PC game review: They could give it so much better

What is it with 1997's Starship Troopers that we love? Is it the bugs (NOT arachnids! Who got that horrid, not to mention biologically inaccurate, idea)? Is it the guns? Is it the action? If so, the 2005 PC game's got all three.
But is it enough? Sadly, no.
When I played the FPS game it seemed so fun despite the relatively bad graphics and voice acting. What could be more fun than ploughing through thousands and thousands of giant bugs after your blood?
I hit upon the answer. Doing it with fellow characters you care about, solid people with personalities instead of generic plasma/mandible/tanker fodder. That's what made the film so darn good--characters who interact, who fight, who bond. You eventually begin to really care for Rico & Co., and the bugs are just excuses, excuses for the characters to do something and get killed off in gruesome ways. In fact, you could replace them with marauding humanoid aliens or modern-day terrorists or WW2 Japanese soldiers a la Windtalkers and nothing much would've changed.
That said, the game can be summed up with the Franz Ferdinand album title You Could Have It So Much Better. Characterisation, the key that made the movie so darn good, is missing for the most part (an early attempt of making your character look like a badass s.o.b. of a soldier just falls flat).
And what is it with the cutscenes? This game is supposedly set five years after the movies, but they all come direct from the films themselves! Let's all say with F.E.A.R.'s archvillain Paxton Fettel, "Is it Hesperus? Is it Klathandu? It makes no difference." Add a horribly underpowered rocket launcher, and you've got a generous dash of fun-spoiling.

So much for the bad--on to the good. There's quite a lot of good stuff here, even if you have to revisit the quickload screen many, many times.
For one, I love the Mk. 4 rifle. Unlimited ammo and a grenade launcher--cool! And the shotgun's one of the best renderings I've ever seen in a game. Half-Life 2 and Halo's can't hold a candle to this awesome beast. The mission variety involves much more than just ploughing through bugs, rinse and repeat; it's got to be seen to be believed. Save a compound from bug invasion. Take out those big bad plasmas and save the fleet. And is your own side really what it seems? The story's quite well done, although, like I said, a Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault-style squad would've made kicking bug butt so much more fun and crucial.
On the technical side, I think I understated the graphical quality. Enemy rendering is excellent, with bugs in yellow, green, chrome and black. Developer Strangelite has done a great job... but need we neglect friendly modelling? It's not just generic grunts; these guys' lips don't even move when they talk!
In short, Starship Troopers has many redeeming features, though it's still pretty frustrating. I'd recommend it if you've $50 to burn.

Some additional comments: (WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD)

-- What is it that you need a special dropship all to yourself?
-- Why aren't the grunt dropships armed to clear landing zones? You'd think in the far future they'd have solved that problem. (We have; gunships and helicopter-mounted cannons.)
-- Why are infantry sent to clear large land areas when a strategic airstrike would've done the same thing?
-- What's wrong with the Fleet? One person's sent into a bug party with no artillery or air support; again, are we really that much stupider than the bugs are? (They have plasmas, hello? What do we have?)
-- Your pilot talks big for someone who's nothing more than a glorified taxi driver. Why isn't she shot down so you can rescue her and provide a little characterisation? Would've helped the game a lot.
-- Overall, the tactics and technological level are very Korean War-era. That's forgivable given Robert A. Heinlein wrote ST in 1959. But you'd think this far ahead of him we'd have wised up.

END OF SPOILERS

Overall score: 6.5 (out of 10)