. Another thing, this will not be a full review since I didn’t finish it. I just found it too boring, so, see this as more of an early hours impression.
You play as the Blood Angels Space Marines chapter, returning to your home world devastated by a Tyranid invasion, and you are here for clean-up duty – discovering what went wrong and killing a lot of aliens in the meantime. This world is not pretty, it’s hot, and desert like, with the occasional typical Warhammer structure dotted around. Each mission is presented in typical Warhammer style, with lots of talking by gruff guys with English accents, and while it sounds cool, I couldn’t help to zone out a bit, as mentioned earlier. There is nothing wrong with this type of storytelling, but it felt a bit “impersonal” to me. From the missions I played, I get to feel no connection to the “heroes” I got to control. Not that I cared much about the other units either since they seemed to be easily replaced, and don’t appear to stand out in any way, not even when leveling up.
The game plays as a giant board game, you place your troops, and from here on out it’s a slug-fest against an endless Tyranid horde until finally, all the enemies are dead. You get to control the typical units with bolters, but they are also heavies with big machine guns, then you have marines with plasma rifles when you need to melt the more heavily armored bugs. Basically, the usual stuff, and not to forget, there are vehicles too. What makes Battlesector so boring to me was how bland it felt. Bland tactical options, no real cover mechanics, no deep tactics other than overwhelming the enemy with firepower, and using the right kind of stone, paper, and scissors against what. The world felt boring too, and I usually enjoy these kinds of arid landscapes, but man, it just felt drab to look at and move around in.
All the battles I took part in was; press attack, watching HP go down on the enemy, if still alive, apply more DAKKA from other units. To be fair isn’t that different from other games, but the way it’s presented just had me yawning in wait. The campaign was fairly straightforward, having missions presented with story segments linearly. I didn’t come too far, so I don’t know if you ever get to choose what to do later on, but where I quit, it was just mission after mission, with some light army management between. Underwhelming to say the least. It’s like you are being inserted into a small skirmish of no importance, and you are forced to watch it play out in slow motion.
I will not go on too much, considering I didn’t get too far, but from what I played it was enough for me. I did think the graphics, besides the drab visual environments, looked good, and I do think, if it had a bit more love dedicated to it, it could have been a cool game in the same veins as Chaos Gate, but alas, it was not to be.
Thanks for reading.
/Thomas
Tom's Gaming Blog 