Starship Troopers Preview

By Kristan Reed Published 5 September, 2005

Will you lose your heart to it?

Releasing a game adaptation of Starship Troopers some eight years after the movie might not seem like the smartest commercial decision ever, but as far as '90s sci-fi action goes, Paul Verhoeven's movie was definitely one of the most memorable of its time. Fortunately the signs are promising that this isn't just another generic game-of-the-movie exercise, with Empire Interactive having widened its scope to take in the entire franchise including the cult Robert A. Heinlein book that the film was based on, as well as the animated cartoon series. Oh, and the completely ignored movie sequel, but we'll gloss over that one and move swiftly on.

With a broader scope for developer Strangelite to work with there's certainly hope that the team can come up with something better than Hasbro managed with its forgettable strategy effort five years ago. On the other hand, the competition in the FPS field is, to say the least, intense, and Starship Troopers will have to be something very special to avoid summary dismissal next to the likes of Halo and Half-Life. So, when a three-level playable demo emerged blinking into the daylight, we were keen to see how well it fared in the excitement stakes next to Aftermath and Prey.

Green day

'Starship Troopers' Screenshot greenery

Enjoy a bit of greenery.

Set five years after the events of the 1997 movie, the game puts you in the slightly anonymous shoes of a member of the mobile infantry who's under Johnny Rico's command. As you might expect in a game where you're fighting a seemingly never-ending war against some very ugly giant arachnids, plot isn't hugely important. It's very much a case of following waypoints, picking up important objects, defending key personnel and shooting the gelatinous green gunk out of anything that feels the need to crawl menacingly into view.

The first of the trio of missions in our preview build, The Compound, wastes no time thrusting you straight into bullet-spraying action in an outdoor mission that takes place under the cover of darkness. In the now-familiar FPS style, you're constantly surrounded by chattering NPCs who don't seem to mind too much that 40-foot high bugs are swarming all over the place and help provide a few one-liners on cue.

Moving from one group of gung-ho soldiers to the next, you're swiftly sent off up the hill to (pretty much) single-handedly secure a compound being overrun by insects. Dodging the wild slashes and the frightening charge of the Warrior Bugs, they're not the hardest creatures we've ever faced, but the appeal comes more from their staggering numbers. In short, the gameplay is fast, frantic, and relentless and does a good job of matching the crazed intensity you might recall from the movie, with the promising engine capable of displaying up to 300 creepy-crawlies on screen at once. Whether it manages to replicate the wry satire of the film or not is hard to tell from this truncated demo, but we have a feeling Strangelite probably focused more on the non-stop gore fest appeal more than anything.

Arach and roll

'Starship Troopers' Screenshot mates

Nice of him to invite all his mates along.

The demands of such action on the system are pretty clear, though. At this unoptimised stage, our reasonably well-specced PC (Radeon 9800 Pro, 3.2GHz P4, 1GB RAM) had a few issues coping with the pace when the going got tough, and we were forced to drop the detail down a notch to be able to play it at an acceptable pace. To be fair though a lot can change between now and release, and we'll be keen to see how it fares when the finished build arrives sometime next month. At high detail the game certainly looks pretty impressive, with complex terrain texturing bringing the rocky planet surfaces to life, and the excellent arachnid character models looking very close to those used in the movies; with around 20 featuring in the game as a whole, there's a decent amount of variety promised.

Indeed, the game's environments promise much, with some of the game set on Klendathu, the alien's home planet - including their hive colony. Elsewhere, expect plenty of military ships and the usual dark and moody bases with flickering lighting, clanking metal walkways and a cold gun metal grey ambience.

On one of the later levels the game tasks you with replicating the memorable fort scene from the movie, with the human forces desperately trying to fend off wave after wave of Chariot bugs, not to mention the deadly flying hoppers that swarm around your defences. Mounting an AA gun, it's a seemingly unending siege of lead and green goo, as one alien cretin after another succumbs to a volley of hot metal, only for another fifty of their mates to appear over the horizon to take their place. Tasked with protecting other parts of the fort, you're left hopping to and fro, leaving much of the shooting in the hands of the various other AI buddies that line the fort's defences.

Unrelenting

'Starship Troopers' Screenshot insectodeath

Insectodeath pt.12768

While subtlety certainly isn't Starship Trooper's strong point, action certainly is. Whether or not the game's weapons and enemies do more to impress is rather up in the air at the moment. At this stage it's very much a case of mowing down a succession of charging bastards with either a machinegun, shotgun or accompanying grenade. Not the most incredibly imaginative selection, you might argue, so we'll await the final build for a more considered verdict on that side of the game.

