Are you willing to be a trooper? If the answer is yes, well, would you like to know more? *Cue Starship Troopers propaganda video here*
Starship Troopers Ultimate Bug War! Trailer
Story and Premise
Players in Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War! will take on the role of Samantha “Sammy” Dietz in her quest for “REVENGE” as she states quite early on in the game. The game starts off with Casper van Dien reprising his role as Johnny Rico showcasing the Federation’s latest video game, a training tool set to enrich and entertain the newer generation of Federation troopers. Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War! therefore plays out as you, the player, playing through their video game which follows Sammy’s quest for revenge. It works as a plot device remarkably well.
Without spoiling too much, after the first mission of the game, Sammy’s unit encounters the “Assassin Bug” and it decimates the Federation forces. Sammy swears revenge on it for doing so and this kicks off the rest of the campaign’s main plot point. Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War! also introduces a separate campaign where you will play as the Assassin Bug itself in order to learn from the enemy itself. Essentially though this means that you get to play as a bug for the first time in the Franchise’s history as far as I know and wreak some insane havoc and devastation.
Campaign Structure
The campaign alternates between Sammy’s missions and the Assassin Bug’s missions and it keeps things fresh throughout the rather short 5 hour campaign. The game’s length is honestly perfect though because if it went on any longer, I think the fatigue would start to set in since a lot of the missions are actually pretty similar throughout. Sammy’s missions for example often include running from point A to point B to defend or destroy something and this is rinsed and repeated throughout the game. There is a little bit of variation involved with each map having something unique going on but it’s not mind-blowingly different.
Gameplay – Federation Combat
Gameplay in Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War! involves classic First-Person shooting elements with your weapons featuring primary and secondary firing options, access to grenades and special abilities in the form of calling down additional ammo and med kits via an orbital drop pod or using powerful supplementary weaponry such as the orbital laser, tactical bombers, M7 mech suit or an electric pylon drop. These additional weapons really increase your damage output and can come in handy in a pinch when you’re being overrun by the bug hordes.
Gameplay – Assassin Bug Mode
The Assassin Bug on the other hand lets you play as the blue tinged menace itself and it’s no pushover that’s for sure. The Assassin Bug can transform between three different forms. The standard form lets you use its claws to deal damage to troopers, destructible buildings and objects. The flying form lets you leap into the air and fly short distances before dive bombing into the ground for massive damage. Finally the “Tank” form let’s you turn into an armoured flame spitting version of the bug that melts through enemy forces super quickly.
The Assassin Bug’s missions involves you running around, or flying around, and attacking Federation bases. You can run past bug nests along the way and it will summon additional bugs that will help you attack the bases but for the most part, you’ll be the one doing all the damage. It’s fun but does get quite repetitive towards the latter part of the game because all of these missions are the same. Maybe a future DLC will let you play as a different bug? One can only hope.
Squad Mechanics
Coming back to Sammy’s missions, it should also be noted that you can take command of a few Federation soldiers by pressing a button recruiting them to your squad. Unfortunately, the soldiers are barely of any use at times given the sheer number of bugs that swarm you in some missions. You’ll be doing all the heavy lifting yourself but it is enjoyable having some Federation soldiers by your side since it makes you feel like you’re actually fighting together with them like in the movies. The squad mechanic could have been developed a bit more but alas, this isn’t the case here.
Graphics and Presentation
Graphically, Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War features a pixelated, old school retro art style which works to the game’s advantage. Some landscape textures do look quite bad or unfinished but since you’ll be running around and shooting bugs more often than not, this can be overlooked. The bugs themselves look fantastic and the flashy effects from weapons and blood spattering all over is really well done.
There’s quite an extensive list of bugs here too including one that I honestly did not expect to see here! I actually squealed with joy when it showed up and was like “Wow! They actually included this” so that was great to see. Overall the game’s aesthetic fits the Starship Troopers theme perfectly and we have what will be an instant classic FPS on our hands here.
Live Action Cutscenes and Voice Acting
The Live Action cutscenes in between missions are great and are true to the Starship Trooper’s franchise’s style. Elsie Lovelock voicing Sammy in-game does a great job sounding like a young version of Samantha Dietz. Charlotta Mohlin acting as Samantha in the Live Action segments does an equally excellent job portraying her as battle hardened revenge seeking veteran alongside Casper van Dien’s General Johnny Rico.
Final Verdict
Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War is a great, 5 hour FPS in the style of retro shooters from days long gone by. The theme, aesthetic, voice acting and everything about the game is well done and while some aspects could have used a bit more polish or fleshing out a bit more, the game is well worth the asking price and I can highly recommend it to players wanting a fun FPS to enjoy. Do your part for the Federation today! Give Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War a go. Chances are, you’ll really enjoy the game
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The game was provided to us for the express purpose of reviewing.
Reviewed on PC.
