Adeptus Ridiculous - Is Fire Warrior Really That Bad? | Warhammer 40k

Episode Date: October 23, 2024

https://www.patreon.com/AdeptusRidiculoushttps://www.adeptusridiculous.com/https://twitter.com/AdRidiculoushttps://orchideight.com/collections/adeptus-ridiculousWarhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior is a first-person shooter for PC and PlayStation 2. The game follows a Tau Fire Warrior, Shas'ui'T'au'Kais, and his heroic acts to save the Ethereal Ko'vash, while fighting against the forces of the Imperium (Notably the Imperial Guard and the Raptors). Further into the game, Kais teams up alongside Captain Ardias of the Ultramarines 3rd company during a temporary cease fire negotiated between the two factions. This is because the forces of the Chaos Word Bearers intervene with the fighting on the planet. Eventually the planet is ordered to be cleansed through an Orbital Strike bombardment ordered by Ardias to rid the planet of Chaos taint. What happens to Shas'ui'Kais in the events afterwards is unknown. There is also a multiplayer mode consisting of Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Capture the Flag. Eight multiplayer maps are included with the game, Deathmatch having its own, and Team Deathmatch and Capture the Flag having their own. Fire Warrior was one of the first Playstation 2 games to support 8 player multiplayer using its broadband adaptor. Support the show

Welcome everyone to another episode of the Adeptus Ridiculous podcast. My name is D.K. Diamante's. His name is Bricky. You know why you're here, you think. But if you enjoy today's episode and you want to support the podcast, heading over to patreon.com slash adeptus Ridiculous where you can get access to the Discord, bloopers if they happen, $15 tier gets you access to all of our posters in crispy, digital HD format.

You can also follow the Patreon on like, Facebook, Google, whatever platform. Actually, there's very specific platforms. Check the description. And you can do a free trial of our Patreon, but it will require a credit card. Patreon.com slash adeptus, ridiculous. How is it, Bricky? Yo, it good.

A good, man. Dab me up. Oh, yeah. Or is it dapp? Is it dapp or dapp? Dap. You dab. Dap me up, baby. Dap me up.

All right, I thought it was dab me up. I don't know how you do it over like microphones. funny. You do like a DAP sound. I think, let me see how good of like a like a grab I can do. Let's see the sound effect. Yeah, that's a good dab, baby. Let's go. That's a good dab, baby.

That's a marksman tab. Let's go. All right. So, so call my ass a Pathfinder team the way I, I, screw this. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So we're going to have a ton of new merch next week. I promise this time.

It's actually going to be real. there's going to be like a whole lot of new stuff right in like right on the 30th so get ready it's going to be a lot so we'll check that out very soon i'm excited yeah uh so today's episode yeah today's episode eh it's uh it's this is going to be a spicy one huh you know yeah you know uh you know our last uh group game review did fantastic you know we were we were we were praises of down the streets flowers thrown oh yes they still sing our praises about that to this day and so why not do it again you know it was even funnier the second time but hey at least this time it is probably not as beloved a game so if we happen to be a little critical of it i don't

think it'll be the craziest thing in the world or if we happen to be total contrarians and say it's not that bad, that'll make us seem even worse. Yeah, we'll get the, oh, the contrarian critique, yeah. Oh, yes, yes. Well, so today we are talking about a much older 40K game. Yeah. From 2003, the original Warhammer 40K fire warrior that came out on the PlayStation 2, way back when, It is known in a lot of, okay,

it's like the only time Tao have ever had a game. They've had the occasional like faction to play as in Dawn of War. And of course, there's like a couple other things. But for the most part, it's the first like Warhammer Tao centric game ever. And it came out in a very. different time. Yeah. The lore was different.

The things were different. If I'm not mistaken, I think the Gaunt's Ghost first and only book came out in, oh my God, it came out in 1999. Holy. Okay, so.

Bones. My bones. They ache. They freak. So, 1999 is when Gonsk ghost first book came out, which means that we're in a different world

of, like power creep. Oh yeah. Levels and stuff. I was going to say you play a fire warrior for, you know, two, three hours and it's like, oh, we're in this era of power scaling. Got it. Where space marines aren't the immortal, unstoppable behemoths, they're just really good soldiers.

You know, they're good, but they're not invincible. Ceremite armor does not protect you against everything. you are, you know, mortal. And also, going through with all of this, we got Fire Warrior on Gog, G-O-G, which is a, let's just say what they're selling is not the greatest of stuff.

