Space Hulk Ascension (PS4)

'Space Hulk Ascension' is the successor to the 2013 PS3 title (and subsequently ported to the PS4 in 2016)  Space Hulk (PS4) , and once more puts you in command of squads of genetically enhanced Space Marines, clad in Tactical Dreadnaught armour and equipped with the finest weaponry that the Imperium of Man can provide, in order to fend off the threat of the Tyranids Genestealer hordes!In this sequal gamers will find themselves with the choice of a total of five playable campaigns, three of which are availible from the onset with the others to be unlocked. These campaigns are Chapter specific, and include the Ultramarines defence of their home-world Maccragge, a Space Wolves quest to discover the fate of a band of their lost brothers, and a Blood Angels quest to once more seek vengeance and redemption for their previous shaming loss at the hands (claws?) of the Genestealers.One immediately apparant improvement over the last game is the greatly increased level of choice and customizability that has been introduced to almost all aspects of gameplay.This begins with the option to play as no less than ten Space Marine chapters - Ultramarines, Blood Angels, Space Wolves, Imperial Fists, Salamanders, Dark Angels, Novamarines, Flesh Tearers, Crimson Fists and the Angels of Redemption - although only the first half of these chapters are availible to play as from the onset.Each chapter is visually distinct from each other not only in terms of colour, but also in terms of the iconography, adornments, and even some chapter-specific weapons that they have availible, and each chapter also has its own specific traits that will influence and effect how you play with them. The Ultramarines for example have an additional advantage in ranged combat, where as the Space Wolves excell in melee. The Imperial Fists receive defensive bonuses but cannot use Librarians in their squads, where as the Blood Angels provide a balance between these different styles.Each Marine in your squad can also be personalised, with you having the option to customise their appearence with the choice of several different heads, bodies and adornments. These are restricted to no more than about half a dozen different options in each catagory, so whilst it is hardly a complex or incredibly varied system, it does offer some ability to make your Marines a little more unique and distinctive from each other rather than the cookie-cutter style clones they were of each other in the last game.You can now also choose how your Marines are armed, providing them with a wide range of weaponry. This much improved level of choice includes new varieties of existing weapons, such as Mark IV and Incaladion variants of the Storm Bolter, Tempest and Hurricane variants of the Assault Cannon, Vulkan and Nightfire variants of the Heavy Flamer, and new variants of power weapons, but also a number of weapons that are newly introduced to the gaming franchise, such as the Cyclone Missile launcher, combi-weapons (combi plasma, flamer and melta), and the Heavy Plasma cannon.Weaponry now also comes with different fire modes that can effect the chance to hit in a variety of different ways. In the case of the basic Storm Bolter this includes regular fire, aimed fire, burst fire and suppression fire, whilst in the case of the heavy flamer it offers you the ability to shape your cone of fire in order to maximise the number of enemies killed or more effectively seal off and deny territory to the Genestealers.ALL weaponry now comes with a limited amount of ammunition. The Storm Bolter has a twenty round magazine, although this can be re-loaded when empty or running low. Weapons also generate heat with continuous use, which if not managed correctly can result in the weapon jamming, or in the case of things like the Assault Cannon, combi-plasma gun and plasma cannon, can result in a fatal explosion! These changes not only remove the excrutiatingly random frequency of weapon jams occurring as was a constant source of frustration in the last game, but add a new dynamic that helps ramp up the tension as the requirement to re-load and vent the heat from your weapons to keep them firing means that a Marine in overwatch can no longer single-handedly hold off a horde of Genestealers with such ease as was the case in the past.You squads are not only equipped with a wider range of weaponry, but now also have the ability to take additional equipment into the fray to help them fight the Genestealer menace. These include Servo-Skull scanners that can help map out the dark corridors and rooms of a space hulk and scan for alien life, a powerfield generator that provides a protective barrier, proximity mines, motion detectors and teleport homersThe game has also introduced RPG-style skill progression. Marines now have attributes for Weapon Skill (effecting close combat ability), Ballistic Skill (effects ranged ability), Agility (effects chance to dodge attacks, initiative and line of sight), Willpower (effects the number of focus points psychics have to spend on psychic abilities, and a Marines chance of resisting psychic attack), Perception (which allows you to notice unseen threats), and Toughness (effects the ability to resist damage, toxins, and poisonous environments).Completing mission objectives and killing enemies provides your Marines with experience points that can be spent between missions in order to increase their skill level in the attribute of you choice. This allows you to create Marines with distinct advantages or specialities, such as powerful close combat troops, eagle-eyed scouts, or dead-eyed shots.Experience also provides you with the opportunity to unlock additional skills over the course of the game, such as better heat management of weapons, upgrades to your targeting skills, the ability to move and fire simultaniously, and auto-senses.Finally, you are able to swap out members of you squads with Marines held in your reserves, allowing you to create squads with the right blend of specialists, skills and weaponry to tailor them to the specific requirements of the mission at hand.in terms of overall gameplay, Space Hulk: Ascension is almost identicle to its predecessor.Gameplay is still turn based and involves you navigating your team of Space Marine Terminators across the landscape, which is divided into a number of ‘tiles’ that form the various rooms and corridors. Each Marine has a certain number of ‘action points’ which represent your capacity to do things such as move, turn, open doors, and fire your weapons, although in this case the number of action points availible can be influenced by levelling up the aforementioned attributes, and 'command points' have been removed from the game altogether, although Sergeants now provide a passive +1 action points to everyone within their vox caster range (the yellow circle on the map around the sergeant)..In the previous game the entire map was laid out for you to look at and examine at will, however in Ascension the map is now obscured by a 'fog of war' which means you can only see the parts