With a more challenging and varied selection of bugs to duke it out with, Starship Troopers has potential; but it's not potential that was especially evident in this truncated demo.

Another area we're unable to report on with any clarity is the game's multiplayer offerings. So far, we're aware that only eight-player support is being targeted for deathmatch-related modes, but we're sure there's more to come. For the full low-down on Empire's big game, join us next month for a full, in-depth look at Starship Troopers to see whether it really can challenge the big guns, or get squashed like an ugly bug.

Starship Troopers is due to be released some time in October.

Picture of Kristan.

About Kristan Reed

Kristan is a former editor of Eurogamer, dad, Stone Roses bore and Norwich City supporter who sometimes mutters optimistically about Team Silent getting back together.

Read more articles from Kristan by visiting the Kristan Reed archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (31) Latest comment 7 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • kangarootoo #1 7 years ago

    "Oh, and the completely ignored movie sequel"

    A very wise move IMO. Bloody awful it was. Directed by the guy in charge of special effects for ST1, if that gives you a reference point.

  • drumbaby #2 7 years ago

    "but it's not potential that was especially evident in this truncated demo."

    Far too kind.

  • Derblington #3 7 years ago

    Starship Troopers 2 is excellent - it has a really oldskool, B-movie feel. I understand you won't like it if you want more of the 1st movie but the sequel is a great little movie.

  • Talha #4 7 years ago

    Downloaded the demo (in office of course), installed it at home, ran it, and scratched my head as the game failed to run smoothly on my spanking new 6800 GT. Why wonder? I failed to see anything that wasn't there in Half Life 2, and still the game looked pretty demanding.

    Those Valve guys are not only programming geniuses, they know how to optimize. I hope they can teach Strangeworld something too.

  • kangarootoo #5 7 years ago

    @Derblington

    Well OK, I didn't get bored and I am a big B movie fan (Anacondas:HFTBO rocks BTW), but I did feel that ST2 missed all of the satire of the first one. It had a go, but it just felt clumsy. Plus there was very little action compared to ST1.

    Seems like I am comparing it a lot to the 1st movie. Thats expected for a sequel though right?

  • #6 7 years ago

    THEY SUCKED HIS BRAINS OUT

  • pjmaybe #7 7 years ago

    Ack, if only they'd gone back and done a PROPER RTS, instead of the abortionate FPS we're left with.

    The demo was so buggy (har har har har har) that it was virtually unplayable, and I thought I'd already SEEN the worst Starship Troopers game (the horrible horrible strategy / squad offering from Blue Byte)

    Peej

  • asphaltcowboy #8 7 years ago

    "Oh, and the completely ignored movie sequel, but we'll gloss over that one and move swiftly on"

    Hell, you can include the CG animated cartoon in that as well! F*cking awful

  • smelly #9 7 years ago

    "Downloaded the demo (in office of course), installed it at home, ran it, and scratched my head as the game failed to run smoothly on my spanking new 6800 GT. Why wonder? I failed to see anything that wasn't there in Half Life 2, and still the game looked pretty demanding. "


    Yes .. you're right..

    HL2 had thousands of baddies on screen at once didnt it?

    Also they actually have stated that the demo is unoptimised at the moment...

  • Subquest #10 7 years ago

    Looks just like the antlions section in HL2, no?

  • statix101 #11 7 years ago

    Pfft....awful just like i said it would be on these forums not long ago....with the odd exception, British devs are utter crap at FPS.....


  • Xerx3s #12 7 years ago

    Looks interesting.

    /denies the existence of ST2.

    ST1 was so feckin good because it showed how the society/homefront was while their soldiers would wage war. It showed the hypocracy, brutality and such of a superpower that could be compared to ww2 stuff (a satire to a current superpoer one could argue, but lets not go there). On top of that, one would get some nice action shots with some good actors:) ST2 missed all that. In fact, it didnt have anything.

    "Pfft....awful just like i said it would be on these forums not long ago....with the odd exception, British devs are utter crap at FPS....." - Disagree, i think that there are a lot of good european/brittish developers who produce top lvl stuff.

  • MikeP #13 7 years ago

    US developers are a lot better at FPSs than British devcos.

