"Is this really happening?" cries an Imperial Guardsman, fighting for his life as a wave of mantis-like Tyranid aliens tear through his pals like soggy paper. It's a random snippet of background dialogue, but it catches me by surprise because I was just thinking the same thing. But while he's wondering if this is a nightmare he'll wake up from, I'm grinning from ear to ear – because Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 feels too good to be true.
When we're talking about battles involving trillions of soldiers and planet-sized cities, it's hard for anything tangible to live up to our imagination. But in Space Marine 2, it feels like I've fallen right into one of Games Workshop's old 40K novels – which is great news for me, but not so much for anyone without the luxury of power armor to hide behind. Blood, sweat, and more blood My time in Space Marine 2's campaign opens in a ruined city, brought low by an invasion of Tyranids.
There's not quite a calm before the storm, as deserters are being executed en-masse by a firing squad while columns of tanks roll through cobbled streets, but it's as close as you can hope for in the Warhammer universe. There's just enough time to appreciate how developer Saber Interactive grasps the scope of 40K – grandiose bell towers and gothic spires dwarf any skyscraper in the real world, and Space Marine protagonist Titus towers over regular Guardsmen – but not enough to prepare me for how well that translates to combat, which kicks off when hun.