Starship Troopers: Terran Command

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Starship Troopers: Terran Command

by Aethyna Jun 29, 2022 | 1 Votes | 95 Played | 0 Reviews

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Genres:

Strategy

Graphics:

3D

Labels:

Real Time , Insects , Sci-Fi , Military

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Slitherine Ltd The Federation is embroiled in a seemingly endless war against an alien insect species. It is up to you, and your mobile infantry unit, to squash these incredibly numerous bugs and save the people of the Federation on the mining planet of Kwalasha in this tactical real-time strategy game! Play Now Similar Games Played Post a Review

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Summary Plotline Gameplay Graphics/ Sound Conclusion

Summary

Featuring a theme that would make any Earth Defense Force (EDF) fan proud, Starship Troopers: Terran Command is a tactical real-time strategy game that puts you into the shoes of the commander of the famed mobile infantry unit. In this game, the Federation is embroiled in a seemingly endless war against an alien insect species. It is up to you, and your unit, to squash these incredibly numerous bugs and save the people of the Federation on the mining planet of Kwalasha.

Mobilize various unit types strategically to take on a diverse assortment of bugs and complete the many missions you were sent to do. It’s time for you to do your part!

Plotline

There’s a story behind the arachnid’s invasion of the mining planet of Kwalasha. Would you like to know more?

If you do, you’ll want to go through the tutorial mission, a.k.a., the Battle of Klendathu. In this mission, not only will you learn the basics of the game, you’ll also learn that the egoistic human race, specifically the Federation, has tried to exterminate a “lesser alien species” from their home planet to ensure “the safety of human civilization”.

However, they quickly realized that they might have underestimated their cunning and very adaptive foes and hastily withdrew. Humanity has unfortunately messed with the wrong alien species.

Provoked by humans’ intrusion into their natural habitat, the bugs has now launched a counter-attack, hitting the Federation where it hurts – its vital mining operation on the planet Kwalasha. After all, you need these minerals to produce weapons and everything else you’ll need to win a war.

Of course, that’s not all. There’s also some unrest among the populace, especially considering how indifferent the Federation had been to the miners’ safety, resulting in numerous casualties just because they wanted the mines to resume operation before it’s deemed safe (from the bugs) to do so. There’s quite a bit on the Federation’s plate and thankfully, they have you and the mobile infantry unit to help!

The story in the campaign of this game takes a lot of inspiration from the movies, making the game feels completely “Starship Troopers”. In a way, through this game, a beloved dead-ish franchise was brought back to life in all its satirical and humorous glory, so kudos for that!

Gameplay

Starship Troopers: Terran Command is a single-player RTS game that features a tutorial mission, the Battle of Klendathu; a story-driven campaign consisting of 19 missions; and 2 challenges, the Starport Sweep and Knights in Powered Armor. Each mission also comes in 5 difficulty levels, with the Normal difficulty being fairly easy for someone who’s proficient enough in playing RTS games.

There’s also the fact that, most of the time, there’s a very small price to pay for losing a unit in this game. You see, you call in units using supplies and that units that fell in battle will refund whatever supply you’ve used to call them in. Thus, any units you’ve lost can be easily replaced as long as you’ve got a radio tower active or at least a radio operator, which functions like a mobile radio tower, to call in a new one.

Plus, calling in new units is almost instantaneous so there’s very little downtime. Though, unless your radio operator is at the frontlines where he should be, there might be some traveling time needed to send that new unit to the frontlines. Even if you called in the wrong units, you can easily disband them – again, at the closest radio tower – to get your supplies refund just so you can call in the correct units you need.

This little feature is very helpful when your army needs to stay fluid, despite having limited supplies, to counter the different kinds of bugs that will swarm your position. After all, similar to the game “Rock, Paper, Scissors”, there’s a unit that you can use to counter a specific type of bug in this game. For instance, the rocket troopers are great against giant bugs, specifically the Tanker, while the snipers are the units to use if you’re facing a lot of spitters and hoovers (flying bugs that will “dive bomb” your troops).

Of course, being the most versatile of all units, the rifle troopers are will likely make up the bulk of your army though. However, I did notice that these troopers are somewhat similar to the Stormtroopers in Star Wars – their aim is pretty terrible, to be honest, but at least they are hitting something, some of the time.

Not to mention, there are units that can provide support in other ways, other than directly shooting at the enemy. As mentioned before, there’s the radio operators who functions as a mobile radio tower and is very useful if you need to go beyond your defenses to clear out bug hives. There’s also the tactical officer who can bolster the troops within a certain range, and the combat engineer who are crucial in helping set up passive defenses, a.k.a. the turrets, just so you can move your units from defensive positions to offensive ones. Considering that they come equipped with a flamethrower, the engineers are really great at defending choke points against fast-moving, melee-type bugs as well.

Now, despite being rather easy to play since there’s no real need to gather and manage resources, the combat here is surprisingly strategic, besides the need to use suitable counters that is. Rushing in headlong will only get your units killed. Instead, the game encourages slow but steady advancement, pushing that frontline slowly but surely towards the next objective.

This is also the only RTS game that I’ve played so far that prevents friendlies from shooting “through” each other. This means that positioning is very important here or your units will simply not shoot at the enemy, which would then translate into more casualties. Elevation also plays a role here since units can shoot over another unit as long as they are on a higher plane.

Although Starship Troopers: Terran Command isn’t at all like the typical RTS games like Starcraft or Warcraft that we’ve all loved, it still offers a fun, humorous, and strategic gameplay that a fan of RTS may enjoy. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t have the kind of replayability that most RTS games (refer to the examples above) have. It doesn’t have a multiplayer mode where players can play as either the bugs or the terrans, and battle it out on a custom map, or even a co-op endless survival mode where players can team up and try to outlast the onslaught of bugs for as long as possible.

There are some minor issues as well, such as having units stuck at corners or in an animation loop that you can easily break them out of simply by moving. Not a biggie, to be honest, but it’s worth to note that this game isn’t a triple A and by comparison, is quite the budget title despite the popular IP.

Graphics/ Sound

The graphics here are pretty alright. Personally, I think the desert maps (the outdoors) look a lot better than the indoor maps just because of the lighting. The cutscenes are great though! If you love the movies, you’ll see that the game developers drew a lot of inspiration from them. In a way, they remind me of the little cutscenes in Fallout games as well, thanks to their use of 1950s-style imagery and narration.

In terms of sound, the music in this game is fantastic and fits the atmosphere of the scene, whether it is getting overwhelmed by a wave of attacking arachnids or scouring creepy tunnels in hopes of not bumping into too many of them all at once. I like the voice acting here too since it does fit the game and its theme every well.

Conclusion

Starship Troopers: Terran Command is an RTS game that’s not your conventional RTS. There’s no real resource management, or even base-building, to speak of here, but it does provide a fun gameplay that’s emphasizes on effective unit positioning, proper unit counters, and strategic advancement towards the objective. Similar to the criminally-misunderstood satirical masterpiece that the game was based on, there are plenty of downright hilarious moments, thanks to FedNetTV and its oblivious, brainwashed host, paying tribute to the cult sci-fi hit.

The only downside is that this game has limited lifespan and once you’re done with all the missions it has to offer, and in the toughest difficulty as well, there’s really no reason to return to the game and play it again. Due to this, you might want to consider your options and maybe grab it when it’s on a discount.