A timid attempt to bring back the action of the 1997 film
As a fan of Space Soldiers (I must admit it’s my favorite), I was hoping that Extermination It transported me into the action of the 1997 classic, which, with its “knowing how to laugh at itself,” was quite an event. The truth is that this franchise deserves a game that lives up to the cult film, but it only comes close Helldiverse 2.
Who doesn’t love killing gigantic insects with a hail of bullets from an infantry squad? Who won’t like this? Well yes, expect a lot more after the urge to not be able to play (at the moment Arrowhead’s GaaS), but Starship Troopers: Extermination didn’t meet my expectations at all.
Obtain citizenship
As you all know, and if I don’t tell you, this game is based on a dystopian future where humanity has experienced profound political and social change. Additionally, space travel is possible, but we are also under attack from a deadly alien race: insects. Yes, just like the 1997 film.
We now have the opportunity to be part of decorated General Johny Rico’s squadron, voiced by himself. Casper Van Diem
Simulating a full-scale war against arachnids and other bugs is the idea of the game, although with the exception of horde mode, which is the movie’s most massive clashes, the rest is simple and boring. Although it is a game as a service, and it will continue to receive content, so we hope that they will correct the shortcomings of the title.
A murderous squad
In individual mode, commanded by General Rico, a squad of 5 soldiers will face specific missions against bugs, such as building certain elements, clearing specific bug caves, or eliminating the biggest and deadliest ones. This always gives an impression of sloppiness in terms of mission design, so this mode is quite bland.
There are several classes to choose from, including sniper, medic, engineer, etc., but in reality they all feel pretty much the same. However, as you level up, you can develop class-specific skills and give it a little more distinction. But as far as gameplay goes, it doesn’t change too much from class to class.
The AI is not very successful, in addition to presenting problems due to the system of accumulating corpses of bugs, which do not disappear and despite the promises of the study, not only do they interfere with the performance of the game, but the robots remain stuck and it is not possible to get them out of there.
Build to face the hordes
As for the multiplayer mode, the most interesting of Starship Troopers: Extermination, we can play with up to 16 players online and cooperate to face the hordes of bugs. Building is essential for creating defenses, providing support and ammunition, but the tool itself is quite bulky and not easy to handle.
As we said before, this is a game as a service, and some days missions and rewards are available, which is an incentive to get addicted to the game. I’m afraid that if not is not very successful, it will be difficult to find a game, so I hope that little by little the studio will find the key to maintaining interest by improving the game.
Galactic Front mode depends on forming a clan, but the system for adding members depends on matching games, because you cannot recruit by message or by friends list. It’s a shame they depend on this and don’t offer other, simpler alternatives.
Technically very obsolete
The most general opinion is that the game is entertaining, but with a somewhat high price for the quality it offers, and even more so if we buy it alongside other much more polished, spectacular and technically superior titles. Graphically, these are clearly other past generations.
The characters all look the same and with virtually no changes, even if you buy cosmetic packs. And being in first person, we lose that charisma that the film had, but the problems are not only visual, since the performance is irregular on console. But if we take into account that graphics do not require much machine.
The animations are quite poor in the bugs, which make erratic movements very fast and inappropriate for their own behavior. But what I liked the least was the gunplay, the fundamental part of the game and which doesn’t work as well as I would like (especially being a lifelong FPS player).
The game has English voices and Spanish texts, but I was unable to get the narrator to translate into subtitles, which may be fixed in future patches.
Conclusion
Starship Troopers: Extermination is a title which, despite its name, does not bring the emotion and charisma of the classic film from the late 90s and is, for me, a small disappointment. While the hordes can be fun, the unintuitive building system, failures when opening supplies or performing certain actions with a button press are a nightmare, 100% ruin the experience.
Hopefully future updates will fix some errors, but there are things like gunplay that can’t be changed overnight, and that seems to me to be a fundamental feature in these types of games
Starship Troopers: Extermination is available on Xbox Series X|SPlaystation 5 and PC.
Starship Troopers: Extermination
$49.99
Benefits
- horde mode is fun
- A character from the peñicles
Disadvantages
- Poor gameplay
- Crashes and bugs with AI and corpse system
- Mission design
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