"Big Bugs, Big Deal"

Obviously inspired by the film Starship Troopers, Armorines: Project Swarm for the N64 is a below average first person shooter which runs on what looks like the Turok 2 game engine. Acclaim's London studio did the work on this one, and the game does a pretty decent job of putting you in the boots and armor of one of two badass bug killers. But the game ends up being little more than a collection of huge, mostly dark maze levels with far too many dull moments despite all the blasting going on. Here's a game that needs a big shot of Verhoeven, badly! Acclaim should have simply bought the license and done a game based on the film instead of a derivative, not as exciting shooter that will only impress those looking for another game to run about in and shoot stuff up.

To begin with, the game has some of the blandest intro screens I've ever seen. There's no opening movie to set the story up, just a static screen with the game's title and options. I could forgive this if the game had a great opening afterward, but fire up the game and you're treated to MORE static screens, with tiny type scrolling up telling you what needs to be done during a particular mission. This is really boring to say the least, and if anything, gives the game a rushed to market feel. Even some really bad games have neat cinemas to entertain those unlucky enough to plunk down the hard-earned bucks for the displeasure of playing them, so the omission of an opening movie here is a big no-no. After the first level the game does have some short movies, but you'll simply wonder why the developers left out a proper intro!

You can choose between a male and female soldier, but other than weapons and running speed there's not much difference between them. Er, except that the woman sounds very much like a man when she takes damage. And oddly enough, the guy can blast open boxes to obtain items the gal can't, but I really don't see the purpose in this other than to give players an excuse to either play the game over, or perhaps go at it in the co-op mode. Which, by the way is well-done, but tactically, it's definitely not in the same class as the N64 version of Rainbow Six. There's a multiplayer game as well, but it's also so-so considering the other choices out there. Despite using the Turok-style controls, the characters move very stiffly and you'll have a hard time getting a bead on even the biggest bugs with the odd targeting. There's also almost no spread damage from weapons, which is annoying when you consider the types of weapons you'll find and use throughout the game.

The game box also boasts of how ''smart'' the bugs are, but the AI in Armorines generally consists of bugs popping up out of the ground or leaping out at you after you trigger a specific event. Case in point: early on, while looking for a scientist to open a door for you (why not just blow it up?), you come across a couple of very dark rooms that have you shooting through the windows at cocoons inside them. Once you do this, a bug screeches and comes after you from around a corner. After doing this twice, I decided to just enter the next room through the door and deal with the darn thing up close and personal. As I arrived at the door, I noticed that my crosshairs were going wild, so I pointed them down at the corner of the doorway and saw a bug waiting for it's cue! I started blasting away, but strangely, none of my shots hit- they all passed through the damn bug, who just sat there bobbing up and down like a character in a 1920's cartoon. Not good.

Also not good is having players navigate massive levels with just three bugs to shoot onscreen most of the time. Sometimes you'll get five bugs but the game slows down pretty badly when this happens- nasty. You'll also run across the occasional swarm of mini-bugs (a nice scare once in a while), and nearly unbeatable flame-spitting bugs. I hated these guys the most, as there's usually some fierce blasting needed to get rid of them, and they always seem to show up after you've wandered about in the dark, wasting ammo looking for hidden areas and such. By then you're tired, just want to find the exit and leave that particular level, perhaps even quit playing and have a nice bowl of tomato soup and a sandwich, hmmm? But, nooooo- some big, hard to kill monstrosity is waiting to ruin your day and turn YOU into soup! You can't even save the game mid-level, another crime, as this means loads of restarts should you bite it (or get bitten) mid-mission. Actually, thanks to some clever programming, there seems to be an endless supply of some of the larger bugs, but this just gets annoying as it forces you to run about searching for safe spots, rather than stand and fight!

Graphically, Armorines ranges from adequate to way too dark, and you'll often find yourself running about bumping into boxes and other stuff because you just can't see a damn thing. Even firing off a high powered weapon doesn't help much, as all you're doing is wasting precious ammo. The light sourcing is weak at best, and even the most powerful explosives only light up areas for a split second. The game tries to borrow from Half-Life, in the way that bugs and bodies explode into spinning chunks, but this grows tired after the second or third level. Like the Turok games, the level design here consists of large and confusing to navigate areas, and the third area seems like it was cut from a Turok game, with similar stone temples and rising pillars.

The game also supports the Expansion Pak, which is a BIG help- run it in the hi-resolution letterbox mode, and don't go back. Lo-res mode will have your eyes tired and bulging from their sockets after about 15 minutes (the Playstation port is much worse, with it's grainier textures and graphic glitches). The music here is flat out weird- it sounds as if they used leftover Turok tracks, and they don't fit the action at all. The sound effects are fine, but shooting a wall or certain bugs will produce the same sort of sound, which comes off as both weird and bad at the same time.

Why spend so much ink on a game that I dislike? I guess that deep down, Armorines: Project Swarm appealed to me on a testosterone-fueled, ''destroy all the bugs'' sort of level. But this was superceded greatly by a ''need to have a much better attempt at a 3D shooter'' sort of level instead. Rent this one first, and if you can deal with the intense darkness of the levels and the sometimes unclear mission objectives it throws at you, more power to you. As for me, I'm going to watch a movie instead... Starship Troopers, anyone?

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 01/08/03, Updated 01/08/03