WARHAMMER 40,000: MECHANICUS
In need of a service
With dialogue by Black Library and Warhammer 40k author Ben Counter this is a turn-based tactics game that pulls no punches. Ben doesn’t care if you’ve heard of The Adeptus Mechanicus, or that they’re the weird, tech-worshipping Borg-like pocket of Warhammer 40k’s universe. As your Tech-Priest1 command units bicker in the background like distant relatives at a funeral, you get sucked into the game’s story, a mission to explore the newly-discovered planet Silva Tenebris.
Combat is XCOM-inspired: you shuffle units around small arenas, spending Cognition points on abilities – more can be harvested from the environment and Nekron enemies. Unlocked weapons and gear spice up attacks, and character levelling enables you to crosspollinate classes. Between battles your unit explores a tomb’s rooms from a simple map; choice-led situations arise enabling you to earn more Cognition, health, and Blackstone (the game’s levelling currency). Make bad choices and the opposite happens.
Mechanicus has some strong ideas, particularly its Nekron ticking-timebomb setup that means every action you take awakens more enemies – when it hits 100% it’s game over. How much of the story you uncover depends on your skill and speed. 2
However this is visually bare-bones and an incredibly sloppy port of the PC original. The menus have an eye-jittering delay that makes navigating a chore. Worse still, hard crashes occur every 20 minutes in the final third of the story, forcing you to replay tombs already conquered.
It’s hard to recommend a game that punishes you with its bugs.
Pray for this one. Ian Dean