The introduction tells of an earth 40,000 years in the future, an earth at the center of a violent and expansionistic empire called the Imperium. The Tau are your people, on a planet far away and ruled by a strict caste system. You are a Fire Warrior, the part of your society charged with the defense of the Tau. A significant part of the training level is spent reading and listening to a basic primer on Tau life, weapons and technology and how they are in every way superior to that of earth, where they still use primitive slug throwers in combat. This choice of perspective may be a nice change of pace for some fans, but most will probably be disappointed as the Warhammer universe usually revolves around the space marines of the Imperium.

It should go without saying that in an FPS you want to experience something, anything when you shoot someone. In Fire Warrior, the guns don't pack much punch. And the standard issue pulse carbine is even more underpowered than most starting weapons. It takes far too many shots for even the lowliest of enemies to go down. When they do, there's nothing satisfying about the way they slump over and grab their heads, regardless of how they were dispatched. The grenades don't have much pop, either. Unless you toss one right at the feet of a target you won't see much affect at all.

It also doesn't help when the design of the level consists of extremely linear paths from point A to B. Make no mistake, the missions structure is linear, too, but I'm referring to the actual layout of the level being almost literally one path to run down while you kill enemies on your way to the next door. If it's not trenches, it's hallways. Most of the single player levels are one step removed from putting your character on rails. Making matter worse, the objectives are one key or door switch search after another. Right after you find one, a message pops up telling you to find another.

Some levels don't progress at all until a certain number of enemies have been killed. In one, for example, you can become trapped in a room until the last baddie happens to wander within site of a window so you can shoot him. Then the door magically opens. Until then, you aren't going anywhere. Frustrating, boring and many things in between, all of these problems add up to a single player game hardly worth playing.

The graphics are muddy and mediocre throughout. There are worse looking games, and Warhammer is set in a desolate, bleak future of strife, so dark environments are a given. And the scenery and other characters on screen are distinguishable from one another. But none of it is very detailed or original, either. The character models, in particular, lack much real definition or personality. During some levels, your actions are part of a greater battle and the sites and sounds of combat all around you are constant. The idea is to make you feel like you're part of a bigger picture, but that bit of ambience is the best that can be said for Fire Warrior's presentation.

Fire Warrior also breaks the cardinal rule of licensed games: There's hardly any feel for Warhammer. The personality of the universe doesn’t make its way into the game very often. Only during the cut scenes, rarely during play, will you recognize something from the license that reminds you of the tabletop game and all its glory.

But Fire Warrior is playable online, and there just aren't that many online shooters for the PS2 at the moment. If SOCOM II (the PS2's flagship online shooter) is not your style, with its slower and more methodical combat, and you'd rather play the run-and-gun style of Unreal on your PS2, Fire Warrior could serve as a substitute. There are only eight maps, playable in the usual death match and capture the flag modes. Still, unless you're just dying to play something other than SOCOM II online with your PS2 you won't be missing much if you pass up Fire Warrior, even if you're a Warhammer diehard.