As a squad based RTS, Starship Troopers Terran Command puts you in control of the forces of Earth as you battle back the arachnid threat with every ounce of human military might. I’m an enormous fan of the Starship Troopers movie, so the nostalgia hits me hard in this game because the game feels heavily influenced by the movie. You know a game has a unique fun factor when you, and anyone watching, can start spouting off movie lines as you push your troops forward into battle. In Starship Troopers Terran Command, you get to drop arachnids with bullets, bombs, and those cheesy one-liners.

Big thanks to Slitherine Games for deploying a game key to my inbox!

As a singleplayer title, I was initially hesitant, though my love for the movie pushed me to try the Steam demo. I was immediately in love. As a squad based RTS, Starship Troopers Terran Command lets you really focus more on tactics than micro. You tend to have a lean amount of forces to manage against a persistent horde of arachnid enemies. There’s always this sense you’re about to be overwhelmed, so victories feel pretty heroic and dramatic.

Starship Troopers Terran Command tells a fun story about the human and arachnid war for the rocky, desert planet of Kwalasha. There’s a great amount of gameplay variety Starship Troopers Terran Command. Some missions take place above ground, some below deep in bug territory. Some are your standard map clear matches, others are hold-your-ground horde mode battles. Units in game have a lot of cool abilities that are quite iconic. A Fleet Liaison unit lets you call in an air strike that lets you glass approaching swarms of bugs with space-napalm. The standard Rifle Troopers unit is your front line against arachnids, and the Mk2 troopers have those upgraded Merita rifles that you see at the end of the movie. Nearly every unit has a fun ability to play with, which is important because a combined arms approach is a must in this game.

I really don’t have any cons to offer for Starship Troopers Terran Command. There are occasionally game glitches where units rubberband as if you were playing online. It’s not a consistent problem, and very minor. Another nitpick is extra-long range units like mortar-bombardment bugs. They attack from extreme range, which can only be countered by a few Terran units, like Snipers. Currently there is no way to prioritize these long-range enemy units. Your Snipers, for example, will continue killing close range enemies instead of focusing on the long range enemies they are uniquely suited to deal with.

It’s very hard to understate the pros for this game. The visuals are just fantastic. Every iconic Starship Trooper visual is captured in the game from Mobile Infantry troopers and tech, to the orange goo that explodes when you defeat a Tanker bug. The music even feels like a solid follow-up to the movie score. There’s several notable cinematic battles during the campaign to make you feel like you’re part of your own Starship Troopers movie, holding down a fortress during a massive bug invasion, or absurdly risking lives to hunt down an escaped prisoner only to have to defend the prison during his public execution. It’s one giant nostalgia ride.

I would absolutely recommend Starship Troopers Terran Command. For $29.99 USD you get a 20 mission campaign and access to a map editor, which essentially means the fun never stops. It is the quintessential Starship Troopers experience beyond the movies themselves. The same dark humor you find in the movies is littered throughout the game, keeping you smirking as you send your troopers to clear bug hole after bug hole. The gameplay is fun, and you get a chance to give it everything you’ve got against the might of arachnid infestations time and again, doing your part to defend fallen outposts and cities across Kwalasha. The Aristocrats have developed an amazing game, and I for one would like to know more about what comes next.