Warhammer 40K Boltgun - Playthrough Part 1

Warhammer 40K Boltgun is a Doom-like first person shooter complete with pixel art and 2D sprites as enemies. Like the name suggests it takes place in the Warhammer 40K universe and you play as a Space Marine (Ultramarine to be more precise). The story is pretty basic - you are sent to a planet to locate a potential artefact used by heretics as a power source. Needless to say you must show these misguided souls the Emperor's mercy. You start the game with a chain sword which digs into enemies until they are dead or you stop pressing the button. You also have limited grenades and a rechargeable dash move. Eventually you find the signature Boltgun and it feels amazing - it's a mix between a pistol and a heavy machine gun and you witness the piercing power of its bullets on your enemies. Another neat detail is that the armour you collect in the game is called Contempt, which is a fantastic reference. Some doors you need to find a key for to proceed. You can overload your health and contempt to 250 each and there are various secrets in each level. One such secret is the Emperor's laurel, giving you 300 contempt - nice. Another is the Aura of Doom vastly increasing your damage for 30 seconds. The Kraken Boltgun Magazine gives you 100 special bullets which deal a lot of damage.

Most enemies fall pretty easily, but you eventually encounter Chaos Space Marines and they are rather tough. Utilising grenades and the chainsword against them is a decent strategy. In the 3rd level you find your first new firearm - the shotgun. It functions as you'd expect - dealing massive damage at shorter range, but it is surprisingly effective against distant enemies. Here I also found a new secret - the Machine Spirit, which upgrades the damage of one of your weapons for the duration of the level. In a rather challenging arena you find your next weapon to purge the heretics - the plasma gun. It shoots a single orb and it's somewhat slow, but does devastating damage. I found it pretty effective against tougher enemies like the Flamers and the Chaos Space Marines. I like how there's a good mix of the forces of Chaos - some of Nurgle's plague toads are also jumping around including a tough fat version.

One important feature that deserves a mention is the taunt button. Your Astartes will declare his loyalty to the Emperor and hatred of the heretics when prompted.