Played a bit more yesterday
Managed to do a bit of the 1st level proper - the Deathwatch level is the tutorial/prelude, after which Titus gets the Primaris surgery and is re-instated into the Ultramarines and gets his own squad (besides the 2 co-op dudes, there's 3 other smurfs in the squad that serve as story extras)
Insterestingly the the intro Deathwatch level can be outrigth skipped in the pause menu
The game feel is quite satisfying - I think the animations do the heavy lfting on this, the sound fx are good too but the animation work is simply great
And visually the game even on Low is striking as the enviroments are very dense with detail - even of in the distance there's alot of real 3D assets in motion
Played it on the 3rd difficulty and,
so far, the "challenging but not hard" description is apt
The regular tyranids are no threat by themselves but in a swarm and specially if they surround you, they can kill you (and mind you, I have not yet fought a large swarm - going by previous footage) - also, despite coming at you in a staigth line, they are quick little bastards
Then there's the melee tyranids - 2 variants, one dual wields 2 swords, the other dual wields a sword and a whip (this one can use the whip to take Titus from medium range to close range, this attack also stuns and opens your guard) - in this difficulty, they can kill you in 3 hits and are usually accompanied by a swarm (to chip off your health or worse stun you by jumping on to you)
The ranged tyranids are just regular tyranids that don't move much other than to stay some 20 meters away from you - their guns do slight more damage than regular tyranid attacks
The last enemy I fought (but never managed to kill, I'll explain in a moment) was a sort of tyranid snake (called a Ravener) that burrows into the ground and pops off to do a hefty sneak attack or a very dangerous grapple - the reason I never managed to kill one, is because in the encounter it appears the game always crashed for me (too many enemies and shit on screen, again I have an old RX480, me being able to run this game above 30fps even with stutters is already surprising)
So far, cool enemy design imo
But, while the campaign will no doubt introduce deadlier enemies and combat encounters, it is worthy to note that Titus new companions are efficient figthers (even as AI they can dispatch melee tyranids by themselves) - only by playing the full campaign can we determine how well designed of a challenge the 3rd difficulty is
Time to talk about the new combat mechanic - Parrying
Overall it's a fine addition but I do have one particular issue with it - the HUD indicator
If you've seem gameplay footage, you probably noticed that bright blue, chaos shaped HUD element whenever an enemy was about to execute a dangerous attack
For regular tyranids that happens whenever they do the Jump Attack, for the melee tyranids and the Ravener that happens for everyone one of their attacks
I understand why the that indicator exists, the fights even in these first encounters can easily get hectic
There's even an additional nuGoW HUD arrow that appears when those attacks come from the back (again it's dangerous to let the 'nids surround you because they don't take turns and don't stop attacking you because they're not within your camera POV frame), because Titus can only parry enemies within the camera's POV frame
But it's still an element that I hope the release game allows to turn off, as imo makes the combat less engaging - the regular tyranids jumps are very well telegraphed and melee tyranids can be locked-on to, sure enemies attacking from your back can take you by surprise, but managing the swarm is part of the challenge no?
With that criticism out of the way, for the actual function of the mechanic
Parrying is a dedicated button
The Parry Window is super lenient, around 1 second - I have no problem with this, as this is not a game that focuses on 1v1, the bulk of the campaign will be against hordes so a parrying shouldn't be something demanding to execute
It insta-kills regular Tyranids and can be pulled off anytime they attack, but if you perform during one of their jumping attacks it will count as an execution as you'll recover some HP (like the original game)
For the melee tyranids, its effect on the enemy depends on the type of attack he performs, a simple attack (the HUD indicator glows blue) Titus will simply guard against it with no damage to the enemy, if the enemy performs an "heavy" attack (HUD indicator glows orange) Titus will perform a counterattack leaving the enemy open and staggered (these enemy attacks come out faster)
Lastly I only used 4 weapons so far - Chainsword, Bolt Pistol, Boltgun and Combat Knife
The melee weapons only use 1 button, but if you hold said button you perform an "heavy" attack - which is not so much for damage but for its stagger, opens melee tyranids guards or stuns them if their guards were already opens
The combat knife is faster and has more combos, but the chainsword does more damage - but both kill regular tyranids in 1 hit
Another important distinction, the chainsword has very wide swings, while the knife is more "frontal" in it's attack patterns - so I would say the chainsword is better suited for clearing mobs and the knife is for "duels"
If you have a Bolt Pistol it will be automatically used in conjuction with whatever 1 handed melee weapon you currently possess
And there's a new mechanic with this weapon pairing - if you perform a "heavy" attack on an enemy, they will be marked for a few seconds, during which if you press the "Fire" input, Titus will perform a quick and precise pistol shot that deals major damage and staggers the opponent
Overall I liked what I played
And honestly I think they could release at least the Deathwatch level as a demo on the next month - I think most people would like and they could even use it to collect some feedback
My feedback would really just be to give the option to disable the parry indicator hud element - oh and please implement a key to switch the camera to another shoulder
Also I hope they don't plan to charge people for new multiplayer maps (there's only 3 in this build) - that would be stupid given new content it what will determine its longevity
Don't care for cosmetics though
Do bolters do more boom that what was shown in the older clips?
From what I played
Both the Bolt Pistols and Boltguns kill the regular Tyranids in 2/3 shots
You can manage regular 'nids with the pistol fine (provided you can hit them), but really it seems to me that its main strength is to be a sidearm to the 1 handed melee weapons
For melee tyranids you'll need to dump more than half a clip to kill them