A big shout out to Mandelor Gaming, other YouTuber who did a video on Fire Warrior, and also put an unofficial patch combo to, fix up a lot of the game. Oh, I didn't do any patches. Was I supposed to patch it? Oh my God. I don't, well, I remember there was like a, on the loader. It was like, oh, yeah, you can

check for patches or something. And it didn't automatic one, but I didn't know, was I supposed to patch it? This is going to, okay, viewers, I'd like you to, like, put a pin in this. I'm raw dog this game. Oh, my God. Okay, we're going to, we're going to have you put a pin in this, viewers, because. this might explain some of our opinions on the video game a bit better. Wow,

holy hell. But yes, shout out to them for that because it was for me a significantly better experience for when I played it. To hop right into it, Shai has a little mini review,

a bit of a novel. And, DK, you are more than welcome to read, said, holy hell. Oh, okay.

That is. Hey, when she said she had 20 pages of notes, she was not mistaken. All right. Let's go through a couple of the, let's go through a couple of paragraphs and then chat about them individually, because I might be better than going through the whole thing. Yeah.

Okay. So she says, Fire Warrior is a first person shooter about Kai's, the Fire Warrior of Tao Empire, who his task was saving the Tao Aetherial and getting some real deep shit, which came out in 2003. For context, that is around Vice City, Enter the Matrix, Medal of Honor, Rising Sun, the Legend of Zelda, the Wind Waker, and Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic. So visually, it looks fairly decent for the time. It is an entirely first-person shooter without any bells and whistles like vehicle sections or anything like that, even though it's ripping off Halo very, very hard with two weapon systems,

colored enemies, general feel, etc. Gun play is fucking weird, at least on normal game, kicked my ass pretty hard because enemies are bullet sponges and the fact that I turn off auto aim was probably a mistake because accuracy on these guns is shit.

Okay. If I could interject for a second. Yes, let's stop it there. Please. Yeah, because like I played the first pretty much up until you get back on the Tao ship and the Imperial

start attacking. I did that without auto aim. And it sucked. I have never seen a gun that just like it's the most un-inviting firearm I have fired in a video game. It just like the reticle is not

even just a suggestion. It's like a drunken whisper. It's a drunken whisper. Yeah. It's a drunken whisper across the hall. Like they just, it does not matter. where you point your gun at all. You will not hit them. Like once the enemies turned a little more bullet spongy,

I was like, what am I doing wrong? I am dying in like a fairly normal section of the game looking for a magenta key of all things. And it's just, oh my God. And I was like, am I doing, like, am I just this bad at shooting? Like, I know I'm not MLG pro. And I was like, I'm really excited to see what Bricky says.

Because like, I'm not saying you're MLG pro, but you are significantly better at shooters than I am. And I was like, maybe it's just me. Like, I got to know, like, what, what did an actual gamer think? Like, were they missing shots? And, yeah, I had to turn AutoA mons. Once I turned on AutoA, it was like, oh, oh, this is so much better. Yes, the gun, I mean, it doesn't matter how much of an MLG pro you are if your gun doesn't listen to you.

At all. It's straight up, yeah, it is very funny. Because what I mentioned above where it's like Vice City those days This game is really ripping off Halo It is 100 I mean I gotta be honest I don't know what game wasn't

Back during the Halo C.E release Yeah I mean with the success that Halo had As a franchise like you'd be crazy not to try to rip it off right Like Halo CCE came out in November 15th of 2001 right And Fire Warrior came out September 2nd 2003. And back then, games were made in like, like, one to two years. Uh, it didn't take long. I mean, imagine. I know, right? Like, some games just did not take very long back in the day.

Um, and, and don't get me wrong, there were still a lot of problems, but some things were a lot quicker. So it's very clear, like, yeah, Fire Warrior obviously takes from Halo a ton. Um, I will agree, though, there's no like vehicle sections or bells and whistle stuff and i i desperately wanted anything to break up the gameplay yep i needed something like that uh and they did they do throw in a few boss fights but they're all very bad um yeah they're all very bullet spongy look at how much damage i do i hope you strafe around me right yeah it's very how did you deal with the valky in the beginning because I didn't deal with it very well. So I will be honest with you.

I just switched that shit to Easy and blew his ass out of the water. Didn't take too much ammo, didn't take too much strifing. I was like, you know what? Nah, I'm okay with playing on Easy. It's fine. And it goes down relatively quickly. Oh, that is fair. I played like Shy did on normal difficulty.

