Blue New World
Starship Troopers Review
Review by Craig on Friday 29th of June 2007

Starship Troopers


Now any fan of the film (and I mean the first one, I dare not watch the second because I just get the feeling it will be painful) will remember, despite some of the acting being a bit on the corny side, how it was a brilliant film. Special effects were good, the story of the 4 friends who leave college together is one that is easy to digest, and has some, although little known, quality actors in it.

I was hoping this would not try to replicate the movie and to a degree that is true, the main character is not from the film. However, the intro movie and scenes between missions are just clumped together sections of the movie including many of the original cast. This I thought was a cheap trick considering most modern games of the past several years make their own videos. I'd much prefer to see a video rendered using the game engine than a re-hashing of the film.
Anyhow, with that annoyance out of the way, let's have a look and see what we can get out of the other areas of the game.

Graphics

I read the system specs for this and was quite impressed with the beefy minimum specification (compared to other games at the time, release was in 2005) needed to produce low level results.

System Requirements:

2 GHz Processor
512mb RAM
128mb Graphics Card with Vertex & Pixel Shaders

All in all a good PC is needed to run this game. It has been made on a good game engine capable of a lot but isn't used to its full potential. The faces of the NPC's are squashed and look like those of the marines in Aliens Versus Predator 2, which was designed quite a few years ago now. The bugs themselves are modelled well but when they die, they instantly turn into a blood covered corpse. There is no gradual build up of blood and to be honest when you kill something like that it doesn't coat itself in blood when dead. Half Life 2 produces blood splatters on the clothes of the zombies for example, so they become blood stained when shot and the blood is in the correct area.

The weapons you have at your disposal also look rather poorly constructed. They look like they were modelled in a game engine that was made a long time ago. In fact that's an insult to the game designers of yesteryear because their weapons looked good and still do look in perspective. But these weapons don't fool you into thinking the end of the barrel is a metre away from your face, the main battle rifle in particular needs a lot of work. The origin on a gun can make a seemingly brilliantly modelled look a poor show and in this case its poor modelling and a poor origin.

The only thing this game has going for itself graphically is the fact that the terrain looks good but still leaves something to be desired. Even the ships in outer space lack high detail and shine like someone has taken turtle wax to the entire hull!

Audio

I almost turned it off with embarrassment as a voice over utters the words 'come on you apes, you want to live forever?' echoing the last phrase spoken by Rico at the end of the first movie. Not going well so far, but luckily its not all bad on the sound front. There is the return of the same style of music found in the film and fits well into the game. The guns sound quite dangerous and bugs sound the same as the film. But once again there is the corny factor with people trying to sound like they are in the film. As much as the game needs to be similar to it, it doesn't need to copy it in every way. Each division of soldiers live by their own motto in the real world, not the same throughout an entire army.

Gameplay

Single Player

The game itself first places you onboard one of the large troop carriers. You are a Marauder, one of the elite members of the army who have special armour and a gun which has unlimited ammunition but has the pay off of overheating and not being amour piercing. Though brilliant for mowing down drones it's not so good against the heavier targets.

After going through the rigmarole of learning the controls through the usual style of 'quickly going over the basics' as is done in so many games, the carrier is struck by a bug missile and you are dropped down to the surface where you see marines fighting off small pockets of bugs. Now my biggest problem is the fact that the bugs don't behave as they do in the film. They almost seem reluctant to attack you. In the film they have no trouble rushing towards you in an attempt to take a limb or two. This does enable you to kill a lot of them but at a very leisurely pace, I felt they should be rushing towards you (especially when the mission gets into full swing and your shooting hundreds of them) and the game should be making emphasis on a mix of quick tactics and pure mayhem.

You do go off on your own on little missions, kind of like on games like Quake 4. But on a hostile planet covered with bugs my immediate thoughts would be, are these game developers even trying? I know the Marauders are an elite unit but still, you don't want to lose elite units by sending them in on their own. When you could come across a nest of bugs or you get ambushed, you're not going to single-handedly kill the 100 bugs that come swarming after you. It all seems too casual, too laid back when you're supposed to be fighting to keep your backside in one piece.

Pros/Cons

Pros
  • It has bugs, lots of bugs.
  • You get to use the weaponry from the film.

Cons

  • Poorly designed in nearly all aspects of gameplay and design.
  • Looks like it was made in a rush.
  • Playability is low due to the lack of adrenaline-fuelled bug shooting.

Conclusion


I personally would not touch this game again. I feel like I have been cheated of a brilliant opportunity. This game could have been so much more and could have had so much gun powered mayhem but instead you don't want to offend your eyes anymore by looking at the rush job that is, Starship Troopers - The Game. My advice is to stay clear of this and don't taint your fond memories of the classic film.
Starship Troopers
Name: Starship Troopers
Publisher: Empire
Developer: Strangelite
BNW Rating
Audio: 50%
Gameplay: 35%
Graphics: 50%
Lifespan: 35%
Overall: 40%
 
 
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