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Warhammer Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters - Grey Knights turn-based tactical RPG

Fedora Master

Arcane
Patron
Edgy
Joined
Jun 28, 2017
Messages
27,804
upload_2022-5-5_16-54-4.png


Normally Steamtards can't even finish a game and here we have some of the hardest cheevos already unlocked?
 

Modron

Arcane
Joined
May 5, 2012
Messages
9,933
What are "twitch drops"? I probably don't want to know, do I?
Just cosmetic stuff you get codes for while logged on to twitch and watching specific streams at x time and date, basically just content you can miss and never gain access to again aka shitty stuff.
 

Iron Balls McGinty

Guest
Liking it so far, my sound is a bit off though, stutters sometimes and cuts out the last word said by npc on cutscenes.

Solid combat experience thus far.
 

Hobo Elf

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
13,997
Location
Platypus Planet
I'm finding my experience to be a lot smoother. It runs well on my PC and I've not encountered any kind of glitching. Gameplay is extremely good and challenging and mistakes don't go unpunished by the enemy AI. Having a lot of fun with the game. Honestly it's better than what I actually anticipated. At least that's my initial reaction.
 

Renevent

Cipher
Joined
Feb 22, 2013
Messages
925
At work still so only played the first mission, but from the second the opening cinematic played to the end of the mission I was really happy with what I have seen so far. Mechanics wise it seems to have all the xcom style options and the 40k stuff is done amazingly well.
 

Saravan

Savant
Joined
Jul 11, 2019
Messages
926
Following this with interest! Will see how the reviews look after the honeymoon period of a new game wears off.
 

Galdred

Studio Draconis
Patron
Developer
Joined
May 6, 2011
Messages
4,346
Location
Middle Empire
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 22, 2020
Messages
2,162
Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming!
Alright, after spending little over six hours with this gaem I am ready to present my findings:


Strategic layer:


  • Cinematics and atmosphere are top notch, the game is literally oozing the 40Kness from every pore
  • No niggers but two stronk wahmin: the main tech priest of your strike cruiser called Lunete who is trying to be a hotter version of Scaevola from Mechanicus (she wears a cute tiara on her bionic head, so she at least clings to the remains of her femininity a bit) and especially stronk Inquisitor Vakir with white colored dreadlocks who definitely needs no man (oh well, could have been worse I guess, has a nice boob power armor at least), there is an interesting relationship between the two stronk wahmin who constantly bicker among themselves while the cool bro Ectar (your Grey Knight mentor) keeps the bitches in line as the reasonable adult in the room
  • The strategic layer/ship and crew management is somewhat reminiscent of the Harebrained Scheme´s Battletech – you can visit various parts of your ship and talk to the major characters, while also assigning them to various projects (for example Vakir does research including UFO-style autopsies, Lunete repairs and upgrades your ship etc). Fortunately the characters (including both stronk wahmin) are actually tolerable, though they aren’t anything special
  • Everything you do on the strategic layer takes time (measured in days), travel, research, upgrades as well as recovery of your wounded Grey Knights, time passes as you travel, but you can also let it run
  • Strategic gameplay has simple but fun loop that probably won’t come as a big surprise to anybody: you do missions to collect resources, which you then spent on projects of the main characters or to influence situation on the strategic map and during the missions
  • Strategic map is somewhat similar to Dawn of War 2, missions appear at various star systems and there are always more of them than you can do, so you must prioritize
  • An interesting mechanic is conversations with characters during reports you provide to the Grey Knight grandmaster – you get a chance to intervene in the conversation by taking sides with someone, thus getting their support (for example if you side with Inquisitor Vakir, she will get a bonus to research)
  • Your Grey Knights can be heavily customized in terms of looks, there is a medium sized skill three to be unlocked with level ups, you can also customize the loadouts with a considerable amount of weapons and other wargear, some of it is dependent on the class, some on skills (ie you can unlock an ability to use Terminator armor and such)


Tactical battles:

  • You have three action points which can be used either to move or to take actions (attacks, grenades, wargear, skills etc)
  • There are basic things like overwatch, used both by your knights as well as ranged enemies
  • Destructibility of environment is pretty impressive, you can demolish pretty much all the walls, you can set up environmental kills by dropping pillars on enemies or detonating stuff
  • The highest difficulty level is pretty brutal, your Grey Knights will easily go down to a bunch of cultists with autoguns and grenade launchers (I got wiped out on about third mission on the highest difficulty), I recommend playing on medium or second highest difficulty
  • You can use Willpower points to do “cool things” with your Grey Knights, such as targeted attacks in melee (you can disarm, stun and execute enemies, executions replenish action points, kills replenish Willpower)
  • Enemy variety is solid (cultists with various firearms + the usual demons and CSM well known from the lore)
  • AI is generally OK, I have seen it do silly stuff only once so far (placing a unit in fire, which killed it), otherwise they use overwatch fairly well and try to maneuver around your own overwatch
  • Missions tend to be pretty hectic, chaos becomes stronger with every turn and whenever “chaos meter” gets filled, something bad happens (new enemies spawn, enemies get buffs etc), so you are under pressure to constantly keep pushing forward, lest you get overwhelmed


In terms of performance, the loading times are noticeable, but tolerable (about 15 seconds on my laptop). The game slowed down a bit after 5 hours of playing, restart fixed it.


