The dropship inserts you and your squad right into the heart of a vicious trench war, and the sudden carnage, the look and sound of explosions and ships zooming overhead is quite impressive- not quite up there with Medal of Honor's beach landing, but it gives a similarly dramatic introduction to the game.

   

Guided throughout the game by your commander Lusha (voiced by Burt Kwouk) Fire Warrior sends you through various missions, from rescuing captured Warriors to destroying massive guns. Some excellent cut scenes are narrated by Tom Baker (floppy hatted scarf wearing ex-Dr Who) and give an epic back-story to the FPS action. You have a Halo-style rechargeable shield and also as in Halo are limited to carrying only two weapons at a time. R1 is your trigger and most weapons have secondary fire modes (R2). You can carry up to eight grenades as well which have their own button (triangle)- they're incredibly useful and shouldn't be wasted. The visual effects of most weapons is very impressive with particle effects as good as anything yet seen on PS2, but given their impressive look some feel a bit weedy and lightweight (probably not unrealistic considering the armoured enemies you're fighting against). Fire Warrior gets his hands on the best weapons (Pulse Carbine, Rail Rifle, Las Pistol, Sniper Rifle, Autogun, Bolter, Missile Launcher, Meltagun (flamethrower), Chaos Bolter) well into the game, but by then most of the enemies have weapons and armour to match (but nobody said being a Fire Warrior was going to be easy, did they?)

Although most of the game's levels are strictly linear and corridor-like, now and again they open out into impressively vast open areas or at least give you panoramic view that gives you a good impression of being part of a greater battle in an epic setting. Enemies vary from Imperial guard grunts, Sergeants (scary but amusing with their wild chainsword attacks), Tech Priests, Servitors, Space Marines, Chaos Marines, Raptors, Dreadnoughts, Obliterators and the chief bad guy Severus in his various guises. The animation is mostly good, but some of the AI is disappointingly basic as many enemies simply run towards you firing. Although the weapon effects are impressive and the enemies detailed, the scenery is less impressive with some really bland textures that get heavily overused. And there's also plenty of destructible objects scattered around, but some of the furniture seems to be way too big (or Fire Warriors are only about 5ft tall).

   

The multiplayer modes (deathmatch, capture the flag and team versions) sounded promising, but although smooth to play (even with 4 players split screen) the levels are typical deathmatch arena fare with little imagination - and there aren't really enough of them to offer any variety (and some are exclusive to certain game modes). The deathmatch/ctf games can also be played online if you have broadband and a network adapter, but as most matches seem to consist of running up to each other and blasting away until one of you dies (mainly due to the poor range of most of the weapons), it's hard to recommend to PS2 gamers eager for an online FPS.

Back to the main game, and well, it's a mixed bag. An exciting start is followed by tiresomely repetitive levels until the Space Marines arrive on the scene and the action hots up and the weapons improve. The mission-based levels are quite big (with no mid-level saves), but at least the restart points are sensibly placed (unlike Mace Griffin's). The weapons can be frustrating to use with authentic (according to 40,000 lore) inaccuracy built in and some ridiculously slow reload animations. Talking of reloading, if you die (and you will, often) the reload times seem a bit slow to me too. Some occasional dips in the frame rate, bodies clipping into scenery (and disappearing quickly as well) and sticky scenery spoil things. But Fire Warrior is a playable first person shooter with some atmospheric visuals and sound (even scary at times when you go to war with the forces of Chaos), but might seem a bit too quirky (with its pseudo-religious balderdash) for anyone unfamiliar with the subject matter. PS2 FPS fans could do a lot worse, but could do better as well.