of it that you have actually uncovered by obtaining line of sight. This adds an additional layer of realism to gameplay as you are unable to properly assess the terrain, obstructions and dangers posed by the twisting corridors of the space hulk you are navigating until you are right on top of them, but also increases the anticipation and tension as you literally dont know whats around the next corner.Genestealers still appear randomly each turn from a number of spawn points, and their presence is still initially indicated by a number of ‘blips’ (representing that of a motion scanner) until such a time that one of your Marines obtains line of sight.Genestealers - like the Marines - have also received a little boost in terms of their level of variety, with them now coming equipped with a number of biological enhancements that effect how they act and the level of threat they present, ranging from flesh hooks, protective armour, rending claws, scything talons, extended carapace and feeder tendrils.As was the case previously, Genestealers can only attack at close quarters, whereas the Marines generally excel at ranged combat, so the default key to success is ensuring that you maintain line of sight with any incoming enemies and establish kill zones and choke points in the narrow corridors that force the Genestealers to attack one at a time where they will be easily dispatched by your immense firepower, although arming your Marines with mighty close-combat weapons such as the Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield or Lightning Claws allows you to mix it up with the Genestealers on their own terms.Your efforts to resist an assault are assisted by your ability to put your Marines into ‘overwatch’, which if you have enough action points remaining at the end of your turn, allows a Marine a free shot at any enemy that emerges into his line of sight, and overwatch now remains active until your remove it or your Marine is attacked in close combat meaning that you no longer have to activate it each turn (or suffer the consequences of forgetting to do so!), although the ability to brace a Marine against inevitable melee attack by putting him on 'guard' has been removed.In terms of graphics the visuals of the game have been improved to a decent level but still hardly stretches the capibilities of the next-gen console. Character animations are quicker and more fluid, and the addition of the shoulder-cam in the top right corner rather than providing nothing but a fuzzy and obscured point-of-view perspective of your Marine, is now actually clear and distinct enough that it manages to add a the additional atmosphere to gameplay that it was always intended to, although the close up visual battle scenes that were accompanied with every kill have been abandoned. There are some new audio effects added to the game, although players will recognise alot of what appear to be stock sound effects simply lifted directly from the previous one.In terms of criticisms, Space Hulk: Ascension whilst an improvement is sadly not without them:Gameplay is still slow and ponderous. Your Marines plod along the game map, and you are forced after every completed movement to decide which direction they are facing even if you want them to continue facing in their current direction, so the game still lacks the kind of fluidity that franchises such as XCOM seem to have made look so easy in recent years. Its also still very easy to accidently spend an action point on something you didnt intend, which usually ends up with you unable to take that important shot or place your Marine on overwatch, and inevitably results in him getting torn apart and your whole tactical plan going down the drain. Menu controls such as those you use to select and customise your squads are also clunky, difficult to navigate, and often far from intuitive.Whilst the addition of new firing modes for ranged combat is a welcome dynamic, the game still lacks any kind of modifier to take into account your distance from your target, so it is still far too frequent for you to experience that tired old situation where you somehow manage to miss a Genestealer with a burst of automatic fire when its stood literally a foot away from you, and whilst the addition of ammunition and weapon heat-management does provide an extra layer of realism, it can at times prove to be excrutiatingly prohibitive to your chances of survival and success, and the addition of a 'fog of war' whilst also increasing the level of realism, means that the landscape is often so gloomy that its easy to miss important things like doors and vents, resulting in your Marines getting lost and turned around as you search feebly to find the way to your next objective.Additionally, whilst the inclusion of a variety of campaigns to attempt does provide you with a different context for your missions, those missions are still restricted to the usual 'go there', 'carry this', 'guard that', 'destroy that' objectives, and still feel more like a series of individual scenarios rather than a coherent storyline. Some of those missions are still maddeningly difficult, and the whole experience not helped by the fact that this new game still has the same complete lack of cinematic or visual story sequences that the last game did.Your Marines whilst somewhat customisable will never be so distinct that you will develop any special bond with them, and whilst Genestealers do now come with a variety of modifications, they are still essentially restricted to the two basic types that were present in the last game - Generstealers and Brood Lords.Finally, Ive also come accross a couple of bugs, the first of which occurs EVERYTIME you load your autosave during a level and results in you no longer being able to select Marines using the shoulder buttons, instead requiring you to manually select them, which is quite laborious. The second occurs when you find a treasure chest, resulting in a notification popping up in the middle of the screen that states 'chest open', but the notification doesnt disappear, remains right in the middle of the screen obscuring your view for the rest of the level, forcing you to work around it. Then there is the frequent and frustrating issue when you select an option such as a firing mode, press the botton to choose it....and nothing happens.....which requires you to try the same action multiple times before it works. The good news is that I have been informed that these problems have subsequently been patched.Overall however, whilst having too many completely avoidable bugs, and still with obvious room for improvement, Space Hulk: Ascension does provide a gaming experience that is better than the previous game in almost every way, with the addition of the light-RPG elements and squad management being especially pleasing. It remains a game that is unlikely to appeal to anyone other than die-hard fans of turn based tactics games or lovers of the Games Workshop Warhammer 40K franchise, but people who fall into those catagories are unlikely to be too disappointed with this latest effort.7/10

