Starship Troopers v4.09.10 Patch

[RainOfTerror]

In Starship Troopers you will take the role of an elite 'special forces' trooper in the Mobile Infantry spearheading the assault against thousands of intelligent enemy bugs.

Empire has released a new patch for Strangelite's FPS Starship Troopers, bringing any Euro/US retail game to v4.09.10 and addresses a copy protection problem, voice over problem, visibility determination, as well as various multiplayer enhancements.

You can grab the Starship Troopers v4.09.10 patch (http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=29927) (13mb) over at WorthPlaying.

[bean19]

Not a very fun game, and it is based off the stupid movie of the same name instead of the book.

Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein is a book that is much more about the life of a solider of the future. It is a commentary on government and civilization, as well as the role a soldier plays in civilization.

The book also has the soldier wearing powered armor suits instead of merely flashy metal armor. Also, the "Bugs" are a space-faring intelligent race instead of just the mindless bugs that were portrayed in the movie and in the video game demo.

Anyway, the book is definitely worth a read. It is a science fiction classic. If you like it, check out Robert A Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" and "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress". Like Starship Troopers (the book!), both of these books are fun tales, but they are also adept social commentary and philosophy.

However, I'd pass on the game if I were you. The demo did not offer any interesting weapons, or methods of movement. It's a classic FPS except all you get to fight are melee focused enemies. . . over and over.

[Rakael]

Starship Troopers is still one of my favorite books of all time.

[Paltry]

Also, the "Bugs" are a space-faring intelligent race instead of just the mindless bugs that were portrayed in the movie and in the video game demo.


erm, could you clarify this

if i remember correctly there were different levels of intelligence among the different species of bugs, like in the assy movie

am i wrong?

[Wombat]

It's been a while since I read the book, but I think the bugs were a hive mind, so in a sense there were no individual bugs. I do remember one scene where they were swarmed by worker bugs who were completely harmless.

[Captain Awesome]

Read the book, loved the movie. (at the time)

They just missed the boat with this franchise to make it into a good FPS game.

[Dirty Harry]

the game isnt to bad but you need a mint pc for it run the way it was invisioned.


I also wish people would stop assuming that if a game isnt a ala halo, then it aint worth my ala time.

[bean19]

erm, could you clarify this

if i remember correctly there were different levels of intelligence among the different species of bugs, like in the assy movie

am i wrong?

Yes, this is true. They were a lot like ants with workers and warriors appearing on the surface, and brains and queens being the sought out species. The important difference here is that the bugs SHOULD have beam weapons if they followed the book. Not nearly as important as trying to get at least a little bit of the commentary on civilization, military, and the nature of humanity from the book into the movie and game, but it is important to the game's gameplay. It's like playing Half-Life 2, but you only get to fight the sandlion levels, and there are only sandlions. How lame is it that everything is melee? Also, how lame is it that they didn't build the awesome powersuits for the movie or the game?

DirtyHarry - I didn't compare the game to Halo. I'm said it was disappointing because the enemies are all melee and because they based it off the movie that does not capture the most meaningful portions of the novel. So, I'm telling you it sucks, but not for the reason you provided.

[Adam Blue]

When can we stop with this discussion? Any thread that deals with SST comes to this. I could tell you that I survived a plane crash while wearing a SST movie shirt, and I'd get shit because it's not like the book.

How is the game?...And it's out?

[Liquidize105]

Everytime SST gets mentioned, the authenticity issue comes up.

The way I see it:


The maker of a film adaptation has three choices.

1st, he can try to translate the original medium as faithfully as possible, striving as much as possible to preserve the spirit and content of the original while re-imagining the story as a film. Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films exemplify this approach.

2nd, he could instead try to capture the essence of the original, while largely abandoning the particulars of the original, as in the intelligently satirical but hard-hearted film version of Starship Troopers.

3rd, he can try to do something original with the material, drawing inspiration from the written story, but creating a unique film with a unique vision. I, Robot is more the the third than the first or second.

[F3nyx]

Liquidize -- I don't see how you can claim that the movie captures the essence of the original. Heinlein probably wasn't seriously advocating that system of citizenship, but neither was he trying to depict it as a horrible dystopia like the movie does. The movie's more of a rebuttal, or a parody, than an adaptation.

And for the love of god, why leave out jump-jets and powered armor? 1) They play a huge role in the book, 2) they're much more interesting and futuristic than ground troops wearing shiny Kevlar, 3) they make the fights in the book a fight of wits vs. numbers rather than a dull slaughterfest. My personal suspicion is that they couldn't afford the special effects.

I think the movie fits into your third category (a unique vision inspired by the written story) much better than into the second.

[bean19]

The book is very clearly in favor of a government in which people place their lives on the line in order to gain franchise. However, it is a bit myopic in that our military is as bad at administering itself as our government. Heinlein's military is idealistic, dutiful, and does not show any signs at any level of the infastructure of corruption. It was the very image of the pitch sold about the U.S. military during the early 20th century. Now, if all the characters in Joseph Heller's "Catch 22" were the ones doing all of the voting, the government would be as equally corrupt and backwards as the military depicted in that book.

However, Heinlein does make a good point in that universal suffrage tends to make people devalue their vote, and that serving a term of duty in order to earn franchise would be one method of sifting for at higher percentage of dutiful, responsible voters and politicians. I think it would be a bad one due to the fact that I think the military is capable of horrible mismanagement and corruption. . . seeing as it is not, in truth, the idealistic military he depicts OR Heller's horribly corrupts and mismanaged military, but something more in the middle with the potential of becoming either one of these extremes.

I'd really like it if we limited franchise to those who pass a test though. Did you know that 60% of seniors voted for the wrong candidate based on the issues they care about in the last presidential election? They had no idea what they were voting for. If you ask some of the people in my COLLEGE, they would not be able to give you an intelligent answer on why balancing the budget is important or which party favors fiscal responsibility.

We should also start earlier. Teach government in middle school and then open up voting to high school freshman. Base this on being in the 9th grade rather than any specific age (so as to discriminate against morons and not discriminate against geniuses). At the end of the 8th grade, you have to pass your voter knowledge test to vote the next year, and then they take one every year in high school. For adults, make it part of registering to vote, and allow people to do this at the same time they reknew their driver's licenses.

One of the things I'd like to do if I was uber wealthy would be to start a non-profit voter knowledge site that would collect data on politicians. It would list explicitly and succintly how they feel about different issues, and would compare their stated positions to their voting records (when available). Additionally, I'd allow the politician's offices to comment on the voting history, indicating when say a Republican voted against an anti-abortion law, but did so because they knew it was not Constitutional, or when a Democrat votes against a program to secure Social Security, but did so because the program would cause increased debt, etc.

It would track bills and give political commentary from a hired Republican, and Democrat, and then their spin would be decoded by the other party. I'd try to find really cynical and intelligent people who were more interested in teaching people and actually finding solutions that work (no matter which side of the isle they come from).

Then I wonder why it isn't being done already, and I realize that I am probably not the one to do it. While I'm not biased to one party or the other per se, I am extremely biased to my issues (which are scattered in both parties. Currently, I'm voting Democrat because Clinton balanced the budget, didn't lower taxes such that the wealthiest 5000 families in the country received half of the tax funds from the tax cuts, and because my sister is a lesbian, but I might vote Republican if they'd put in a responsible candidate. However, I want a balanced Senate/House. . . the special interest gouging of the budget we've experienced with Bush and a Republican Congress won't be fixed for at least a generation, so I'll still vote for the underdog (whichever side it is, there).