Starship Troopers: Extermination Review - Alright You Apes, You Wanna Live Forever?
Starship Troopers, THE cult sci/fi flick of the 90s has left an enduring mark on pop culture since its release. It was, a technical marvel at the time, it featured great performances from a largely unknown (at the time) cast and it was chock full of Director Paul Verhoeven’s trademark subtle and not-so-subtle stabs at capitalism, imperialism and democracy in general. On the surface, it seemed like nothing more than a B grade Sci/Fi action flick, but dig a little deeper and it is so much more. There have been a few attempts to capture the magic of the first film in video game form, yet none have quite nailed it, but with Starship Troopers: Extermination, they are closer than they have ever been.
This is a game that is really trying to capture the big bug battle moments of the movie, a goal it very nearly achieves. In fact, it gets so close, that I can almost recommend this to Starship Troopers fans unreservedly. There are however a few buts that jump up that may lead to a potential buyer holding off. Firstly this is a multiplayer, PvE game at its heart. There is a single-player component but frankly, this is little more than a tutorial and offers little that will keep players engaged. The only real thing the single player has going for it is that your commanding officer is none other than Rico himself, once again played by Casper Van Dien. Apart from that, players can happily skip this part of the game. It offers little and the game may have actually been better off without it.
The real meat and potatoes of the game are the massive multiplayer missions that feature multiple mission objectives, base building and more bugs than you can shake a nuke at. Each mission starts with players picking one of five teams and a class. There are the traditional FPS archetypes here, so you know what you are getting right off the bat. Each mission starts with everyone on the map scrambling to get a base built and resources rolling before the first big wave of bugs rolls in. Once the base is built there are a range of different objectives to complete. Things like destroying old facilities, nuking a bug hive or taking out specific high-powered bugs. One thing is for sure though, this is a team game and there is no room for lone wolves here. If you are tackling these objectives without the support of others, you will be overwhelmed quicker than you can say “Would you like to know more?”
There are a range of bugs and things to kill the bugs with. All the alien types from the movie make an appearance along with a host of others that mix up how you take them on. The aliens all have weak points that can make taking them down much quicker, though, in the heat of combat, it is often hard to do anything besides pray and spray. On the weapon side of things, all the featured guns from the movie make an appearance and each of them is upgradeable and customisable as they level up. Speaking of customisations, there is the traditional FPS levelling mechanic that allows players to earn customisations for their avatars by earning experience in the game. Frankly, it is much nicer to see this than the now dreaded season pass.
There is also a meta involved that bears no small resemblance to what is happening in Helldivers 2. There are community goals and as each goal is achieved a new piece of story unlocks. For me, these story unlocks were a nice bonus, but hardly essential viewing so it will be interesting to see how things progress as time goes by. At the moment there is quite a healthy community so reaching the goals seems to be a bit of a given right now but it will be interesting to see if that holds up as the player count drops with time.
Where things get let down a little is on the tech side. There are some definite rough edges here, edges that despite a long early access period still need smoothing out. The netcode can be a bit rough at times and the framerate can be unstable, dropping even on a high-end system. There is a lot going on and as a result, warping and lag do occur. This can be the difference between life and death so it is frustrating when you end up a corpse because of it. I wonder if this has anything to do with the persistent bodies of bugs that lay everywhere, while it is impressive to see piles and piles of dead bugs and be able to climb on top of them, I can’t help but wonder if this is the cause of the tech wobbles.
What the game gets so very right however is the chaos represented in the movie. Those big battle scenes where thousands of bugs are swarming over a base are recreated here perfectly. It is white-knuckle, adrenaline-inducing stuff and, in my mind, worth any tech hiccups I may come across. I absolutely adored scraping through wave after wave of bugs, using mounted guns, building barriers and setting off explosives only to evacuate on a rescue ship by the skin of my teeth. It is a fantastic recreation of what impressed so many people when Starship Troopers hit cinemas all those years ago.
What it all boils down to is that despite its rough edges, tech issues and underwhelming single-player campaign, fans of the movie should get plenty of joy out of Starship Troopers: Extermination. At the moment it is a great experience marred by some slight issues, but if the game is supported well, I can see this becoming a cult hit, much like the movie it is based on. If you are looking to experience the feeling of Starship Troopers or are looking for a similar experience to Hell Divers 2, Extinction could be just the thing you are after and remember, service guarantees citizenship so what are you waiting for? The Roughnecks need you.
Starship Troopers: Extermination was reviewed on PC with code kindly supplied by the publisher.