My warriors are on fire
After a massive attack on the Fire Warriors by the Imperial Forces, a young Tau Warrior named Kais is required to complete his 'Trial by Fire', which will complete his initiation into the Fire Warriors. His mission is to lead a squad into enemy territory to rescue the Ethereal Ko'vash, who was captured during the initial attack. Unfortunately, what was supposed to be a routine rescue mission went completely out of control, and has now resulted in full scale war. It's up to the rookie Fire Warrior Kais to help turn the tides of the war.
Ready, Aim, Fire!
Perhaps the most annoying part of Fire Warrior is the overwhelming generic feeling perpetuated by the gameplay. Kuju Entertainment hasn't really done anything spectacular with the gameplay - a wasted opportunity if you ask some Warhammer 40,000 diehards. Fire Warrior consists of components picked from other first person shooters, such as the shield system and the two weapons at a time gig from Halo, and just thrown a bunch of weapons from the Warhammer 40,000 universe into the mix. Most shooter fans should be able to overlook this copycat syndrome (as it plagues the genre to no end), and look at the finer points of Fire Warrior.
Fire Warrior's action doesn't stop for anyone, with hordes of troops flowing around the levels waiting to be mowed down by Kais' weapons. This does result in the enemies seeming far too samey, not to mention aiding in the increase of the repetition factor, as there are only a small amount of enemies to fight against. The enemies do feature a decent AI system - they'll wear you down and chase you when you run away to recharge your shield. They'll also use the environment to their advantage by getting up higher, or ducking behind debris, and even shooting explosive crates that are in your path. The most disappointing part of Fire Warrior's action is the over-reliance on scripted sequences, which seriously hampers the replayability by increasing predictability.
Kais has a large arsenal of weaponry at his disposal during combat, with 17 weapons in all. Sadly, most of these weapons are just generic laser rifle or machine gun fare with more powerful variations along the way, as well as the highly original sniper rifle, rocket launcher, grenade launcher and so on. Aiming is made a chore by the largely uncooperative and loose Dual Shock 2 controller's analog sticks, but the developer has included an auto aiming mode to ease some of the strain. If you're a purist, we recommend putting the sensitivity as low as possible.
Fire Warrior's single player mode is only really enough to last a talented first person shooter player a solid day's play. Thankfully, Kuju have included a solid multiplayer mode, which includes both split screen multiplayer and online play over the PS2 online network. While the match types are largely generic, most people should get a few extra kicks, seeing as it's the Playstation 2's first true online first person shooter. Unfortunately, due to a lack of a broadband connection, we've been unable to test Fire Warrior online.
Burning eyes
Environmental design and stage architecture are probably the strongest points of Fire Warrior's visual presentation, though these factors could have been better supplemented by higher texture quality and less jagged polygons, but the Playstation 2's limitations are largely to blame for these shortcomings. On a lighter note, all of the stages feature some very pretty lighting and shadowing effects, all of which affect the player's weapon models in real time. Character modeling is relatively good, despite the jaggy problem, but the lack of variety of enemies can lead to the feeling of overly generic foes. Usually the only differentiation between enemy types are colours and weapon types. Enemy animation is largely on the level throughout the piece, though some death animations could have been improved. The frame rate seems to be relatively consistent throughout the piece, only dropping when the action gets really hectic. Fire Warrior supports 60 Hz mode for full screen, full speed play, as well as a 16:9 mode for people with wide screen television sets.
The sound effects of Fire Warrior are somewhat disappointing. While the sound environment is noisy due to the fact there's a war taking place, the quality of the sounds present is below par, with a lot of static present in some of the samples. Fire Warrior's soundtrack is neither memorable nor forgettable - it fulfills its task without anyone really taking notice. The highlight of the audio department in this title is the voice acting, which includes two famous British actors - Tom Baker and Brian Blessed. The voice actors have a quality script to work from, and do an excellent job of creating accents to go along with the alien dialog.
Mixed nuts
Fire Warrior is a fairly tough case to call. The gameplay doesn't bring anything new to the table, and the single player features too much scripting for replay to be enjoyable, yet the ability to play the game online against a few mates is a big appeal for some people. That said, the gameplay is decent enough for you to be able to scramble together some enjoyment out of the multiplayer game, should you have access to broadband and own a network adaptor. Otherwise, Fire Warrior is just another average first person shooter.
Editors Note - 9/10/03: It has been brought to our attention that Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior does not work with third party memory cards - only the official Sony 8mb Memory Card will suffice.
Loading...
