You might think you're familiar with Starship Troopers: Extermination because you've played Helldivers 2. They're both satirical games where you take up arms as an indoctrinated foot soldier in a fascistic army and fight endless hordes of terrifying bugs, but Extermination has a well-implemented base-building twist and charming PS3 vibes that set it apart and ensure it stands on its own two legs.
This is a game best played with friends due to the highly cooperative nature of the multiplayer. Missions include capturing points on your way to defending a key objective, and building up a base to survive an onslaught of vicious bugs that gain buffs as the waves roll in. They're both absolutely thrilling and tough as nails — get used to failing.
Fortunately, failing is all part of the fun. Each battle will award you with XP to upgrade your six classes. The progression is reminiscent of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. As for classes, there's the medic, standard grunt, sniper, and an engineer that taps into the game's base-building mechanic.
At certain points in the missions you'll be able to whip out a building tool and construct a base just like the ones seen in the film. You construct walls with towers to grant vantage points, automatic sentry turrets, and manned guns. They're essential to defeating some of the more powerful bugs, like ones that send burning liquid careening through the sky and flooding your encampment like napalm. The bodies of the bugs even pile up and change the terrain, forcing you to clamber over them or find a way around.
The missions are still fun alone as everyone is working toward the same goal, but you'll have a better time in a squad with your mates. There's also a single-player campaign that feels a lot like Deep Rock Galactic, but this is mostly only good for levelling up your classes.
The whole aesthetic of the missions and the menus is retro PS3 at its best, but unfortunately the game's performance tanks when too many bugs are on screen, which is most of the time. Still, clambering over their corpses as the bodies pile up and making a final dash toward the extraction is a blast, and if you're a fan of Helldivers, this is a solid evolution of the genre and well worth your time.
Comments 18
I lost my heart to a starship trooper, flashing lights in hyper space, fighting for the Federation, hand in hand we'll conquer space.
Charming PS3 aesthetic = dated graphics. People really need to stop making excuses for bad elements with carefully chosen descriptors. It's poorly made and the only reason it gets any attention is because of Helldivers 2.
Oh look! The red headed stepchild of the bug shooting family.
@Lavishturtle more like because of the 1st film which was awesome 😎
cons:
-No platinum.
For a $60 game (in my country) that's a deal breaker.
This review says lackluster single player campaign but doesn't expand on that.
This game came before Helldivers 2. How could it be a clone lol
No Denise Richards?
@hi_drnick Dizzy for life… well, at least for as long as she’s alive
Had me at “Starship Troopers”. Lost me as FPS.
It has no Platinum
@GymratAmarillo So you won't buy a game because of a meaningless trinket? And I say that as someone with 75 of the things.
I mean it's your money to choose how to spend but this rationale is baffling.
I’ve been playing it on and off for a couple weeks and it’s good fun. My main problem is the lag spikes which should get fixed. The limited base building is a good thing in my books because you only have a couple minutes to build one and it’s simple and easy to use. There’s walls, towers, gates, ramps, bunkers and turrets. Dunno what more you would want really. The actual gunplay is really satisfying too and the game can get crazy hectic. Also the bug corpses hang around after you killed them and it’s really cool seeing the other enemies climb them to get up and over your base walls.
People commenting = I'm doing my part!
I got really bored at the tutorial and didn't go back to it.
@Kiefer-Sutherland may I ask if it takes long to find matches? The game has crossplay I know but I feel like it hasn't sold all that well.
@Lavishturtle Behave yourself! Starship Troopers is a cult classic movie - this game will seal a credible ROI on that fact alone.
Not to mention the fact it's just as easily comparable to EDL - which predates Helldivers by almost 2 decades.
@luke88 I’ve been getting into matches really quickly and it’s always a full group of 16 players
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