For a start, we've only played three finished levels and already they're starting to feel quite samey. But saying that, the Stronghold level also raises one or two red flags. The massed battles against thousands of foes are the game's key strength - the mere sight of them rolling across the terrain towards you is enough to impress. Undoubtedly, there's something unique and appealing in all this. There's a bit of running back and forth to defend the building on several fronts, and a lot of panicking in the face of a vastly superior force. Once again, it's your job to escort the engineer as he runs around fixing stuff, meanwhile fighting off a never-ending horde of critters. Moments later, the horizon darkens with invertebrate bodies, all heading your way. It's at about this point that you're ordered into no man's land - apparently an engineer has overshot the landing zone and needs rescuing. Soon after, a wave of roach-like limpet bugs appears, F rolling across the rocky tundra to clear any hidden landmines.
A handful of hoppers are buzzing around, threatening to impale unwary soldiers on their stingers. When you arrive, it's all about to kick off. Like the Outpost 29 level described in our last preview Stronghold depicts a desperate stand against hundreds, maybe thousands of alien attackers (we lost count). Having seen off the verminous menace in the compound, we skip promptly to the all-new Stronghold level, which tasks you with raiding an abandoned fuel dump deep in bug country. Controlled fire and well-timed reloads pave the only road to survival. It's a frantic business, with the alien swarm getting thicker and less manageable with every second. By the time you get back, the next wave of bugs has arrived, and it's up to you to defend an engineer against an alien counterattack as he struggles to get some laser walls online. Having taken the compound (coating the ground liberally with bug guts in the process), your next task is to pick up some power cells, located in a needlessly deep storage tunnel nearby, and bring them to the surface. As in Halo, you fight alongside a number of friendly soldiers without actually commanding them, though your role as a badass means it's up to you to lead the way. You play an elite soldier known as a marauder and, just like Master Chief, your arrival is met with a mixture of awe and respect from the troops. However, there's a lot more to it than that, and it starts from the first moment you step foot on Hesperus, the overrun mining planet on which the action takes place.ĭropping into a chaotic battle zone, your first task is to secure a supply compound, dodging alien artillery and beating off a handful of warrior bugs along the way.
Both take place in large outdoor environments, interspersed with a few dark alien interiors. Both games deal with a group of space marines invading an alien-infested landscape. For as much as Verhoeven's blockbuster provides the background and look for the game, the actual gameplay owes much more to the work of Bungie Studios. Indeed, having played the latest preview build of Starship Troopers -including a previously unseen level called Stronghold - we can assure you that a much bigger factor in your enjoyment will be how much you liked Halo. Whether you liked or disliked the film is by the wayside - it's just a convenient setting to hang a game on. In many ways, it's a companion piece to Robocop, arguably Verhoeven's masterpiece.īut then again, who cares? This is a game, a first-person shooter at that, which means incisive social commentary is out and frenetic bloody violence is in. Through a sheen of exaggerated violence and bad acting it manages to thoroughly ridicule America and its warmongering ways, and have a damn good time about it in the process. No Arguments now, Starship Troopers is a good film.