And I will admit, I was, I got my ass kind of handed to me here and there I was a little bit like damn what the hell man like when did I

keep dying like this yeah I started out on normal and I was like okay that was a mistake and then flopped over to easy because I was like I gotta finish this damn game and if I keep on this difficulty

it ain't happening also can we can we talk about how the Imperial Las gun has like an M16 carry handle and it has like an M16 iron oh wait no it's not the last because the auto gun. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like just a 16. It's pretty funny. Ah, the Lasgun, the trusty Lasgun. I think it was the auto gun, but it doesn't matter. To go along and continue with Shy's paragraph, encounters are fucking annoying sometimes with game locking you in a room and bum rushing you with enemy waves. And what's really fun in the end,

and what's really fun at the end game, enemies jump scare, teleport in and they can shoot as they are appearing. So there are moments where I entered a room And a Chaos Marine teleported in already shooting And Insta murdered me while his model was loaded in Cool Cool I actually did have a genuine jump scare moment

When I played that game Yeah I was literally like a Chaos Marine teleported And I was like, oh Yeah I was like wow Thanks for giving me a good look at your model As it like teleports right in front of my camera Yeah Yeah

Also totally rams random. I love the imperial like commissars and stuff running at you with a chain sword just flailing arms everywhere. constantly going

just like here have one of my grenades. It's so funny. Totally what a commissar would do. Interesting interestingly a lot of guns are actually very lore accurate. This is probably the closest we came to the OG Bolton which is supposed to be a gun-shaped rocket launcher.

Plasmas are also very accurately powerful, dangerous, and prone to overheating. At the same time, Lasgun is just for some reason a Star Wars blaster and Auto Gun is straight up an M-16 for... Oh, she beat me to it! She did! Straight up M-16 from Call of Duty, this shit is all over the place. I agree. The Bolter actually is like weirdly accurate and good. When I first got the bolter, I hadn't turned on AutoAim yet.

And oh, brother. That thing sent you to the ceiling. Oh, yeah, dude. That thing is like, you can't hit the broad side of a barn with a baseball with that thing. Like, you, the bolter needs the auto aim. That shit crazy. I guess, uh, I guess more than anything, at least it's more accurate. It's a towel holding a bolter.

Yeah, yeah, they shouldn't be very accurate with it. I'm surprised his arms stayed on after firing that thing. I actually find it kind of funny, though, because, you know, despite the fact that the weapons are actually rather lower accurate in that way, despite it being like an M16 and stuff, it's the Tao firearms are like the most inaccurate weapons out of all of them. And obviously those would be the most accurate weapons out of all of them. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Because Tao firearms are, uh, are notoriously, extremely accurate. Mm-hmm.

Especially their little experimental rail gun. Yeah. Actually, the rail gun, did you, okay, when you fired the rail gun, did you like have like an epileptic fit? Because every time I thought. No, but I could totally see how you would. Every time I fired it, it just like white flashbangs the entire screen. It does flashbang the screen, doesn't it? It's really funny.

I mean, hey, that thing hits like a truck, though. So, you know, if I got to, like, you know, wear a pair of shades while I use it, so be it. The plot barely exists, which is fine. But hilariously, it follows the exact same formula of space move one and two with Zenos versus Imperium. And then it turns out chaos was behind it all along. And there's a big evil vortex we need to stop. Except this time, the Imperium actually does ally itself with the Zenos for once, which is nice. The setting visually is not super great.

This is a corridor shooting at its most basic with the original ass cool. quake grade of architecture and very few spectacle moments but for 2003 they do their best to showcase the epic scale of battles in 40K there's a nice little trench warfare moment with Lehman Russ is driving over your head boarding action in space and firefights

on the outside of the hull of a massive imperial ship. I actually will agree that some of the, I was kind of shocked at some of the spectacle moments there. I was kind of like holy, this is like a huge battle. Yeah. Like when you first see the vortex too, I was like, hey, for 2003, that's pretty good.

Like, that's, that's nice. And, like, even some of the cinematics, like, were they the greatest thing I've ever seen? No, but I was like, ah, different time, you know, you know, you weren't always guaranteed to get a decent looking cinematic back then. So it's like, ah, not bad, not bad. I was a little impressed because that was like one of the reasons, I mean, there's a lot of reasons why Halo was popular. But one of the reasons Halo CE was so beloved is that every single game that ever came out at the time was a corridor shooter. And Halo was like, here's this

huge open world, open world, but like, you know, when you land on Halo. Yeah. It's, it was crazy. And seeing them, I mean, this was two years later, but seeing them have some of these much more larger spectacles was actually, I was pretty impressed. I was like, oh, hey, wait a minute. Yeah, yeah. Did you want to roll with the voice acting? Yeah, voice acting is word bears screaming, Blood for the Blood God. The most used enemy war cry is die idiot. Super, super hot fire shit right there.