All in all, pretty solid game and definitely one of the best 40K releases in the last few years – I like it more than Mechanicus (and I like Mechanicus a lot). Strategic and tactical layers are both fun to play, story seems fine, atmosphere is great. Difficulty is pretty good too.
 

Hobo Elf

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
13,997
Location
Platypus Planet
The Justicar's Provoke ability seems to be pretty neat. The Enrage debuff it causes forces enemies to engage you in melee, which is a great way to fish out those bastards who sit behind cover and overwatch/suppress you. Just park your Justicar in Terminator armor and turn him into a heretic magnet. The Halberd pairs up quite well with this skill since it has a chance to attack the enemy first when they attack you in melee combat. One of the passive nodes in the Provoke tree also gives you a +1 use on your auto abilities, meaning that you get an extra use of the Halberd's First Strike ability. The Warp Charge effect on Provoke causes enemies to attack each other, which seems like it could be really powerful later on when you fight some nastier heavy hitting enemies. Don't sleep on the utility skills.
 

Brickfrog

Learned
Joined
Aug 28, 2020
Messages
787
Alright I picked it up since people are saying it's good. Not everyday you hear that about a 40k property. You fuckers better be right.

Impressions will be up later.
 

Brickfrog

Learned
Joined
Aug 28, 2020
Messages
787
Game crashed 30 minutes in without creating a save file. Lol.
Also a cutscene only played audio through a black screen.

Gameplay looks neat but I'm getting some pretty big bugs idk
 

Galdred

Studio Draconis
Patron
Developer
Joined
May 6, 2011
Messages
4,346
Location
Middle Empire
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I was weak willed and got it in launch day too.
The tutorial is nu-xcom grade yellow arrow torture with baffling decisions forced on you.
The cultists are murderous on the highest difficulty settings indeed, and marines recovery time is quite significant after they get hit.
The execution system is lifted from gears of war but it works well.
But it seems a bit abusable (with the hammer attack giving 100% stun followed by a melee execution). I could chain it the times, as it gives +4 actions at the cost of 2Wp and 2 actions. I didn't understand why it didn't work the last time, though (I thought it was 100% stun= 100% execute on next melee attack).
The Psy canon aoe will power up is also nice.
I found the use of "pods" worse than in Nu XCOM because you need to reserve 3 actions.

It is really nu-xcomified compared to chaos gate og(lower ranges, lower character count, no hit chance), but I like what they did on the strategic layer, and I had good fun so far, with most encounters feeling hard (maybe if I swap the apothecary for someone useful it would be easier? I had some hopes for his buffs, though).

I had some bugs with actions in the ship being locked until I reloaded, so I don't think an Ironman run would be a good idea at this point.
 

Yosharian

Arcane
Joined
May 28, 2018
Messages
9,420
Location
Grand Chien
I'm interested in whether the character development feels meaningful as the game goes on, or whether it feels flat / like you're going through the motions. Like, does it feel satisfying to customize your character a certain way. That's one of the things I liked most about XCOM/XCOM2, customizing my characters in a particular way and smacking those bitch aliens about using chosen skills.

I suppose I would like a well-written story, too, but I guess asking for that in a modern computer game is like asking God for an angel to blow me every time I come home from work
 

Decado

Old time handsome face wrecker
Patron
Joined
Dec 1, 2010
Messages
2,544
Location
San Diego
Codex 2014
So I've got about 3 hours in. Some thoughts:

1) The setting and overall feeling of being in the 40k universe are quite good. Some of the graphics are a bit cartoony, but so far this feels like 40k -- closest comparison would be Dawn of War II, which is still (imo) the definitive 40k game.
2) There is depth here -- looks like good class customization, good gear variety, good strategic layer.
3) The UI is an absolute fucking mess. I can't describe it. On the one hand, it looks like a mobile app interface. On the other hand, it lacks the clarity; it could be the fact that everything is a similar color, I don't know. But the screen is fucking crowded most of the time, it is hard to find what you're looking for, and it is not very intuitive. Gotta say, this is my biggest complaint so far.
4) Limited zoom. I like to zoom out. This is annoying as hell.
5) Animation is a bit amateurish; the female inquisitor chick's animations especially look like they came from a 1998 CGI cartoon.
6) Good voice acting, especially the tech priest. Appropriately hammy in all the right spots.
7) There is little to no explanation what the classes are, and there doesn't seem to be a way to find out. If I didn't have some background in 40k, I'd be lost.
8) Playing on normal, it feels pretty balanced. Being an idiot will get you slaughtered, but the game is not punishingly difficult.
 