    They're just much more comfortable with the idea of indescriminately shooting anything that moves...
    Edited by 1 at 05/09/05 @ 16:09

  • Feanor #14 7 years ago

    Then maybe they should get the London Police to help them out with that.

  • w00t #15 7 years ago

    The films were rubbish. Starship Troopers is one of my favourite books EVAH and the films did it very little justice (extra characters, differeing storylines etc.). The over-emphasis on the 'Nazi' elements of the future society eliminated the subtle social commentary in the book IMO.

  • TheJuriel #16 7 years ago

    Ah, I love the movie...
    Shame I hate FPSes.

  • VibratingDonkey #17 7 years ago

    *licks preview* Sweet sweet sugar!

    "With a more challenging and varied selection of bugs to duke it out with, Starship Troopers has potential; but it's not potential that was especially evident in this truncated demo."
    Oho, different colored bugs would've surely made the stinking horrid demo so much better. I surely hope the full game isn't much better cause it's so fun to make fun of it. :(
    Edited by 1 at 05/09/05 @ 17:20

  • McP #18 7 years ago

    The game concept is fundamentally flawed - the aliens just don't make interesting baddies.
    Bug runs towards you, shoot bug. Repeat until bored.

  • HarryB #19 7 years ago

    Eurogamer staff says their GOOD pc has a 9800 pro? no wonder it's struggling i dont expect much from my 9800 pro these days

  • Teeth #20 7 years ago

    Yes, but this game's been in dev for an age, you'd expect it to meet standards of roughly a year ago y'know?

  • Lost_in_Darkness #21 7 years ago

    I do wonder why they have even bothered with making this game....

    Not the least of which being how bloody long ago the movie was released and this seemingly based on that more so than it is on the books.
    Another mindnumbing question is why in the world has this game been in development for so long...i heard about this game in 2003 if i remember correctly. And with the demo being so bland, one is lead to wonder why anyone is even bothering with this.

  • Genji #22 7 years ago

    Well, they clearly stole this idea from Half Life 2. Plagarism... or homage?

  • Talha #23 7 years ago

    Well Genji, as some people on this forum will tell you, it was HL2 that stole the idea. As it turns out, for every utter piece of crap, there are ten fanboys waiting in the wings.

    Also, Smelly, I recall not thousands, but quite a few dozen Antlions in the HL2 level. Maybe you crossed the levels like all skilled players and made pathways on the sand with metallic beams or whatever, but I adopted a 'run like hell' policy, and they cropped up every time my 'foot' touched the ground! And hey! THousands of bugs! How exciting! THis surely must be better than Halo and HL2 put together!

    I know the game is not optimized, but somehow I do not expect that much. And the devs have given the worrying fact away that the only villains will be bugs, bugs and more bugs.
    Edited by 1 at 06/09/05 @ 05:02

  • Genji #24 7 years ago

    Sorry, I should've put "/sarcasm" in there. HL2 stole many things. Makes it more post-modern, or something.

  • Talha #25 7 years ago

    Now you get the point. if you read this forum, you will feel as if HL2 was the utter piece of crap this stupid demo actually is, while this game is the most original and spectacular thing to hit upon us.

    Your idea of homage is appealing, but frankly it looks to me like The Beatles being covered by Good Charlotte!

  • symmetry #26 7 years ago

    I think what would be cool is if multiplayer involved 1 guy in an RTS interface and in charge of all the bugs and the rest in an FPS interface trying to kill all the bugs. Maybe the 1 guy in charge of all the bugs could actually be on the field as a Brain Bug with limited manouverability.

  • skillian #27 7 years ago

    This preview is very forgiving - the demo was a mess. It runs pretty poorly even though the visuals aren't impressive, and the guns feel like peashooters.

    Doesn't bode well for the full game, I'd have thought.

  • Talha #28 7 years ago

    Thanks Skillian for coming right out and saying what the reviewer or my fellow forum posters are somehow too afraid to say.

    /pats Skillian on the back

  • Ecanem #29 7 years ago

    Any coed shower scenes?

  • t #30 7 years ago

    i didn't like half life 2

    i am a bad bad person.

  • Aga #31 7 years ago

    I'm doing my part!

  • Henrik #32 7 years ago

    When ST1 came out about half of the reviews I read completely missed the social commentary and the Nazi references. Seems the next Hitler that comes along might even be able to recycle the uniforms without anyone noticing...