For the most part I do like this game, but the control system I find very frustrating because it's fiddly. Also, WHY can't I just 'pan' a camera around instead of rotating fixed angles?! The saved game option is buggy too, if you save an actual level in progress, won't let me R1 between characters etc. Am hoping for an update to solve these issues which would make the game better than it is. Am starting to wonder how much testing was done on this as I found these issues pretty quickly. Maybe I don't like it as much as I thought. Meh.Love the little 'in game' camera top right of the screen though.

I am a huge fan of Warhammer universe , i even had the board game (space hulk) and i am a dying hard RPG fan too. The garphics are OK, i also liked the in game systems and gameplay and i'm sure that you're wondering why do i put 2 out of five.The game has terrible bugs , i tried to start the tutorial and after the 3rd mission the game crushed , i had to replay the tutorial all over from the start , which i didnt.I think they need to fix this.If they fix those issues my rating will be defently better.

Funky controls hinder an excellent conversion of the board game. Seems like the controls lag, had to replay the tutorial multiple times. As mis presses wouldnt let me continue... by the way the ps4 update is 4gb the disc data is only 2.2gb so they have updated an aweful lot.. there is now a random mission generator mode also which i have yet to try

As a die hard space hulk fan from the very first board game onwards I was looking forward to playing this. However it is shockingly bad. it's just not enjoyable at all. The controls are poor and a pain to use, the graphics are PS2 level at best, the game is simply so frustrating due to the flaws and glitches it's just not playable.The worst thing is that the fist five or six missions are OK and whilst difficult experienced space hulk players should be able to manage them, after that it's like the game deliberately makes it impossible to play. Suddenly the hardened Space marine veterans act like they've never held a gun before, forget to shoot whilst on overwatch and the flamer may as well have been replaced by a water pistol for all the good it does.The game gives you percentages to see how likely you are to succeed at hitting something so at 80%+ you'd have a good chance right? - Nope! according to this 80-90% means you are likely to get your face ripped off by a genestealer when your action misses.... again!!!!The further into a mission you get the more likely you are too lose even though you are carrying out the same actions and covering the same lines of fire, it's massively annoying as you have to replay the long winded missions again only for the same sort of thing to happen in a different way.Even if you are a big Space hulk fan - just don't bother with this game. Total waste of money. I'm binning it rather than inflict it on someone else through a trade in.

A fun game but the fans of the series will get the most out of it. It also improves on the ideas from the previous game and a few new features

This is turn based. Complicated controls and no proper instructions. Could not get into this game. Don't get me wrong, if you like D&D type of game play in a console game then this is fine. I loved the idea of a third person shoot em up in the Space Hulk scenario. This is not what I hoped it would be. I had to get a friend to work out what was going on and he got bored with it quickly. I didn't waste my time. Wanna buy a used PS4 game?

I love space hulk but this game is terrible it's the most buggy game I've ever played on a console tried to play the tutorial can't get past the 3rd mission because the screen just goes black and the game freezes how did this get past quality control was it even testedDon't waste your money it's turned what should be a enjoyable experience into me just swearing at my tv screen as the game just freezes yet againDon't waste your money or time