Really cheesy death screams and hammy performances all around. But before you go on about questionable Asian accents, I did my due diligence and checked the actors on IMBD. a lot of them are of Chinese descent since Tao are not literally Japanese, that works. Which is hilarious because is it dawn of war one

which is in 2004 or maybe it's one of the DLCs. They have very strong accents as well. Yep, yep, yep. You know, I'm totally cool with the Tao just being like an amalgamation of all like, you know,

Asian cultures. You know, you could have like a Korean accent and Chinese accent, Vietnamese, Loation. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, Filipino. That's like, that's a cool concept. But I will, I'll admit, when I first heard it, I was like, oh, and then I remember

it's, oh, yeah, this is the only game. It's fine. I'm trying to remember in 2003, how regular was it to get, like, voice acting in a game like this? Like, it was, like, you could get voice acting, but it's not like you got this, you know, not like the performances you get today, obviously. But it's like, I'm trying to remember when voice acting in games, became like really, really, really popular.

And they, like, could actually do it. You know, well, I mean, I mean, HaloC. had plenty of voice acting, like, you know, and that was 2001. There were plenty of games in the 90s that came up that had plenty of voice acting as well. I guess I'm confused by the question.

Oh, yeah, I just, I, because I remember, like, the first game I remember with, like, solid voice acting was like Final Fantasy 10. And that was, like, PlayStation 2 realm. Not that you... Exactly.

And I'm just like... I was like, man, the original one, that voice acting left a little to be desired. And I was like, how normal was? Because I didn't play a lot of shooters. And like, I didn't play Halo until, like, the Master Chief Collection came out on, like, Steam. So I'm not sure, like, how good of a voice acting performance

for, like, a shooting game in the early 2000s this was. I guess. I mean, I think plenty fine. There's plenty of them normally happen. But yeah, I mean, voice acting for a lot of the FPS stuff is pretty, it was pretty common. Like there's nothing uncommon about it. I think there was always plenty of that. I think maybe, maybe you might be like referring to more, I don't know, advanced voice acting.

But that kind of came with the time, with the upgrades of, you know, lots of video games. And then eventually, you know, like right now it's like a lot of voice actor union. and stuff like that, you know? Yeah. Oh. Like, I wasn't expecting, like, you know, an award-winning performance or anything. I just, you know, I wasn't sure if this was, like, good by the standards of the time or, like, bad by the standards of the time. Oh, by the standards.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, because I just, I have nothing to, like, base it on. Oh, okay. I'd say this is about normal for the time. I'd say, I mean, I wouldn't call it good, but we have obviously, the world has changed, so. yes, yes, in the last 20-some-odd years, what we consider good in video games has vastly changed. Continuing with Shai's thing, what I wildly respect for this game is this.

Imagine a major Warhammer game where Tower actually acknowledged are protagonists. The main space marine enemies are a deep-cut loyalist Raptors chapter. Word bearers show up for once. Ultramarines have a very small role and the guard are not Cadians. that would not be allowed today. That's actually pretty true. The guard are like...

The guard of Hullin? Do they say what the guard are? I don't know. I mean, they're not dressed like Cadians, no doubt. Try, do you know what the guard are in this game? Because they kind of look like Sions a bit, but I don't think they are. I think they're just like...

Oh, that's true. I guess the ones that you encounter after you leave the initial planet do kind of have a sion-y vibe to them, don't they? I think they look like Vol... They kind of have like the drab blue and they, I think they have like great coats. But they don't look, they don't like scream in like a stereotypical Russian accent or something. So I'm not 100% sure.

I kind of just figured they were just stereotypical guard that weren't necessarily one specific regiment. Also, she's got a good point though. It's the goddamn Raptors chapter. The Raptors. The Raptors. Have you seen what the Raptors look like? Well, yes, you have. You played the game.

But, like, they're just, like, they're specops. They look like your traditional green drab specops chapter that, like, go really hard into, like, here's a mini that somebody painted. Like, this is probably the most accurate looking raptor. It's just very, very much classic sci-fi, or not sci-fi. like spec ops green beret you know old school oh okay

yeah yeah yeah yeah because I remember looking at the logo and I was like what logo is that I was like it kind of looks like they're green and it's kind of a wolf looking thing I was like surely that's not like a salamander because that would be silly

why would the ultramines have a salamander and I think at some point they do specifically say like oh yeah summon the chapter of raptors or something. And yeah, I was like, oh, that's what they are. It's actually, it's actually unfortunate. Because she does, that's a great point. Like, that would not happen.