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 22, 2020
Messages
2,162
Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming!
I'm interested in whether the character development feels meaningful as the game goes on, or whether it feels flat / like you're going through the motions. Like, does it feel satisfying to customize your character a certain way. That's one of the things I liked most about XCOM/XCOM2, customizing my characters in a particular way and smacking those bitch aliens about using chosen skills.

I suppose I would like a well-written story, too, but I guess asking for that in a modern computer game is like asking God for an angel to blow me every time I come home from work

The character development offers multiple paths to develop each of the classes in several ways, usualy towards melee, ranged and psychic specialisations. Its fairly deep for what is primarily a tactics game and the skills select indeed have an impact on how the given character plays (ie an Interceptor specialised in teleport attacks is highly mobile close combat fighter, but you can also play the same class as a fairly effective shooter with different skill setup). It generaly feels OK to me, I didn play nu-XCOM much, but from what I remember the skill threes there werent this complex.

Story seems to be a standard 40K fare - an ancient evil wakes up, only Inqusition can stop it.
 
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Galdred

Studio Draconis
Patron
Developer
Joined
May 6, 2011
Messages
4,346
Location
Middle Empire
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
But it seems a bit abusable (with the hammer attack giving 100% stun followed by a melee execution). I could chain it the times, as it gives +4 actions at the cost of 2Wp and 2 actions. I didn't understand why it didn't work the last time, though (I thought it was 100% stun= 100% execute on next melee attack).
Actually, I was wrong, only the DLC/preorder hammer can stun at will, which makes the item totally broken, and out of place. It should only have been unlocked later in the campaign, at a stage where you have other reliable stun options...
So the alternative are the apothecary powers giving 1 stun to melee to a friend, and the charge power.

The pod system is much better than in NuXCOM:
When you stumble upon enemies (when no other enemy group is active), they get a free action, but you get all your actions back: No more accidentally revealing a pod with the last action of your squad.
It makes the maps feel like a set of mini-encounter, but that was the same in NuXCOM anyway, except those days where you triggered 2 pods at once, and had to replace most of your squad afterwards.
 
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Saduj

Arcane
Joined
Aug 26, 2012
Messages
2,547
I've played two missions plus tutorial and my impression so far is similar to what others are saying. Game borrows from XCOM, Mechanicus, Gears Tactics and Battletech. Nothing very original so far but in fairness I haven't seen most abilities or ship upgrades in action yet. I know the tutorial is just there to say "click this to do that" but the railroaded dumb decisions are still annoying. Gameplay itself is pretty good so far. The soft timer on every mission is a good mechanic that covers other deficiencies. The missions I've done have the timer on lowest setting and the pressure is there to keep pushing. On lowest setting, timer advances by fifteen per turn and when it reaches a hundred, the enemies get buffs or reinforcements. Using certain abilities advances the timer a little so it seems like in later missions, the trade off will be a legitimate concern and the timer will hit a hundred more than once.

Timer makes the AI seem better than it is. So far, enemies seem to advance in a group that can very conveniently be grenaded in the first round, sometimes gathering around exploding barrels as well. I've seen at least three low HP enemies run into fire and die after being grenaded in the first round. But they do focus fire and pin down anyone who is out of position so, with the pressure to keep pushing, it is easy to get into trouble. After the first round, the ranged enemies will turtle and suppress/overwatch, which make sense since their goal should be to force you to use as many turns as possible. Pressure to keep pushing also makes it very likely that mission will end with injuries. Injuries are serious enough that the player will need to use more than one full squad to get through the game. Game allows up to twenty knights and I'm guessing building up at least twelve will be necessary. There is a also a mechanic that will make you retire knights who have been injured too many times but there is a way to mitigate that so I'm not sure if retiring knights will actually be a thing or not.

Knights wearing terminator armor can't climb and the maps are set up in such a way where climbing can be pretty advantageous. So with the game punishing you for being slow, this seems like a decent tradeoff. Other than that, I haven't seen enough of the gear to notice tradeoffs other than bringing a grenade vs healing or buff items.

I'm happy enough with the game and don't regret buying it.
 

Tyranicon

A Memory of Eternity
Developer
Joined
Oct 7, 2019
Messages
5,861
Cautiously optimistic after seeing the good reviews here. Might get it when I actually have some free time.

Good 40k stuff is always worth a purchase.
 

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