The German team over at DnS Development released Booster Trooper onto Steam several months ago, and the DIYgamer team has been playing the game off and on ever since. With updates to the game dropping every other week, featuring gameplay tweaks, new maps and more, it seems to be in an ever-changing state of development. Every time we want to release our review, a new update drops so we’ve been at this game for a while.

Booster Trooper is a 2D multiplayer arena game in which you control a Trooper equipped with a variety of deadly weapons and grenades, as well as a jet pack with a short recharge time. With up to twelve players on each map, bodies explode into a bloody pulp left and right. The biggest problem facing the game is the lack of players populating the game’s servers.

Gameplay

The general flow of the game is quite simple and easy to pick up. When a match begins, you select the basic appearance of your Trooper from a short list of genders and colors, then select one of six main weapons, two backup weapons, and two grenade types.

Once your selections are made, you’re thrown into one of several spawn points located in various areas of the map. Using a simple selection of left, right, down to duck, and up to jet into the sky, you then compound your movements by using your mouse to aim your cursor at whatever you want to die next. Hit detection is quite accurate, as especially noted by the satisfying explosions caused by taking down opponents with the sniper rifle. The rocket launcher is known to also cause a similar satisfying smile.

Here’s James Bishop’s take on Booster Trooper’s Gameplay:

“Booster Trooper is one of those games that has a hauntingly similar gameplay to other more venerated games—Soldat was tossed around a few times in our session—and it takes what they did right and compounds it to form an even better composite. You have the option of a number of different types of games, Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and Capture the Flag, and can play as a male or female avatar covered in a color of your choice.

Even though this type of gameplay has been done and done again prior to this, Booster Trooper somehow still manages to feel fresh. You fly about on jetpacks, hence the booster in the title, that regenerate fuel over time. The levels are multi-tiered and allow for hilarious mid-air collisions filled with blood and gore. Though the choice of weapons is limited and the powerups feel way too, well, powerful, the game is still a solid little shooter experience.”

Erik Johnson had the following aspects to add to the review:

“I found it to be a fun 2D multiplayer title; intuitive controls though at times a little touchy. In free-for-all slayer mode it was a bit distressing to know that most weapon power-ups available for pick-up generally packed one-hit killshots and the water pistol you spawned in with didn’t stand a chance against those who held them, though grenades did something to balance that. The Capture the Flag mode was great and I actually found them more engaging because of the teamwork and chase situations that would be set-up by the objective.

Weapons and health were easy to identify, the maps and character models were very colorful, but never so much that it interfered with playing the game. The servers ran well and didn’t suffer from noticeable lag spikes during our sessions.”

Geoff Gibson notes:

“Booster Trooper is a game that reminds me of the old freeware game Soldat, released back in 2002. Both are side scrolling arena shooters. Both have some sort of jetpack for flying. And both offer various weapons combined with various modes. Unfortunately, as you can tell, Booster Trooper does little to differentiate itself from Soldat in any meaningful way aside from offering similar features, for a higher price ($0 for Soldat, $10 for Booster Trooper).

Additionally, where Soldat continues to have a robust community, aside from my fellow DIYgamer editors, I believe we may have stumbled across one other person in our first 2-ish hour Booster Trooper game session.

Although that’s not to say it was all bad, certainly the fact that Booster Trooper developers DNS Development have been constantly updating the game with bug fixes and new maps helps the situation a bit. Also, when you are together with a group of friends the game can become a lot of fun.”

Style

Booster Trooper features solid 2D graphics set in a 3D world. Maps have depth and scope, although all of the gameplay takes place on the two-dimensional plane. With all of the additions to the map selections, there is quite a selection of environments to choose from. Each one looks unique, and DnS have put time into the level design in order to maximize the gameplay’s success. There are nooks to avoid bullets, huge drops to get away from chain guns, and overall lots of places to chase each other.

James had a few additional comments to make about the Style as well:

“The game is smooth all around. The levels are interesting, have neat little twists and turns without being too complicated, and the perspective of the camera makes sure that you notice that the background isn’t just a platform but is actually rendered in three dimensions.

Though there is a sniper rifle, don’t expect to see much further beyond the little square that your character exists within. It can be a bit frustrating to find another player at times but usually you can just follow the sound of bullets, explosions and boosting.”

Story

You have opponents, kill them. Well, that’s not technically a story, but that’s what’s implied in this narrative-less game.

Everything Else

Booster Trooper’s biggest setback is its lack of a consistent community. Recently DnS had a free weekend event over Steam and the servers were chock full of fraggers. I had a blast upping my kill count and watching as other players groaned in frustration as I made using the sniper rifle look easy (so says me).

But with the free event over, at $9.99 you run the risk of picking up a game where you’re only experience is going to be battling bots (who improved significantly in their AI from when we started playing Booster Trooper up through August).

If the game had a bustling amount of players battling at any given time, I would have no qualms recommending this game as a must-own 2D frag fest. But until more people play it and stay playing it, it’s easy to forget how fun this game is when there’s nobody to play it with.

I was never a Soldat player, so I’m not one to draw that comparison. But if you’ve read the other editors’ takes, it’s an easy one to make for those who have played it.

From the look of things, DnS Development has no plans for slowing down their updates. If this dedication to the game can draw a great player base, you’ll find me in the front lines reloading my sniper rifle.

Geoff had the following to say to wrap up:

“In the end, though, I have a hard time recommending a game that costs money over a game that is free when the latter offers more, has a larger community, and is generally just more fun that it’s illegitimate offspring.”

And here’s Erik’s final take on the game:

“If you need a break from the high-end graphics FPS but still enjoy the multiplayer experience of dominating your friends or complete strangers, the game certainly has something to offer.”

You can get Booster Trooper for $9.99 at the Steam Store, or get a four pack for $29.99.

[DnS Development provided DIYgamer with four copies of the game for multiplayer review purposes. This in no way affected the outcome of the review.]