I mean, it might happen again today. You know, for, for all my problems I have with Rogue Traitor, I do have to give it a lot of credit that that game basically is just complete nobodies that we've never, it's like, entirely new characters. And I really like that. And I'd like that you You get Rogue Trader from a perspective That is not Space Marine

You get it from night And you don't even get it from a Garzman perspective You get it from the nobility You get it from like the higher up The Haves instead of the Havnots It's actually Yeah I have my problems with Rogue Trader

No doubt but Like We'll talk about one day We'll talk about Rogue Trader one day Yeah one day we'll get there Well yeah You know it'll take us about You know

An entire calendar year to beat it But one day sure Yeah I can't speak for how game was perceived by Tao fans in 2003, but I can imagine it must have felt like Space Marine fans feel about Space Marine 2 today, right? A lot of neat Tao vehicle cameos probably first and last time we actually see Aircast Tao in anything but art the very tall, weird, lanky dudes. That was really cool. It's cool to have a chance to actually see Tao vehicles, ships, and use Tao guns for once.

Imagine these guns, but made by Fat Shark or something. That could be really fun to you. Honestly, like a dark tide, but with a damn railgun would be orgasm-worthy. That would be so cool. Yeah, seeing that rail gun that you get towards the end of the game, like fully realized in 2025 would be... I'm here for it. I'm here for it. And hey, while Kaias is a silent protagonist and has no real support team, at least he has a Sundaree

ultramarine boyfriend. So there's that. Overall, I don't think it's worth playing right now other than as a historical oddity and for Tau super fans, but I didn't hate my time with this game. It is what it is for its time. That's literally exactly how I feel. I did not hate play. I'm okay. I did kind of hate playing this game, but I don't think I hated this game. Yeah, it's, I had a rough time with the game because like I said earlier, like I, I didn't really play these types. of games growing up. So I didn't really have the nostalgia goggles to really give it like an objective opinion. So it was just like super dated to me. It just wasn't the type of game I usually play. And it was just, it was hard for me to like, you know, just be like, oh yeah, no, no,

it's fine. Like, you know, you're just looking at it from the point of view of a nerd in 2025. Like at the time, it was probably fine. You just have, you know, you just have to plow through it and power through. it. But there were like cool things. I didn't like completely despise it. Like the gunplay was fine. You know, the every stage essentially being like, hey, collect the key, put down the bomb, beat the commissar. Stage over. Got a little grading at times. But again, that was like, well, that's, that's kind of, that's kind of what these corridor shooters did at the time, right? So, yeah. I think this is, it kind of reinforces one of my feelings I had. about Space Marine 2, which was those breakup segments where you do things like drive a scorpion

tank or a warthog in Halo really do add a lot to the game. And yeah, I'm kind of with shy on this one. Like I didn't love it at all as a weird historical game from back in the day. It's definitely very dated and everything. And I probably wouldn't recommend playing it nowadays. But I can kind of appreciate it for a lot of that. stuff and you can only you can only do so bad when you're copying Halo

like go in try out a bunch of new weapons fight in a brand new environment get to the end maybe fight a small boss and then level over like that's a winning formula yeah and it's strange because every time fire warrior had been brought up to me in the past people made it seem like it was just this

irredeemable garbage just the worst game that has ever been in the history of gaming. And it's like, you know, like, it's really not. Like, is it the best thing that's ever been made? No. Uh, but it's like, it's a serviceable game. Like, you can have a good time with it if, like, you're looking for an old school corridor shooter. Like, it's fine. Like, there's nothing really that wrong with it, aside from, like, some of the things we've already mentioned. But, like, it's not this just, like, garbage pale of awful that everybody kind of made it out to be.

Yeah, I mean, it's certainly still not good. No. But I also, I do have to appreciate Shia is a meme real. Firstly, the Imperium loves cheese. There's cheese all over the day. There is

so much cheese. That's right. You go into their little mess hall. There's cheese everywhere. There's bread everywhere. Yep. They do love a cheese. It's so funny, because I know exactly what it is. They only had like one or two food items that they had to copy paste throughout the game. And it's just, there's just so much fucking cheese.

And what did you think of the weird, like, just stock photo images of, like, commissars? And, like, there was, like, a space marine that had his helmet off. He was, like, in all red and he was, like, holding a skull in his hand or something. And I was like, are these people I should know? Or is this just, like, GW being like, here's stock footage. Put him in a thing up on the imperial ship? I'm pretty sure it was just like Imperial propaganda. Okay.

If there was someone specifically, it didn't register to me. And I was like, damn, this art is old, but I kind of love that. Hey, John Blanche, I don't think it was John Blanche, but John Blanche's art is old, but he defined this. He defined this shit. Yeah. Dude, the, also, how many, how many times, because I got to be honest, even with the update, the amount of times the enemies would randomly scream, at the top of their lungs.

Well, sorry, they wouldn't scream it. They'd say it. But it would, like, be five times too loud in the game of them just going, it's quiet. Oh, yep. It happened so often. Yep, yep. They're like three rooms away. And it's like, it's quiet.

