Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Handheld/Undocked)
While titles like the upcoming Sprawl Zero may herald the dawn of the ‘millennial shooter’ on other platforms, Switch remains a comfortable home for the retro stylings of the boomer shooter. Games like Boltgun, Dusk, and Ion Fury make for enjoyable ’90s throwbacks, while the titles that inspired them, including DOOM, Quake, and Duke Nukem 3D also have well-optimised versions waiting on the eShop.
Auroch Digital’s Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War takes an era-appropriate IP and gives it the blood and pixels treatment. The result is a thoroughly entertaining addition to the boomer shooter roster.
Starship Troopers has had plenty of chances at video game glory over the years. Recent attempts have mostly focused on multiplayer experiences, often with middling success. Ultimate Bug War might be the perfect format for humanity’s assault on an insectoid alien race. It’s simple, violent, funny, and packed with fan service for lovers of Paul Verhoeven’s 1997 satirical masterpiece. The vintage format is guaranteed to appeal to an audience that discovered the movie on VHS.
Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Handheld/Undocked)
The game is framed as an item of propaganda, a simulated experience to train new recruits for the war against the bugs. Live-action interstitial sequences appear as mock interviews with veterans, along with goofy adverts about how all children can benefit from learning to mulch arachnids with assault rifles.
Casper Van Dien reprises his role as Juan “Johnny” Rico, now a grizzled one-eyed general. He is joined by the main subject of the game’s missions, Samantha “Sammy” Dietz. These sequences are a charming gift to fans of the movie (and its lesser sequels) and really nail the tongue-in-cheek satire of the post-novel franchise.
After you’ve finished orientation in a very familiar round of capture the flag, Johnny and Sammy send you to Klandathu to experience a recreation of the first bug offensive. You play as Sammy, taking down objectives across an open map swarming with bugs and your fellow troopers. After Big K, you visit key locations in the conflict and follow a story similar to that of the original film. Don’t expect any heavyweight narrative moments in-mission; most of the good writing is packed into those FedDev broadcasts.
Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Docked)
The non-linear mission structure is a nostalgic trek across a chaotic battlefield that will bring back fond memories of bygone military shooters like Medal Of Honour (when it existed) and Call Of Duty (when it was great). It is hugely enjoyable to have the freedom to tackle objectives in any order, while fending off enemies and hearing the frightened radio chatter of your squadmates. A reminder that sometimes the player can make their own spectacle.
This being a shooter of the boomer variety, everything has the added retro feel of looking straight out of the ’90s era of graphical innovation. Enemies and allies are jerky sprite models, and blood (bug green and human red) sprays in pixels all over the screen. It’s always a charming aesthetic, and it gels nicely with the goofy action.
The general mechanics of the missions are just as old-fashioned as the visuals. Most of what you will be doing consists of flipping switches, laying charges and shooting almost constantly. Gunplay feels good, though the weapon variety usually boils down to how fast a bug’s health bar goes down. There is plenty of heavy ordnance in the form of air strikes, grenades, and a chainsaw-wielding mech suit, all of which deliver a satisfying level of shock and awe.
Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Docked)
The added bonus here is the ability to play as the bugs themselves. Each campaign setting includes a mission where you fill the mandibles of an assassin bug. This special insectoid is a shapeshifting commander that can spawn arachnids and transform for combat and traversal. These levels are interesting RTS hybrids where the aim is to terrorise FedDev by destroying bases alongside your many-legged buddies. Both campaigns can be played independently, but there’s a nice option to jump into a bug mission right after a human one.
With the satisfying contrast of these two playstyles, it feels odd that Ultimate Bug War has no multiplayer at the time of release. Lacking any sort of co-op or PvP is bad enough, but a Trooper Vs. Bug mode would have been a lot of fun. There’s a scoring system and four difficulty modes to keep you coming back to missions, but solo-only content will hamper the longevity.
Despite its purposely dated style, this is a visually busy game. There are often dozens of bugs swarming around you and twice as many expendable humans. Everyone explodes in comically violent fashion and it’s a testament to the optimisation that both docked and undocked modes have consistent, smooth performance.
Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Docked)
Better yet, in a mystifyingly rare occurrence, this Switch 2 version of Ultimate Bug War has mouse controls, and they work great.
Conclusion
Playing as a Trooper or a Bug in this stylised retro shooter is every bit as entertaining as the movie that inspired it, with a bonus hit of nostalgia for fans of golden-era military shooters. It doesn’t take a brain bug to realise that multiplayer would have been a great addition to round out the package, though.
