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XGD > PC > Starship Troopers
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Reviews The horror... oh, the horror., December 17, 2005 Rating: 2.0/10 By Mitch Almost good. Keyword = Almost.
Most people have seen the film version of Starship Troopers in 1997. It blessed with extremely impressive, realistic graphics and morbid violence, with the downfall of really horrible acting. But this was one of those movies where the action sequences cover up the bad acting, and you'll be on the edge of your seat through the whole ride. You all know what I mean, this movie took violence to a different level: massive alien insects ripping humans in half, chopping soldiers legs off and whipping them fifty feet into a pile of its comrades so they can pull the soldier into 6 different pieces, and even some hardcore brain sucking. From the beginning, I knew there was going to be a first person shooter based on this game, and that was eight years ago. Finally, it's arrived, and after the hassle of installing it on someone else's system because the requirements are jacked up higher than Shaq's shoe size, I was impressed for about… lets say four seconds. Don't play this game.
The main story in Starship Troopers is simple, and isn't exactly deep. The Arachnids have colonized the human mining planet of Hersperus, causing humans to evacuate and leave the alien threat in the hands of the humans. You're an elite member of the Marauders, a unit of soldiers that have killed more bugs than anyone and managed to get out in one or two pieces. When you think about, it's not even a storyline at all, when you compare it to the film. What's the point? The story is set five years after the movie adaptation, but what exactly is the difference? Technology is the same, the Mobile Infantry is working with the same weapons and getting chopped up by the Arachnids. In some ways, SST is similar to Halo. The HUD is mainly the same, and you'll be fighting alongside your comrades some of the time to take down the enemies. For those of you who haven't seen the film, I'll take the time to explain what these bad guys are all about.
The Arachnids are an alien race of generally stupid but savage insect like creatures that come in different races. They have a nasty habit of colonizing other planets, by using their largest member of the species: the Plasma bug. The Plasma bug is a huge, beetle like creature that fires explosive balls of Plasma from their rear into space, which also carry the Arachnid spore. Sometimes, the Plasma hits another planet, and the spore spreads, giving birth to a whole new colony of Arachnids. This also explains what happened to Hersperus, but why the Mobile Infantry didn't act in the beginning, who knows. The Arachnids are simply ferocious, and the Warriors along with the other soldier-classes live to serve the Brain bug, which is basically a queen that tells them how to live, and they obey. If the Brain dies, the Arachnids are stupid enough to get lost on their own planet and eventually die. Let it be known that despite their name, Arachnids aren't much like the modern day spiders you'd expect. The basic Arachnid, the Warrior, is 4m tall, with four long, crab like legs that connect to a triangular like body with two gigantic bladed jaws, along with dual claws. It's hard to picture, but when you get to see them, whether it's in the game or the film, you'll instantly be impressed by their clever design and the fact that they simply look scary. They move in heavy numbers, and in the film version they usually outflanked the humans, moved in on them, and tore them to shreds. Minor adjustments to the Warriors and a couple other Arachnids from the movie have been made, but they still roughly look the same. The problem is they have the potential to look a lot better, mainly for the fact that the graphics look as healthy as Michael Jackson's face. The graphics are heavily dated, and sometimes during game play the Alias system goes wrong, and the borders of the Arachnids look like they were constructed in MS Paint. Normally, in games with bad graphics, the game play would cover that nicely and I'd have a good time.
Nope.
As a true fan to the action of the film version of SST, this game really put me off, mainly with the enemy AI. In the movie, Arachnids rushed in towards the humans while being hammered with hollow-tip carbine rounds, stopping at nothing to dig their claws into human flesh and dismember the enemy into a couple of pieces. Nope, not here. Even on some solo missions, when running towards Warriors, a couple in the group will crawl right passed you, almost as if they were ignoring you. This made me heavily irritated and almost upset. I felt like Mike Tyson, ready to go down to the kitchen and beat up my girlfriend just to ease some stress. To add on to the Arachnids being more retarded than they should be, they sound weak and innocent. In the film, Arachnids opened up their jaws to let out real sounding roars that would make the T-Rex run in the terror. They made various noises, even barking and growling dark noises while tearing a human apart. Here, they don't. They sort of whistle at you, as if greeting you before they walk away because their programmer is 6 years old and has no clue what he's doing.
My biggest gripe with the enemies is this: their damage is non existent. While watching the movie, it wasn't the people that were spilling piles of flesh and gallons of blood across the desert floor. The Warriors were torn up as well, and it looked almost magnificent. As they were shot, their green blood would splatter in the air, chunks of their limbs would go flying, and a lot of the time they'd end up missing some legs. The damage in SST isn't even comparable to any game, because it's not there. While shooting an Arachnid, there isn't even any clue that you're actually making contact. I was hoping they'd all have at least 90 detachable limbs and amazing blood effects, but they don't. When they die, they simply fall over and turn green. Pathetic.
The good part is you won't be annoyed alone. Out in the war zone, fellow Marauders stand next to you, shouting out a wide range of phrases as they spray rounds from their weapons. For gore on the human part, it can sometimes be interesting. A few times, while running around and shooting, I've heard a scream and seen a random leg or arm flap onto the ground in front of me in a bloody mess. To bad you can't do the same to the Arachnids, because your weapon range is small but affective. You'll be arming yourself with grenade launchers and an array of rapid-fire rifles, all of them based off of the movie.
It's not like Stranglite hasn't seen the movie, though, because they do manage to impressively recreate scenes from the movie in the game (ignore the fact that they do actually insert movie scenes in the game, which are pointless and low quality). In the movie, during the scene where the soldiers are fending off hordes of Warriors from their outpost, a flying Hopper bug is gunned down from the sky and its carcass smashes into a cowering general who is on his knees. You get to see that here, as well as some other memorable moments… unfortunately they do absolutely nothing to help this game out.
If the enemies were nice, you'd probably enjoy the fact that the game manages to throw up to at least 100 bugs on the screen at once, save for the fact that your system is able to handle that. My computer isn't impressive, and I usually install games I test out on someone else's system, but I had to switch to someone else because the recommended requirements are too high. 1 Gig RAM? What the hell? Since I don't know any Alienware owners or anyone who owns a $1,000 computer, I went through a few people before I found someone with an appropriate computer to play it. Yes, it ran smoothly, but it had a bad habit of randomly dying and freezing up. A lot of the time, the controls just seemed to get stuck. I really hate this game.
Playing SST is actually quite depressing, because you know it has the potential to be something completely better. Aside from the fact that many enemies can show up without lagging, this game is heavily dated. Sure, in 1998 this game would have made game of the ear, but this is 2005… compare this game to anything and it's quality goes right off the chart into the negatives.
Go ahead, try playing SST, you might be bored enough to like it.
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