Starship troopers - Demo / Full Game

[DAve]

The demo of the year is out on the 1st. Look in PCgamer mag to get it, I'm sure there will be downloads out there soon (if you know where to look, of course).
Gamespot will get the demos (officially) on the 2nd and Everywhere else will be open season on the 3rd.

Meanwhile, satisfy yourselves with the screenshots and wmv's. (drools)
http://www.starshiptroopers-game.com/

"Come on you apes. You want to live forever?"

[Bluepixie]

Yea, been watching this one for a few years now. I'm glad they're actually going to release it. However, it looks like they're giving way too much press coverage to the base bitty. Hope the full thing is more varied. :?

[DAve]

It's out.
http://www.3dgamers.com/dlselect/games/starshiptroopers2/starshiptroopersdemo.zip.html

Background

'Starship Troopers' is the game based upon the hit 1997 movie.

You play the role of an elite Marauder - the Special Forces of the Mobile Infantry. As High Command's precision strike tool it's your duty to spearhead the campaign against the arachnid menace. Whenever 'the going gets tough' Marauders are expected to lead the way!

The full game consists of 12 single player levels - set in diverse environments such as desert canyons, abandoned mines, lonely trooper outposts and of course - the bug nests!

In the course of the campaign on Hesperus you will have to fight 19 unique species of bugs, from harmless chariot bugs to huge plasma bugs capable of knocking out spaceships. To assist you in this epic confrontation you'll be able to use 11 different weapons - each with their own strengths and weaknesses.

Multiplayer entertainment is covered by deathmatch, team deathmatch and of course specially designed co-operative missions.

There will also be an unlockable score based mode that allows players to compare their speed and kill tally.

The full game will be available in the 4th quarter of 2005.

Installation

Insert the CD Rom into your PC
If the disc does not Auto Run then do the following.

Select My Computer. Select your CD-Rom Drive (E.g. "D:") and locate and run the Setup.exe - Follow the onscreen instructions.

Run the game by selecting Start --> Program Files --> Empire Interactive --> Starship Troopers Demo or click on the shortcut created on your desktop

System Specs

Recommended: 3.0ghz CPU, 1Gb RAM, GeForce 6800 or Radeon X800 [1024x768 with shadows], DirectX 9.0c, 600mb free hard drive space, Windows XP ONLY, DirectX compatible PCI soundcard.

Minimum: 2.0ghz CPU, 512mb RAM, GeForce FX5900 or Radeon 9800 [800x600 with shadows], DirectX 9.0c, 600mb free hard drive space, Windows XP ONLY.

Note: Shadows are very intensive on hardware. It is advised that you lower the video resolution if you desire shadows. The game will run at a reasonable framerate with low quality terrain shadows and no dynamic shadows using an FX5600 video card at 800x600 video resolution.

[DAve]

FIrst impressions: it's not as great as it looks on screnshots and movies. It is just a demo version though, hopefully the end product will be much better.

I found the bugs to be really really hard to kill. I'm not sure if I'm shooting at the wrong place or nit, it just seems to be quite random whether the bug dies or not. Maybe I should try it on "easy".

More later.

[Bluepixie]

Yeah, I’ve just been playing it too and IM VERY DISAPOINTED.

First off. The engine. WTF? Who the hell designed this thing?!?! It looks like they did the textures in paint then were like “whooo! Bump mapping! Lets try that!�. It looks shit and runs like a dog. Try playing it at 1280x1024 with everything on max. What a joke. You should see the blood textures, they look awful. Even Half-Life has better textures than this! Dead marines lying about look like Quake rejects at "gore" (i.e. a fucking hexagon for a hole though a guys body!?!) All the "marines getting killed by bugs" is scripted and looks crap, even on hard you can take a shit load of damage but not get wasted. And there’s no rag doll or physics!?!? In this day and age!?!

After a couple of minutes play you leave the base and go off on a recon run. (I.e. get item, return with item) by yourself. Why not take at least a squad with you? It gets to one part were your fending off a horde of bugs just by yourself. It's impossible. I've tried loads of time on hard and a few times on easy but it's just not happening. You can't pick them off at a distance because the rifles are crap and don’t seem to really hurt them, so you have to let them get up close and personal with the shotgun. Which does work. But seeing at this is not Serious Sam, you have to reload. At which point you get raped. You can't run away because they are coming from all sides.
Now, you may say, "Well, that's what it's all about. One versus a horde of bugs. It’s meant to be scary/intimidating." But it's not. It’s just frustrating to the max. Even the heavy shotgun doesn’t help. You need an unlimited jackhammer for this kinda work.

OR FUCKING TEAM MATES! STUPID STUPID DEVELOPERS! WTF ARE YOU THINKING!?!? THIS COULD HAVE BEEN A GREAT USE OF A FILM LICENCE BUT NO. Retards. Retards. Retards.

I'm really pissed off with this game. Could have been great.

Who’s up for balaclavas and MP5? We can hold the team at gun point until they fix it.

[YegaDoyai]

co-op mode?

[DAve]

The forums on starshiptroopersgame.com are full of people who are really dissapointed with the demo. Frankly, I'm with you pixie, the bugs look scripted, the bugs are obscenely hard, the hitboxes just don't work. Gah.

What happened with the graphics as well? My computer renders the scene with some nasty jaggy edges. Full screen AA? Pffft, we don't need that.

Dissapointed from Glasgow.

[Phizz]

It's about friggin' time though. When was it that film came out?

[Bluepixie]

The most annoying thing about the demo is that I haven't beaten it yet. So, it poses a challenge, hence I keep trying it. Unfortunately, repeated playing only makes it feel worse.

However, I've got a major visual/performance increase by putting AA to x4 and AF to x16. Seems to run much better, FPS seems more stable. It doesn't stop the textures from looking gash though.

Just plain weird.

[DAve]

Eh? THat's totaly broken. Getting a perforance increace from setting AA and AF higher? That's sick and wrong.

[Phizz]

It won't take you long Blue.

[Bluepixie]

Yay! I finished it on Sat. It's actually not as bad as I making it out to be. The second part of the demo were the bugs attack the base again is amazing. Really intense. They still have a lot of work to do before they release it but if they put in a co-op mode, then it could be great fun at a LAN.

[Phizz]

See. Been practicing on DoW. Be afraid!! lol

[DAve]

There's a survey online if you want to vent some spleen.
http://www.starshiptroopersgame.com/survey/

[Bluepixie]

There's a survey online if you want to vent some spleen.
http://www.starshiptroopersgame.com/survey/

heh. Adding my comment now...... :twisted:

[Tiberio]

I was a big fan of the movie, so im kinda hoping that they atleast will correct the mistakes before the game is released, otherwise another potential great license is ruined... :cry:

[bluntpencil2001]

I found the bugs to be really really hard to kill. I'm not sure if I'm shooting at the wrong place or nit, it just seems to be quite random whether the bug dies or not. Maybe I should try it on "easy".

"Aim for the nerve stem..."

[Bluepixie]

Well, we've known it was gash for a while now, but check this out. Turns out that they fixed nothing for the full game.

FUll Gamespot Review (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/starshiptroopers/review.html?sid=6140678)

What a shame, another wasted licence. :(

[DAve]

There's another demo out, might be multiplayer, frankly it's not as good as the last demo.

It might be multiplayer though.