When Starship Troopers became a big hit, Acclaim wanted to cash in on its success. Instead of trying to work out a licensing deal, they looked at their comic catalogue and realised one of them was a sci-fi marine comic. The comic didn’t contain bug-like aliens, so they invented new ones for the game. Running on the same engine (and controls) as Turok 2, it seemed like a recipe for success.

But Acclaim didn’t seem to pay attention to why Starship Troopers was successful: personality. The film took some very dry source material and made it into something special. Armorines, on the other hand, is utterly devoid of personality.

The bugs in Armorines aren’t scary. They don’t react to gunshots like enemies in Turok and they don’t act in any smart kind of way. As a result, killing them isn’t satisfying, which is a major issue in an FPS game. There are different types, but it generally means that bigger ones need more shots to go down.

The weapons don’t help matters, either, as there’s nothing quite as fun as the weapons in the Turok games. Selecting weapons is also unintuitive. You hold A and move the control stick in a direction – the same as the great weapons wheel previously used in Turok games. Except there’s no weapons wheel. You press different directions to cycle to different groups of weapons, meaning you have to memorise the direction and order of the weapons. Not that it matters much, as you’re going to be using the default weapon – a shotgun if you pick the male character, or the much more useful machine gun if you pick the female character – most of the time anyway.

While the default gun certainly has advantages, such as having infinite ammo (as opposed to very limited ammo for other guns) and being good enough to handle most enemies, their main use isn’t for killing enemies. It’s for the ability to see.

Many areas of Armorines are extremely dark. Again, this doesn’t make the game scary, it just makes it hard to see. You can get IR goggles to see enemies clearer, but they don’t help a lot in navigating the confusing levels. So, most of the time you’ll be firing your gun just to have a light source, because your futuristic super special power armour doesn’t have a torch. This is the main reason why the machine gun is better than the shotgun.

It’s a shame, as Armorines had a very solid foundation and inspiration – the gameplay of Turok 2 was great, and the satire nature of Starship Troopers could potentially have worked well for a video game. Unfortunately, many aspects – such as the weapons, enemy AI, their reaction to being shot, and any personality – are downgrades, and it ends up being a game that is functionally fine, but is really dull.

Fine

Which makes the weaponary that much more disapointing, especially as there’s an obvious lack of Turok 2-style visual splendour. They do the job and they’re a splendidly varied bunch – form the oddness of the Staff of Ra to the baby bug-firing alien arm – it’s just that they’re almost completely devoid of spectacle. The rocket launcher, for example, produces a weedy-looking explosion, the Staff of Ra a mild blue shockwave, and the grenade launcher appears to fires peas. There’s no oomph, no performance, not enough meat on the bones.

Jes Bickham, N64 Magaizne #37. Review Score: 76%

Remake or remaster?

Despite its flaws, it would be nice to see this running on Nightdive’s Turok 2 engine. The darkness could be fixed, and more satisfying enemy AI and reactions could be added – they could even add a bit of personality with some new cutscenes and dialogue. I doubt that it would sell enough to make doing that profitable, but there’s a solid foundation to work from.

Official Ways to get the game

There’s no official way to play Armorines: Project S.W.A.R.M.