Recent reviews by Frission

Helldivers 2 is a very fun game presenting a pitch-perfect recreation of both Starship Troopers as well as the general attitude of America towards its military in the early 2000s. The gameplay loop is fun and even though you technically do pretty much the same thing over and over again, it never gets boring and keeps its action up 24/7. Furthermore, the gear you get is incredibly fun to interact with, from standard bullet-firing weapons to grenade launchers to mortar cannons to lightning weapons. Its an incredible game that I'm glad I got to play and I commend the developers, Arrowhead Game Studios for all of their hard work.

T̶o̶o̶ ̶b̶a̶d̶ ̶S̶o̶n̶y̶ ̶d̶e̶c̶i̶d̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶u̶t̶i̶l̶i̶z̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶o̶p̶p̶o̶r̶t̶u̶n̶i̶t̶y̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶s̶c̶u̶m̶m̶y̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶p̶e̶r̶ ̶u̶s̶u̶a̶l̶.̶ ̶D̶e̶m̶o̶c̶r̶a̶c̶y̶ ̶d̶i̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶d̶a̶y̶.̶

EDIT: ALL HELLDIVERS TO HELLPODS AND PREPARE FOR LAUNCH. DEMOCRACY PREVAILS.

This game will make you want to punch children and goblins directly in the mouth more than any other game.

This game has the best qualities of some of the best selling games of all time. You can sink hours and hours into it, change your world in a way you can take pride in, its better with friends, and even better with mods made by a thriving mod community. I have no doubt that this game will only get more and more popular over time as the devs develop the game.

Edit: 11/2/2024
While I don't disagree with everything I wrong previously and I still do believe the gameplay is in-line with some of the best games of all time, I think its also worth mentioning that after nearly 1,000 hours of this game, I can say confidently that everything OUTSIDE the actual gameplay strikes me as incredibly poorly optimized if every you try to play with mods, which you basically have to do. Load times both for singleplayer and for multiplayer are atrocious even with a reasonable amount of mods, and the UI for setting up a SP/MP world is also really abysmal the microsecond you try to do something that isn't simply launching a vanilla server. I hope that Build 42 improves upon this game's optimization, especially considering how prevalent the modding community is with this game.

This game gets described as Halo with portals. This is basically accurate, but my feeling is that this could so easily be so much more. They've made something that works, that can't be argued. But its something we've seen before, and I think if this game wants to stay more than just another momentary fad played by streamers until their viewers get bored, then it has to embrace a different path.

Its my belief that the easiest solution would be to immediately shift gears from Halo with portals to Portal with guns, meaning physics and map design that encourages a greater use of portals than just tp'ing across the map or getting a slick angle you can camp from. The rate at which you fall should be increased and maps should be made to embrace verticality and the possibilities that speed can have on firing a decent portal on an angled surface.

The game is good, and I recommend it, but I can't see it lasting much longer unless it changes to come into its own.

The team damage sound was burned into my mind long before this was a steam game.

Admittedly this was my first Metal Gear game. I think if this were just a game of a stealthy blind one-armed man fighting the Russians in Afghanistan or Arizona or wherever this game was set, it would've made much more sense.

I think there's really 2 things about this game that makes it just work: atmosphere and simplicity. The premise and mechanics of this game are dead simple to understand after even a few runs. Go out, find clues, narrow down where the bounty target is, kill it, take the bounty, leave. There are others that wish to eliminate the competition and hunt you down if you get the bounty. Avoid things that might expose your location to those around you or that might end up killing you.

And filling in the gaps between those basic tenets is the seamless atmosphere. Once you're in-game, there's very few popups or notifications telling you much at all, meaning you can get deeply immersed in the game's setting and sharp sound design. This isn't intended to be a game you go running and gunning in while listening to music. Its a game you play slowly, stealthily, or briefly aggressively if you so choose.

I'll put it simply. If you're looking for an immersive open-world RPG that has a compelling story and (mostly) tonally consistent side-quest story, then this ain't it. If you're looking for a world that seems dynamic and alive, affected by your choices and that gives you the sense that the decisions you made during character creation will meaningfully impact the direction the game takes throughout, then this ain't it.

Setting aside the bugs that were present at launch and the many that still persist, because this game is being and will be fixed over time (not that that should excuse their existence in the first place), the game's story, tone, and immersion simply do not meet the standard that I believe we have come to expect, were led to believe, and that we know is possible from games like this.

Very fun game with high replay value. Companion system is probably the best one ever created in the history of mankind. Your pawns will run into fountains and then complain that they're completely soaked.

8/10 fun game

This game is quite good because I can play as a middle-aged italian woman shooting the grenades in Nazis' grenade belts, and then convincing their fellow soldiers that there is no threat and it was all just a small motor going 'putt-putt' 300 meters away.

9/10 molto bene