It's quiet. Yeah. Yeah. They, the voice lines seem like they sometimes ticked at random, like, way too loud. It's just the amount of times I heard it's quiet. and then like and then immediately followed immediately followed directly afterwards by I'm kind of upset the

the commissars didn't have some kind of crazy voice line when they were just bum rushing you with the chain sword is so funny the crazy voice line see DK they did it was you couldn't hear it over the chain sword right they were yelling at the top of their lungs but like the chain sword drowned it out fair enough also yeah the checkpoint system

in this game was bad. Oh my God. They would actually send you back like 10 full minutes. Yeah, they really would. Did you have any problem with, I guess it was on the Imperium ship and there's a hallway

of turrets with sensors on them. And I know that the room tells you and shows you what their arc was, but oh my God, if you messed that up, I felt like you went back so far and I was like, ugh. Like, if you died there, it was just...

You had to go back and fight, like, three space marines, and it's just like... It would... The checkpoint system was very, very rough. I hated it. Also, speaking of Mary Sews, Titus ain't got shit on Kais, who is an average fire warrior, who is smaller than weaker than a human, and yet uses a vehicle-rated rail gun as a firearm. One v.1's a Valkyrie, a chaos dreadnought, several times. kills an entire guard regiment, approximately 10,000 loyal and traitor marines, including

chaos raptors, and terminators, a titan, two demon princes, and a chaos spawn. Mm-hmm. Yeah, he, he, hey, you know, what a, what a guy, what a guy, Caius, what a guy. How did he not get a mini? After all, he did, he did, he's just a damn fire warrior. He's just, you're right. He's just a guy. he does a lot for just one little dude

also Shai says The Raptors are so cool Like the chaos ones Oh chaos raptors are really really cool Oh they were so cool I think they were raptors anyway right Well raptors are the flying ones

With the jet packs Yeah weren't the They were the ones with the claws in Fire Warrior right That kind of bum rushing Towards the end Okay cool Yeah those are raptors

Okay cool I do have the right rap Right, right. Also, we joked about the ending of Space Ring to with Luton and how Marnia's Calgar should have jumped in, tore off the head of the Lord of Change, and the game just ended there. Well, here comes Caius, and he fucking kills a Lord of Change alone by shooting it with guns, absolutely glorious.

And the fact that he's now a Canon character with his own Black Library book makes it even funnier. Wait, is he? Is a Canon Smurf Doomslayer? Wait, Kaya says his own Black Library book, really? Let me double check. Oh, that's cool. Oh, yeah, there's a novel called Fire Warrior.

That's right. Let's go. I didn't realize that. Dude, that's actually, man, GW. You got to, okay, they've been doing this a bit more lately. They've started to give us minis about book characters a bit more with Gonskose. And then we got one for Uftak. And then there's a new sister character.

Can I, can I have the, can I, oh my God, it would go so hard. just a regular fire warrior, but he's like a little bit of a leader. He's on like a 32 millimeter base or maybe a 40 for him. And it's actually just a pile of skulls with hit and crouching over like the box art. That would go so hard. That would go really hard. I'm, I am here for it.

Absolutely. People have definitely kit bashed that character a few times. Yeah. But yeah, that's so weird. Like by the end of a fire warrior, I wasn't like, oh my God, I can't believe I'm killing a Lord of Change with just my little towel rail gun and my plasma gun. I don't know why it just didn't like...

I don't know. I wasn't like, oh, this is so weird. I shouldn't be able to do this. You got too used to bolt gun. Yeah, but it was weird because I felt that way about the dreadnought, but not the Lord of Change. And I'm not exactly sure why I felt that way. I was like, a dreadnought, surely not.

Lord of Change, perfectly normal. I don't know. I find it funny regardless, because, like, I just remember, I think it's kind of funny because you look at like bolt gun and bolt gun is very obviously just doom but 40K. Oh yeah, yeah, boomer shooter all the way.

But you kill like seven Lords of Change in that game. Yeah, well you're a, what is it, a stern guard? So you're a stern guard veteran. So at least there's that because they're like the ultramarine, they're like the super ultramarine, right? I mean, yeah, but it doesn't

matter. Well, at least At least I could see that dude doing it Opposed to like Hello, I'm Joe Schmotau It's like saying like oh yeah A sergeant in the army Is gonna get totally one up

By a Navy seal But it doesn't really matter when they're fist fighting Like a nuclear submarine You know? That's true That's fair Hey, he's gonna do better though But it's like yeah that's you're

Okay, you're right It is a little silly granted. I mean, hell, we had a laura change at the end of Space Marine, too. And at least, well, the final boss fight is a little not right. But like, at least when we were rolling up that like big contingent of like tanks and Marnius and stuff to go up like the hill, that was a bit more what I'd expect against the Lord of Chains. That was like a real force. Also, I guess Lord of Change is a real popular demon because that shows up in. a lot of games. Well, so there's four greater demons, right? You've got the Lord of Change, the great unclean one, which is like pretty good. Then you've got the bloodthirster, which is just a big Satan. And then you have the keeper of secrets, which you cannot put in your video game.

