Starship Troopers Preview

Kill them Kill them All!

Starship troopers the movie came in 1997 which was based on Robert A. Heinlein’s 1959 sci-fi novel. The second part of the movie was a straight to video flick, the movie portrayed Humans fight against an insect type alien life form. Although two attempts have been previously made for a game based on the movie’s storyline, none were successful. The first game announced in 1997 was cancelled during its development. The second game released in 2000 was a RTS game which although was on the lines of the movie, didn’t get a good response cause of its difficult controls. Now in 2005 Empire Interactive are developing a FPS game based on the movie which has been in the making for some time and is nearing release.

Where the bug are you

Although the game is said to be set 5 years after the events of the movie, it starts from the same night landing sequence as the first mission in the movie.

When everything goes wrong, and you get hurt one of the captains rescues you out of the battle area. You are one of the members of the mobile infantry under General Johnny Rico. Most of the levels feature huge battles putting you and a group of friendly squad members against hordes of bugs. Other levels of the game will be based on the movie, there will be large open desert planets like the bug home planet Klendathu and a level in which you have to catch the brain bug, which was the last sequence in the movie. But this is where the similarities stop. In the game, you get more challenging missions, for instance, there is a level where you have to plant markers for your bombers so that they can take out the plasma bugs, then you have to fight off the bugs on a bridge and get through them by breaking defenses. Also there is a huge level which according to the developers is the biggest one they have ever made, It consists of a huge valley in the centre of which is an earthquake and due to that you are sliding and moving down toward the valley along with bugs falling from all sides on your descent. Other than battles on the bug planets you also have battles inside the battleships which the bugs infiltrate. The game is said to have around 15 different single player levels and one big single player campaign lasting around 20 hours.

Stop bugging me

You will be facing around 20 different types of Bugs, and although some of them will be variants of one kind, yet they will be different from each other in terms of their attacks and danger levels. For instance, the warrior bug will be of 4 variants, each of different colors, and thus the intensity of their attack being represented by the colors and stripes. Other variants will be the usual warrior bugs, giant flame sprayer bugs, green flying hoppers, brain bug as well as plasma bugs. However it can be assumed that as there are more different levels than the movie there may also be different bugs which will be entirely new and maybe more intelligent. All the different varieties of bugs will sport different AI, some will use their presence in numbers to get rid of humans, where as some will be using sniper style attacks to get you and your teammates, the less smarter ones will come to get you head on. You would have dropships available to move you around over a territory when required alongwith your squad, however you wont have the ability to control them yourself.

Pesky little things

As the game is set to be 5 years after the events of the movie, you will be sporting a much better arsenal than those in the movie. Other than variants of the main morita assault rifle, you would have a shotgun and some form of mini nuke also. You will be having unlimited ammo for your main assault rifle as according to the developers, when the bugs keep on coming to you, the last thing you want is running out of ammo. Other guns are also available though with limited ammo but causing much more damage then the main assault rifle you hold. The other guns haven’t been revealed as yet. Grenades too will be made available for inflicting massive damage.

Squad based action will be an integral part of gameplay. There will be other squads also in the game attacking at other frontiers, although you will see them at different points you won’t be able to contact them or use them. You cannot control the members of your squad; instead they would be working like the squads in games such as Call of Duty. Your squad would be following orders given to them via voice commands from spaceships, which will be briefing your squad about the objectives of your mission.

Pest Control

Visually starship troopers looks pretty decent. The engine used runs well in real time and also incorporates rag doll physics alongwith normal mapping. The ability to make more than 300 warrior bugs coming on to you alongwith the surroundings, artillery and vehicles all at the same time is pretty impressive. The rendering of bugs is also very impressive and they look almost the same as the bugs in the movie.

Even though it has impressive graphics and gameplay the requirements do not seem very high. A 2.0 GHz processor with an average graphics card alongwith 512mb Ram should run the game decently

Details about a multiplayer mode aren’t available yet but it is said that the game will feature an 8 man deathwatch style multiplayer mode, and there may be other modes available also.

Starship Troopers game is scheduled to be out by Christmas.

Karan ‘IceFusion’ Bajaj