Starship Poopers (Armorines (N64))

Member Name: Wolfzilla

Product:	Armorines (N64)
Date:	24/11/06 (276 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A few good ideas

Disadvantages: Controls, slowdown, graphics...basically most of the game

While the Nintendo 64 probably won't be remembered, certainly not by this gamer, as a particulart highlight in the history of videogaming, it did boast one major positive that no console before it managed; the ability to truly enjoy a First-Person-Shooter(FPS) without a PC. Rare's Goldeneye 007 was the game that essentially made the console FPS, and without it we may never have had Halo amongst many other good console FPS games.

However, as you would expect, with Goldeneye being such a huge success, hundreds of companies decided to try their hand at capturing some of the money that new fans of the FPS would be looking to spend, and the console was inundated with numerous crappy FPS titles. One such game came from everyone's favourite purveyors of mostly bad, occasionally good videogames; Acclaim! and went by the ridiculous title of Armorines: Project S.W.A.R.M. My copy of the game is cartridge only, so I have no idea exactly what the S.W.A.R.M part of the title stands for, my best guess is that that some dork in the Acclaim offices realised the game was about killing bugs and thought it was funny or something.

You see, the game's plot is essentially that of the 1997 feature film Starship Troopers. Giant alien bugs are trying to invade the Earth, and it's up to a crack division of the army to gun them down, this crack division is, of course, the Armorines!

I'm actually gonna be lenient on the game in this respect. I mean, the plot doesn't even contain a tenth of originality, but at the same time, the game is under no illusions that it's plot is a strong point, and it basically aims to give the player an excuse to shoot big insects in a FPS game, which it does competantly.

When it comes to the gameplay of Armorines, its where the title's biggest problems come to light. Apparently it uses the same engine as Turok 2: Seeds of Evil, but I've never played that game, and if this is true, I don't think I really want to. The game is essentially a standard FPS game, with very little bells and whistles, and even the good that those do is offset by the dire controls and generally boring nature of the game.

So, in terms of the bells and whistles, what are they? Well, the most significant aspect of the game, and one that all Halo fans have to take their hat off to, is that there is a 2-Player Co-op mode featured in the game. It takes the same split-screen format as Bungie's classic game when played like this, and it can add a lot to the gameplay, having another player blasting along with you. However, the problem I faced was actually convincing anyone to play this mode with me, given that there really isn't much to sell the game upon.
Also in the game's credit are another pre-Halo perk of sorts, in the form of pseudo-vehicular combat. At some points the player has to comandeer a train-like vehicle and travel to the other end of the track, taking control of a front-mounted cannon to gun down any bugs that try to derail you. Ok, so it's hardly something to write home about, but at least it can somewhat relieve the monotony that the majority of the game instills within you.

You see, aside from the control scheme, which uses the C buttons to move your character and the analogue stick to direct aiming(the opposite of Goldeneye), but implements it in a horribley sluggish manner, the game suffers from dreadful slowdown, a boring selection of weapons and is generally nothing more than a chore to try and play. A lack of mid-level checkpoints mean that you must start every stage from scratch when you die. Most gamers won't bother even trying a second time.

To top things off, the aesthetics aren't even very good. The 3D bug models, which are all either ripped-off Starship Troopers or the Legion in Gamera 2: The Advent of Legion, are all decent enough, but as they get bigger, instead of looking better they actually manage to appear even more primitive and polygonal. The stages are bizarre, in that action takes place in locales like Arctic wastelands, South American ruins and Egyptian pyriamids, which are hardly standard alien-blasting locations, but towards the end you get to take on the beasties on their own ship. The stages look...adequate at best. The game was designed with the Expansion Pack in mind, and if you lack one, as I do, trying to look at the game is painful. The infamous 'fuzzy' N64 effect, 2D fire, and snow stages that manage to look leagues worse than those found in Goldeneye(which predates this by a few years) make for an eye-sore.

Sound is passable I guess. The music isn't particularly memorable, but I guess it does a job in that I don't recall any of it being particularly bad. Same goes for sound effects really.

When all is said and done, I really don't think there is much reason for anyone to want to play Armorines: Project S.W.A.R.M. Bungie took the same rough concept and made at least ten-times a better game in the form of Halo, and even if FPS games for the N64 are your vice, seriously, stick to anything but this. Doom 64, Goldeneye and the Duke Nukem titles are all head-and-shoulders better than this waste of time, which other than a few decent ideas, which are essentially rendered void by the sluggish and generally tiresome engine, there really is nothing good to say about the game.

Review also posted on Epinions.com

Summary: A true waste of time, I don't recommend this rubbish to anyone.