Vanquish Is the Starship Troopers of Video Games

Soldiers shuffle about the deck of a massive spacecraft and hurry into numerous transport vehicles. Gunfire and explosions rock the landscape. A man with an iron fist proclaims, "Come on, you apes! Do you want to live forever!"

No, this isn't Starship Troopers, but director Paul Verhoeven's satirical twist on the Robert Heinlein sci-fi novel of the same title isn't that far from the truth: Platinum Games's Vanquish similarly strikes a balance between feel-good action and an ironic spin on video-game narrative tropes.

Just as the Mobile Infantry's battle against the Arachnid menace serve as "safe" violent entertainment, the robotic "Reds" (the chief catalyst for the narrative is The Russia Federation on Earth, who seize control of their government and assault the city of San Francisco in a preemptive strike) similarly sanitize violence. After all, machine enemies are just as easily dehumanized as the bugs in Starship Troopers.

Nationalism and jingoism further cement the striking parallels between the two works. Whereas fascist-laden propaganda compels high-school graduate Johnnie Rico to enlist for full citizenship rights, Vanquish's fictional U.S. president, Elizabeth Winters, echoes George W. Bush when she says, "we will not negotiate with those who wish to destroy us" and "our strength is unmatched -- our will, resolute. We will be victorious!"

But just as Starship Troopers doesn't quite take the action motif seriously (as evidenced in the Federal Network propaganda's blatantly silly overtones: "Would you like to know more?"), Vanquish also knows how to poke fun at genre tropes.

This is never more obvious than when Elena Ivanova, who provides mission support remotely, describes how the Crystal Viper, who bears a striking resemblance to Street Fighter 4's Seth and Frank Fontaine's final form in Bioshock, is nearly impervious to standard ballistics. Protagonist Sam Gideon replies, "Hmph. This is starting to sound like a bad video game."

But a bad video game Vanquish is not. Because like Verhoeven's satirical spin on the action film, Platinum Games's latest is a solid shooter that gets right to the point: Vanquish ditches drawn out and convoluted narrative a la Gears of War for a deep combat system with meaningful risk-and-reward gameplay.

The explosive tromp through a Russian-controlled superweapon is light-hearted and exciting -- not unlike watching a band of fascists mow down gigantic bugs on an alien world. While I think we need forward-looking titles like Heavy Rain or Demon's Souls, Vanquish serves a role, too. I'd sorely miss Starship Troopers if every film was Citizen Kane.

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Rob Savillo

November 19, 2010

David, if we want to draw further direct comparisons, I would say Vanquish is to Gears of War as Verhoeven's Starship Troopers is to Heinlein's.

Dan "Shoe" Hsu

Haha, great headline!

David King

At first I thought that we were talking about the Heinlein novel, and I was slowly going ballistic from pent up WTF. Ironically, most of what was mocked in the movie was delivered with dead seriousness in the book (and, to defend Heinlein despite the fact that I certainly didn't agree with his every message, he makes most of his points with a certain brutal elegance, which just goes to show that just because people are intelligent doesn't meant they'll agree on anything).

All stories draw inspiration from other works, and I think we can make the case that most video games already channel elements of Starship Troopers and Aliens.

In regards to Vanquish specifically, I think its similarities to Verhoeven's Troopers is a strength in the game's overall artistic expression.

Jay Henningsen

I notice that you point out so many similarities, but you avoid calling this game a wholesale rip-off. Is there anything you can say to convince me that the game designers didn't look at the movie version of Starship Troopers and say, "Let's make a proper game out of that, but make it different enough that we can't be sued."?

Note, I'm not saying the game is bad, but as you've pointed out, it seems awfully familiar.

Indeed, Jay. I've only scratched the surface here -- the comparisons go much deeper. For instance, both the Starship Troopers film and Vanquish use a surprise attack as justification for full-scale conflict: In Troopers, the Arachnids attack Rico's hometown of Buenos Aires, which is quite similar to the Russian assault on San Francisco.

And we also have the obvious parallels between Robert Burns (pictured above), the commanding officer of Bravo Company, and Lieutenant Jean Rasczak. Not only do both sport mechanical prosthetics, but they each push the same type of "survival of the fittest" concepts from fascist ideology.

What's interesting between the book and the film, though, is that Heinlein took himself very seriously, while Verhoeven completely deconstructs the novel's main ideas and exposes them as ridiculous. I think Vanquish approaches common video-game narrative in the same way.

This is interesting considering that Starship Troopers (at least the book version) was considered a forum for Heinlein to express his anti-communist views. Vanquish essentially drops all pretense and has you fighting actual communists.