Because they're, that's easy around. I was like, why can't you put? Oh, Slanesh. Yep, no, you're right. Yep, fair enough, fair enough, fair enough. And then you can't really put like an undivided one because then it's like bellicor and that's like a major character. Yeah. Oh, I guess that's true.

When you're doing a video game, it's like, well, you've got Satan, completely not safe for work. Really gross, hard to render out blobby, decaying, pus-filled nergle thing. And, uh, big bird dude. I guess we'll go with big bird, dude. Sabre! Put Vashtore in your game in the space where you're, three and my life is yours. Yes.

Swellicor. Give me Swellicor or give me death. Even swolacore? Swolacor. Swellicor sounds better because you got the swell. Oh no, it would be swall. You're right. Never mind.

Yeah, but I know, swell, bell. I get it. He's so swell. I would love, like, Vastor as, like, the main villain. Just him, like, got some weird machinations. He's got going on. He speaks so creepily, and you could really animate that well. Good stuff.

Yep. But that's true. They do have bloodthasters in the in the Chaos Gate game. But, yeah, four grey knights kill more Terry and while in the Garden of Nurgel. So that's a little bit shenanigans too. Yeah, that is, that's a little, um, I do my, I do my best to not, like, care too much about power scaling. It's fun to, like, poke at it and be like, huh, that's funny.

But then, you know, and sometimes they do jump the shark, like with the whole Lord of change and stuff at the end of Space Marine 2. But it's a video game and it's like you kind of got to put the iconic stuff in there. So like a little unbalanced power scaling is to be expected. A little bit. Yeah. And you want to have some cool stuff and you want lots of really interesting enemies. So it's mostly okay.

Yeah, it's fine. It's a video game. It's only a game. You accept it. You accept it because you have to. Yeah. But I mean, especially in this one because a fire warrior. should not be doing what he's doing.

No, one little Tao Fire Warrior probably should not be overthrowing chaos. But yeah, I don't know, man. Maybe I'm just a contrarian asshole, but I didn't like hate it. I think maybe because I expected I would hate it. I thought I would go in and like despise it. And I, and it's Halo and Halo's fun.

Yeah, I mean, you know, it was, it's not my favorite game. But it, like I said before, it wasn't like the most irredeemable thing ever. I had a hard time with it because like my own personal gaming preferences and not really having grown up with that style or being much of a corridor shooter. But like a game as a whole, it's fine. Like if you're in 20, 24, 2025, good Lord, probably don't play it.

Like you're not going to enjoy it probably. But like, eh, it's... fine. It's a little piece of history. Yeah, gaming history. If you want to see what games were like in 2003, sure, give it a couple hours, but yeah. Yeah, it's, I mean, how long did it take you to beat like five hours,

give or take? I want to say, I don't know, I feel like it took me like anywhere, like six, seven-ish. Huh. But that might just because I'm slow at it and, you know, whatever. Shreys that took her eight hours on Medium with no auto aim. But no auto aim definitely would be a part of it. That is impressive that you play through that whole game without auto aim, dude. That is wildly impressive.

Like, that might, like, you need an Xbox achievement for that, dude. I will say, yeah, I do kind of see it the same way, which is like, it's just kind of like a historical exhibit, you know? It's like, hey, this is like a cool piece of Warhammer history from back in the day. Sure. You know, Dawn of War crazily holds up still, but that's because it's an RTS and RTSs tend to be kind of timeless. Yeah, definitely.

I mean, not timeless, but like, you know, people still play Starcraft, like Brood War. Probably because StarCraft Brud Wars go to with the sauce. There's still a huge tournament scene for that game. Isn't there? Like, massive, right? I don't know if I go as far as to say massive, but like, StarCraft 2 still

has plenty of, like, professional things, you know? Mm-hmm. Which is wild. that it's still going, like, at a decent capacity? Oh, man, I'm about to, I'm about to crumble into dust. Starcraft to Wings of Liberty release date. Because I remember the trailer for it where it's like, hell, it's about, 2010, kill me. 2010.

