Worth: $15.50
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
NA
Intro:
...if you dislike turn-based gear you should flee, however, for those attuned into the gleefully strange 40K rhythms, Mechancius is a machine worth worshipping.
As the sun rises lofty and pleasant in the sky each day, so too do Warhammer 40K games arrive for PC and consoles with often staggering regularity. Sometimes they are good, sometimes they’re a bit shit and most often they’re just… fine. Warhammer 40K: Mechanicus belongs in the first category, praise the Omnissiah, and while it’s not a perfect game there’s more than enough good stuff here to keep 40K acolytes and casuals alike engaged with its niche charms.
Mechanicus is a tactical turn-based game that puts the player in the chunky boots of the Adeptus Mechanicus order, a bunch of tech-priests and their servitors, who are technologically augmented zealots. You’ll need the tech and the zeal as you quest to salvage strange technology from the massive Necron tomb world of Silva Tenebris, and deal with the recently woken Necrons who are less than pleased with you flogging their gear. However, the player is given some choice in which missions to take, and depending on how you proceed through the game determines the sort of ending you’ll get.
In practical terms, the gameplay feels like a more focused X-COM, with turn-based combat and clever distribution of assets and tech being the order of the day. It can be a little dizzying at first, but the difficulty ramps up slowly enough to alleviate total confusion, and by the halfway point you’ll likely be tearing through tombs like a pro. As always, the best thing about 40K games is the rich, bizarre lore. Your humble reviewer has never been within cooee of the tabletop game upon which this is based, but any title that features “tech priests” who worship machine gods, augment their own bodies with robot parts and bicker about heresies against a sleeping undead Emperor deity is going to be the kind of willfully weird that works.
The graphics are crisp, the gameplay is addictive and the soundtrack – by Guillaume David – is one of the best in recent memory, brimming with over-the-top space gothic charm. Warhammer 40K: Mechanicus won’t be for everyone, and if you dislike turn-based gear you should flee like an outnumbered servant of Chaos. However, for those attuned into the gleefully strange 40K rhythms, Mechancius is a machine worth worshipping.
