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Starship Troopers: Terran Ascendancy

I must admit that I never considered the idea of making a RTS after movie that spent most of its budget on ammunition too sensible. Developers' statements that they decided to introduce squad-based warfare with limited ammo and very important individual soldiers only backed up my suspicions concerning this game. Still, Microprose and Hasbro have a reputation that made us eagerly await the appearance of this game. As it turned out, I was wrong both in my suspicions towards this movie conversion and about the company I deeply respect ever since they published the original Civilization.

	Drop Zone Picnic on a red planet...

Paul Verhoeven's 1997 movie tried to depict Robert Heinlein 1959 novel using a lot of special effects, shooting, violent sequences and a casual story following lives of the main characters. Fans of the novel were somewhat disappointed because of some inconsistencies, but the film surely brought the rest of the house down. The plot of the game partially follows the story from the movie and the novel, but the developers introduced some aspects of the plot themselves. The war between the humans and Arachnids (Giant bugs from Klendathu planet) threatens the human race. But, with Mobile Infantry (MI) units around, those nasty bugs will have to stick to sugar because they cannot touch humans. The campaign consists of 20 missions (without the tutorial) separated into three chapters. You will play the role of a squadron leader, and you and your (6 to 18) men will have to turn the situation to your advantage and finish the war by killing the insect queen on Kladathu. Only the first chapter deals with the movie plot and it ends with capture of the Brain bug. The remaining two episodes will tell the tale of the rest of the war.

The campaign has been well conceived. The quests you have to complete are sufficiently varied to keep your attention and create an atmosphere, which will make you complete them. Your line of duty will be to kill bugs, cleanse planets of bugs and bug-holes, secure convoys, free prisoners and even bring journalists and provide them with something to shoot. You will often recognize scenes from the movie like the massive attack on Whyskey Outpost, where your 12 poorly equipped soldiers have to defend their position until the transports arrive. This sequence looks great and it gives you the entire atmosphere from the movie.

Units, weapons and equipment are more true to Heinlein's vision than the film. Each member of MI has his own name, stats and a profile. The soldiers can gather EXPs and improve skills. Introducing Experience points gave Starship Troopers an RPG aspect, which hasn't been fully exploited, can still influence your strategic planning. Experienced soldiers can use better equipment and weapons, and this makes your veterans very important. If they die, they get replaced by newbies, which makes the game even more difficult.

The game is in full 3D with a mobile camera (as seen in Ground Control), and the control method is typical for all squad-based strategies. There is no micro-economy, resource gathering, base or unit building. When the mission commences, there's only you, the bugs and the weapons (to keep the first two groups at distance). The developers paid special heed to unit commands. Besides some common commands like Patrol or Guard, they introduced several new ones, mostly used for finding optimal routes to a certain destination or pick up point. Programmers did this part of the job well, so you won't have your troopers wondering seamlessly around the map or getting stuck in narrow passages. You can also choose about ten different formations for your troops, or set their level of aggression. Careful soldiers will move slowly, but they will spot the enemy from afar and avoid potentially dangerous encounters. The most aggressive soldiers will always be the first to react and courageously burst into any cross-fire regardless of enemy numbers or strength, but it will also take a couple of moments to reduce their adrenalin level to normal and respond to your commands.

As I already said, this type of games makes you go through mission after mission with the same soldiers, and as there are not many animations of movie sequences that would build up the story, you could reach the conclusion that the variety of quest is less than enough to make you finish the game. In respect to this, the authors provided a great number of different weapons and equipment that become available as the campaign progresses. You won't be able to access the power suits and a couple of veeery interesting pieces of lethal hardware straight away, your troopers will have to acquire sufficient experience in order to use them. This idea proved to be great, and apart from about a dozen weapons you saw in the movie (marita smart rifle, missile launcher, grenade launcher, marita chain cannon), you'll be able to use the nuke, plasma gun, flamethrowers and power suits with jet packs. Soldiers will receive experience, medals and ranks, and in some missions you'll get professional help from medics, engineers and even psy-talents. The developers insured fun playability by introducing the option to upgrade weapons.

The enemies are perfectly animated bugs you could have seen in the movie. Before each mission, intelligence officers will introduce bugs suspected to be in the area, and suggest you what weapons to use against each type. Each type of bugs has a specific way of attack and defense, and you'll have to find a proper way to respond to their tactics. The combat looks quite impressive. A seemingly deserted planet will all of a sudden be crammed with hosts of bugs, some of them even ten times as big as your soldiers. They will pour flames and acid at you, and your MI won't play sitting ducks, they'll retreat step-by-step shooting at anything in site.

	Inventory is highly detailed... Power Armor with Jump-packs in combat action!

So much about the upsides of the game. The thing that immediately springs to attention is the mediocre graphics, and poorly scripted sequences. The terrains look quite monotonous even with the multitude of visual effects and dynamic elements (terrain animation and critters). The camera is badly conceived and you'll frequently have to fiddle with it in order to see anything. The interface takes up way too much space so it's best to turn it off as soon as the game starts, and use keyboard shortcuts to do the job. Using different formations was a nice idea, but it seems to be useless and too imprecise in this particular game. The faster soldiers will run in front of the slower ones breaking the formation, and some of them will persistently keep away from the rest of the troop. As your troops move, so does the camera, which makes targeting bugs very difficult. This will surely disappoint newbies from the very beginning, but they will soon realize that it's best to leave targeting to the troopers themselves.

The lack of possibility to save games is completely irrational. The programmers wanted to prolong the time you spend playing the game, but they achieved the opposite. It really feels discouraging when your troops get suddenly slaughtered by a concealed group of bugs right before the end of the mission. Your only option is to replay the scenario, hoping the same thing won't happen again. Only the most persistent players will have enough patience to play a game with such concept.

These days, when people tend to connect anything to the net, the idea of creating a strictly single-player game seems ludicrous. There are some games that could do without the multiplayer mode (though I have seen a multiplayer Tetris), but RTSs simply cannot. The lack of possibility to save games reduces replay value, but the fact that you won't be able to play Starship Troopers against a live opponent, sentences the game to oblivion. Some future patch might correct this flaw, but until then, we can only imagine what it would be like to lead the bugs against neighbor's MI troops.

Sound is defiantly one of the upsides of the game. The weapons sound realistic and the music improves the atmosphere and follows the action on the field. AI is also pretty good. As I already stated, the soldiers act rationally, which is more than could be said for the bugs (but as they are not supposed to have brains anyway, you cannot call this a flaw).

If you're one of the big Starship Troopers' fans, this game will justify the name and give you feeling you really participate in your favorite war. The rest of the strategy fans may find a lot of interesting features, but only if they are patient and persistent enough to suffer the huge number of technical flaws that may or may not be fixed in the future. As for the rest of you, this game surely won't be nominated for the game of the year. Save your money for something more sensible.

			click to learn how we rate games
	Good   73		highs A well depicted atmosphere from the book, an interesting campaign, long-term fun for persistent players;		lows Lack of some common options (saving games and multiplayer), poor interface, discouragingly difficult, long-term fun, ONLY for the most persistent players.		stability / learning curve /