Put a, put a, put a, a, put a, a, a, a bolter to my temple. I mean, 2010, that's, like, look, was that a long time ago? Sure. man, I remember literally playing games on my Sega Genesis. All right. Yeah, I know, but like StarCraft 2, it also still looks really good. Yeah, Starcraft's like visuals always held up. Yeah, they always, well, the Brood War is still a bit old, but for the most part, it just has like a visual.

That's like, ah, that's nice, you know? I don't know. That was one thing I really liked about Fire Warrior was like the, like, even though the rest of of the game wasn't like the most visually amazing. The guns shockingly held up and there were a lot of them. There were a lot of guns, a lot of variety of guns. This was pretty,

I love seeing all the Tao guns. It was cool. It's cool to actually, like I get why people kind of like the whole, oh, it's that thing that I like in rendered in a video game, even though it doesn't do much for me. But some of them are kind of neat,

even though I was getting like flashbang. buy the rail gun all the time. It looked cool, though. I remember when they first gave me the tau carbine. I was like Tau Carbine, my beloved. I love you. What surprised me is that the ending planet bombardment footage, like one of the

most used images for exterminatists. Yeah, it's like the common, well, that one in Dawn of War II, I think are the two big ones, right? Wow, really? Well, I guess it was a nice cinematic. A part of me while they were like flying up as they were like

bombarding the planet. I was like, I bet the Ultramarine's like, you know, if we hit that Tao ship on accident, it would not be the end of the world. Like, oh no, we accidentally hit the Zenos that helped us. Shoot. Oh, damn, you're not wrong,

shy. That is the exterminatist like image. Yeah. Yeah, you're not wrong. I didn't really think about that. Also, I love how almost every game back in the day, always ended with exterminatus.

I mean, when you think of Warhammer 40K, one of the first things most people think about is, oh, is that the one where they exterminatus stuff? And it's like, yes, yes, that is the franchise. Yep. I feel kind of silly, though, because I almost feel like blowing up a planet. It's just like a sci-fi trope, you know? I guess that's true. I mean, Star Wars does it too, don't they?

Star Wars was the OG who did it, you know? Yeah, the Death Star. Mm-hmm. I mean, and 40K didn't steal it. anything from Star Wars. No. 40K is all completely original. They would never take anything from Star Wars, Dune.

I'm sure that Dune probably also had Planet Killers that they gave to Star Wars, too. Oh, sure. Like, Dune was like the father of sci-fi, right? Like, every sci-fi took a little something from Dune. I still haven't seen Dune, uh, Dune 2 yet, yeah. Big same. Big same. I should.

Like, I really like that. like Dune Part 1. I did too. I've been told Dune Part 2 is like better and it's fantastic. Yeah. Shai says I read the book in all caps. She's a hipster. Shai, I'm sure like Paula Trady is a totally nice guy the whole way through, right?

And he has a noble upbringing and that truly allows him to help the galaxy for the better. Oh, sure. As the, as those of noble birth always end up being like, right? Yeah. Perfect. I'm glad to know that that's the case. No corruption to be seen. No. But yeah, Tau Fire Warrior. It's on GOG. It's cheap.

I would very much recommend installing the Mandelor Gaming patch that is located on the... Oh, Shia, I think you... Do you mind putting that link in the description of this video? Because that might help people out. Can you tell me what the patch does? Because, like I said, I raw-dogged it. Like, what does the patch do that makes it so much better? graphical fixes, a lot of audio fixes is the big one.

There's some dialogue that gets adjusted, a couple gameplay things. I think some of the HUD. PC gaming wiki, that's where it is. Okay, okay. I guess the game also had like no soundtrack, did it? No, it really didn't, actually. Come to think of it. Yeah, because once you said like audio fixes, I was like,

I don't think this game had any music, did it? Yeah, if it did it, if it did it wasn't in the game, in the new one, if back in the beginning or whatever. Yeah, I couldn't remember if that was just me or if I was just like, oh, I was just firing my gun so often. I just don't remember the OST and I was like, actually, I don't think one existed. I don't know. That is a tough one. I'm 100% sure. I remember what the gun sounded like.

I remember the, uh, of enemies dying. I don't remember if there was any music. Don't forget the vrum, zoom, zoom. And the pelvic ramp, the pelvic, extend the pelvic ramp,

ow. The pelvic ramp. I forgot about the pelvic ramp. How else are you going to put the bomb charge on the pelvis? The pelvic ramp. The pelvic ramp. So our thoughts on fire warrior, there you go,

right? It is a cute capsule of a different age, and it is not the worst way you could spend the... Next time you're logging into ranked League of Legends, think to yourself, could I be spending this better? Is Fire Warrior a ton better? No, but it is better. Detox now. It's better for your mental health. Detox immediately.

Grieh!