Starship Troopers Ultimate Bug War makes me wish more games had FMV cutscenes

Starship Troopers is a film about some 90210-types who slowly get morphed into intergalactic fascists and dead-eyed instruments of war. There are bugs and zero empathy. It is soaked in satire and has the subtlety of a brick through your window, and Starship Troopers Ultimate Bug War manages to turn that dial up a little more.

Propaganda is an integral part of the original movie, with horrific candid video from the frontline used for recruitment purposes, and informercials legitimizing the war on bugs being held up by paper-thin scientific theory. If you want to be a citizen - a good one - you have to enroll and do your duty, which is to kill anything you don't understand, apparently.

Ultimate Bug War puts us right in the middle of this propaganda. It is the propaganda. This game is a recruitment tool, and each horrendous battle just reinforces the importance of enlisting. Lost friends are a motivator, and every human casualty encourages you to fight harder. It is brazen, unashamed - it made me feel itchy just watching it. It fits perfectly.

It's a boomer shooter, which, really, is the perfect format for a thing like this. 2D sprites dance across 3D environments, and while, on the face of it, this looks retro, there are more than a few effects that suggest there's more going on here. The scale of explosions, the number of arachnids rushing you at any one moment - this is retro in look alone, and it's quite good.

I'm introduced to Ultimate Bug War by none other than Johnny Rico himself, scarred both physically and, although I'm sure he would never admit it, mentally, after years of fighting in this seemingly endless war. He talks about the majesty of this fight and introduces us to the game's protagonist: Sammy Dietz.

Ultimate Bug War is Sammy's story, from basic training to full-scale battles, and she is on hand to tell me how majestic each fight was, and how loss of life is a necessity. There is a chillingly hilarious scene where the picture of a dead comrade springs to life and tells us that it's good he died, actually, and how everyone watching this should purchase Ultimate Bug War.

Premium health care is only accessible by putting your life in danger. You can only get a birth licence by putting your life in danger. Your basic human rights are only earned when putting your life in danger. Enlist or be a part of the underclass. It's an honor to die for the Federation, we're told, and they want as many people as humanely possible doing it.

After completing basic training, I'm catapulted straight to the bug home world, and it's about as much of a disaster as in the movie. The levels are mostly open, with a brief flyover at the beginning of each one showing me all of the main points of interest. After that, it's up to me where to go. It could be off securing a train station to get more troops into the fight, or battening the hatches on a makeshift base and repelling an onslaught.

The shooting feels suitably heavy, and there is a huge arsenal at my disposal should I be lucky enough to find what I need in the chaos. There is also a Helldivers-like call-in system whereby I can signal for nukes or strafing runs to thin out the herd. Random infantry soldiers can be recruited into my squad, too, although they tend not to last long - whether they run into my line of fire, or get impaled by a bug, they all die as heroes, I'm told.

It's a tour of Dietz's greatest hits, with bits of FMV conversation in between. The acting feels forced, like someone is off-camera pointing a gun the entire time, but we know there isn't. These people have been hollowed out by the war machine, by the government, and now they want you to get involved too - beat the game, become a citizen. It's a really effective way of telling a story quickly, and in this case, it's perfectly on brand.

Starship Troopers Ultimate Bug War is a curiosity that nails the feel of the first film. It plays much better than it has any right to, and although there isn't much depth to the missions, the reward of another ridiculous FMV was more than enough to keep me hooked. In a world of 80-hour campaigns and high-fidelity visuals, Ultimate Bug War is a throwback that found me at the perfect time. A palette cleanser that left a bad taste in my mouth, but, like, in a good way.