Starship Troopers: Terran Command, a real-time strategy review full of bugs

Starship Troops – Space Corps Despite the fame of director Paul Verhoeven, who achieved great success with Atto di Forza, and the huge budget spent on its production, it is one of the films that did not create a spark in the cinema. Even the criticisms leveled at it were quite lukewarm, so much so that the fate of the movie seemed to have been forgotten. However, thanks to the domestic market, it has managed to gain ground over the years and has become a work of worship, somewhat re-evaluated by everyone, giving life to various sequels, including criticism.

It failed to become a major brand like Star Wars or others, but if you’re reading today Starship Troopers: Terran Command review this is because the war between humans and spiders has also managed to find a place in the collective imagination.

Who are the good guys?

If we’re talking about the movie and not Robert A. Heinlein’s Space Infantry book on which the movie is based, it’s because the game refers directly to the movie. satirical representation a vision of humanity physically and mentally enslaved to a certain Nazi militarism and the expansionist aims of totalitarian governments. It was not for nothing that the first scene was an adaptation of Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will, the most famous propaganda documentary of the Third Reich.

But we are diving. title AristocratsA studio specializing in the strategic field, known among fans of the Order of Battle series, it is obviously focused on humanity’s war against the arachnids, a peaceful alien race until the terrestrials decide to exploit the planet Kwalasha’s resources.

Like good parasites, humans don’t think twice before declaring war on anything that prevents them from grabbing resources that don’t belong to them, turning it into a war of civilization and democracy. So here we are ready to lead mobile infantry In a large-scale military operation, we will essentially seek to destroy the planet’s indigenous population so that it can absorb their lifeblood undisturbed. Beautiful. Is not it?

Tasks

Starship Troopers: Terran Command is one of them single player real time strategy From time to time we will have to go through a series of missions that make up the main campaign, using all the resources available to us. Unlike other games of the same genre, we will not have to gather wood or stones to build bases and recruit soldiers, but we must navigate the maps reacting to what we encounter and destroying our military strength. arthropods slide into their burrows after destroying the population. There are around twenty missions in total, which can also be replayed in campaign mode after unlocking them in the campaign. There is no multiplayer mode, but for each map there are five selectable difficulty levels that greatly increase the life of the game if you get caught up in its formula.

Introduced by Missions video clips Well done, serving to familiarize the actor with the scenario, it presents him with the remnants of the brutality of propaganda, which is the main engine of our actions. The first impact game itself looks like a very classic RTS, but the peculiarity of the main rivals makes it rather peculiar in its dynamics.

Basically, there is a certain number of units available from the start, this can be increased by calling reinforcements via radio after conquering communication centers and supply vaults (the latter allows to increase the number of units that can be recalled). We built our army with units armed with classic infantry assault rifles, turret-mounting flamethrowers, snipers, rocket launchers and everything else. targets it is reported from time to time, usually more than one per map. Between saying and doing there are often hundreds of spiders to kill.

In fact, most of the battles, other than those against other people (which will be added to the enemies as the game progresses), are basically positioning and resistance. That is, to repel waves of enemies, to better aim at targets, you must be able to take advantage of the bottlenecks and elevations found on the maps. Wrong positioning means that the enemies have a good chance of getting right down the throat of our soldiers and taking them down in one hit. Arachnids can be simple warriors, spitters, i.e. acid-spitting insects, tigers, massively ultra-hardy warriors, tanks, i.e. large, strong and very resilient insects, and others. As we said later in the game, troops of rebellious people also appear to attack us, armed more or less like our men.

The power of design

Starship Troopers: Terran Command’s strength over other real-time strategies map designThis clearly demonstrates the single-player-only understanding of the game. Normally RTS maps have battlefields where different elements serve to balance forces on the field. In single player the focus is always on the progress of the single mission managed by areas, while in multiplayer the designers seek a greater balance, i.e. they aim to give players the same possibilities in terms of resources and travel distances so they don’t feel disadvantaged in any way. Starship Troopers: Terran Command offers maps mainly designed to mark different events of missions and manage the player’s progress.

For example, on one map, space infantry find themselves having to defend a devastated outpost from growing waves of spiders. The outpost is located in the middle of the zone, the waves come from the south, that is, from an area that we never push ourselves and the timing of attacks is set to rhythm (to always give the player time). regrouping), while in the north there are some mines that we must release by sending troops to advance.

After the first organization, map There is constant ping-pong between the outpost, which must be reorganized for attacks, and the assault team, which must hunt to clear the nests. In another case, we find ourselves defending a prison from spider attacks on a map that shows the exact objectives of Starship Troopers: Terran Command. In the beginning we must find a fugitive by leading a small group of sailors, so we must escort him to the prison.

From here we have to organize the defense of the walls, ensuring that the arthropods do not disturb a particular event (which we will not tell you about). Between one attack and another, we can send troops to save resources to increase the number of troops. In all this, we see the map area to the north, which is apparently unused. It will be after rejecting some insect waves, when we will be asked to clear it of the rebels. Then we will return to protect the prison walls from a massive final wave. Everything happens in a single mission.

The limitation of this setting is only one: almost none. continuity between one map and the next so everything resets every time. Elite units (by fighting, each unit can obtain an elite level that unlocks an additional skill) will also disappear, replaced by fresh cannon fodder. It all makes sense given the specific structure of the game, but it’s also true that the sense of continuity of the whole is somewhat lacking in this way, also thanks to the fact that narratively Starship Troopers: Terran Command is so committed to clarifying. its key elements are less than telling a story that unites everything.

graphic

Technically, therefore, graphicDon’t expect who knows what from Starship Troopers: Terran Command. The action can be viewed at different zoom levels and shows type-like details for both map elements and units. It’s true that most of the time you follow the action from the maximum zoom distance to see the action more clearly, so you don’t pay much attention to the presence or absence of graphic beauty. But there is a great atmosphere, thanks to the right choice of different color palettes for each task.

in terms of general cleaning the action is always easy to read, but we ran into some problems with the drivers navigating, where in some cases it literally got stuck. Imagine how nice it would be if we found ourselves in front of a tank without our units armed with rocket launchers stuck in a rock. However, there weren’t very often cases where we weren’t able to execute our tactics for reasons beyond our ability, so overall judgment is still good in this respect, always keeping in mind that the game will be updated over time. . . .