Being a fan of Starship Troopers franchise is hard these days. A lot of good attempts were made, but every single video game installment carrying its name has been okay-ish at best. In last 5 years we had an RTS, an Online Coop PVE and now a proper single player FPS.

This one by far exceeds every other game, mainly because it went self-aware. Just so you know, this game is used in the universe of ST as a propaganda piece to indoctrinate youth into enlisting. It even uses my man Casper Van Dien aka Johnny Rico in FMVs, which are the highlight of this game. Remember when FMVs were popular btw? All the quote unquote "cringy" and "quirky" dialogue is made so on purpose to create a feeling of jolly military service. Have you seen those before and after edits of the movie "All Quiet on the Western Front" on social media? This entire game is "before" turned to eleven. It's funny how bad some people are at detecting satire these days.

After 100%ing the game and planning on replaying it with developer commentary on I can fully assure you, this game was made with incredible amount of love for the source material. It's hard not to wojak point every couple of minutes as you play, would it be after seeing a familiar location like Whiskey Outpost, facing an iconic bug like Tanker and disposing of it with Rico move™, receiving an achievement called "Never pass up a good thing" after visiting the outer rings or overhearing one of the troopers shout "Aim for the nerve stem". It's a marvelous fan service product.

Don't get misled by the Boomer Shooter tag. This game is more reminiscent of something like OG Rainbow Six with its limited weapon slots, reuse of objectives, open ended level design, emphasis on usage of various equipment and cooperation with other troopers. It's not overly tactical, but smart play is rewarded, especially on higher difficulties when bugs come in dozens and hit hard.

Talking about troopers and bugs. Unfortunately game has problems, for some it would be a defining factor whenever they like this game or not. AI in this game is terrible, on both sides. Friendly troopers are keen on ignoring bugs around them and bugs often beeline towards you specifically. It gets blatantly obvious YOU ARE the center of the universe and you carry the entire planet on your shoulders.

You never see any spectacle made by the Federation, nobody comes to help in a pinch ala airdrop with a cool weapon or mass M7 reinforcement, hell they even managed to ignore the most obvious part - support troopers. Even Half-Life 2 had those. Even in the movie they call for medics! You get all your equipment either from the ground or from Helldivers-like capsule drops on demand which are basically infinite. Meaning it's rare when you find yourself low on ammo or HP and forced to retreat to the nearest group of troopers for support or backtrack to find resources.

If you for a second stop to analyze game as an actual game and not fictional propaganda piece, the feeling of "Ultimate War" is lost in mere seconds. And to top it off, the game is extremely short. Unless you are willing to replay the game, either to get the remaining achievements, beat it on harder difficulty, listen to developer commentary or find all secrets (which are hidden on humongous maps btw) it's not worth the full price.

I still highly recommend this SPECIFICALLY for ST fans, to which I say "C'mon you apes, you wanna live forever?"