Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War PS5 Review. Starship Troopers is a cult classic that has stood the test of time. Not just from a visual standpoint, but from its writing, characters, and insane use of propaganda. Though the franchise has had plenty of lows across various industries, Ultimate Bug War is just the kind of game that fits its universe perfectly.
Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War PS5 Review
Propaganda War
Ultimate Bug War tells the story of Samantha Deitz, a hero of the bug war. Ultimate Bug War has some of the best presentations I’ve seen. Following in the footsteps of the 1997 movie, it’s rife with propaganda, and the game itself is a form of propaganda within the United Citizen Federation.
Casper Van Dien returns as Johnny Rico as he conducts an interview with fellow soldier Samantha Deitz about her time during the war. The video game Ultimate Bug War that you play is based on her exploits in the war, and Samantha and Johnny promote the game throughout the story to help recruit new soldiers to the Federation.
Fantastic Presentation
After each mission, you’ll be treated to a recruitment advertisement and just how great the United Citizen Federation is. It’s great stuff, over-the-top, and fits perfectly into the Starship Troopers universe.
The game’s story follows Deitz as she hunts down a brand new Assassin Bug that killed one of her best friends. The game runs parallel to the 1997 movie, and you’ll even go to some of the same planets featured in the movie.
Having said that, the story doesn’t really do much for the franchise, and after the first mission, the Assassin Bug storyline doesn’t come up again until the end of the game.
Big Maps, Bigger Bugs
Ultimate Bug War is an old-school pixelated shooter. Coming from the developers of Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun, it’s a fast-paced action shooter reminiscent of Quake and Doom.
The maps themselves aren’t that detailed, and most are rocky terrain. Zegema Beach and a ruined Cityscape are the only two real standouts of the nine missions. Each level is a large, open area for you to explore and complete missions, with the opportunity to tackle whatever objective you want first, but you have to complete each one.
These objectives range from defending a base, destroying Plasma Bugs with tactical nukes, and clearing out bug nets. The maps are large and take time to navigate. You can do it on foot, and in some instances, you can get into a mech and get around at faster speeds.
Each map does hold some secrets for you to find, but they don’t really add anything to the experience and don’t really unlock anything.
Plenty Of Enemy Variety
Unsurprisingly for a Starship Troopers game, there’s bugs everywhere, and the difficulty you choose to play determines how many you’ll encounter. The higher the difficulty, the more bugs and the more danger.
Even on the lowest difficulty level, the game can get pretty tough in the later stages. There is a great variety of bugs to encounter as well.
Your standard Warrior Bug is accompanied by the fire-spitting Tanker, Hopper Bugs that fly around, and some acid-spitting bugs. There is a variety, but you encounter almost every single one of these bugs in the first two missions, leaving almost no surprises for the latter half.
Plenty Of Weapons For The Bug War
Defeating the bugs is great fun, though you can shoot off their legs and other parts and watch them keep trying to get to you. Bugs have their weak points as well; some you learn from the movies, others are more obvious if you’re a seasoned gamer.
You get a good selection of weapons from your standard machine guns and shotguns to more heavy weapons like tactical nukes and plasma rifles.
You can also call down airstrikes and napalm attacks on a large area. Call in a gunship and shoot bugs from the sky, or even send down a mech to control.
The Only Good Bug Is A Dead Bug
Other soldiers can be recruited on the battlefield. Any soldier you see can be saluted or taunted, and they will join your squad, following you around everywhere you go to back you up.
You can recruit up to five people to your squad. If you try to recruit more, they will throw you some ammo instead, which is always handy. There is also a Bug mode where you can play as one of the blood-thirsty critters and take down troopers and destroy bases. It’s a nice alternative that lets you fly and shoot fire to burn down bases and troopers.
Great Presentation And Fantastic Voice Work
The visuals work great here; the pixilated character and bug models look great. The environments, unfortunately, are mostly rocky terrain as previously mentioned, but the few that aren’t stand out with destroyed cityscapes, making it feel like a real apocalyptic war.
The sound design is also solid with great voice work across the board, and the live-action cutscenes are an absolute joy to watch. The guns sound great, as do the various sounds the bugs make, especially when they’re coming out of the ground or taking shots and having their limbs blown apart.
Sadly, the music isn’t as great as I would have hoped, and mostly feels like ambient sounds playing in the background of each mission rather than an authentic score. There’s just nothing that stands out.
Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War is a fun action shooter that’s designed for a specific audience. You won’t find anything in-depth here, but what’s on offer is just pure fun. The presentation is some of the best out there, and returning to this franchise is always fun.
Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War is out now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S/X, PC, and Nintendo Switch 2.
Review code kindly provided by PR.