Recent reviews by Toanir

Hopefully this game will live to see another day without the need of unnecessary PSN accounts.
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After my initial excitement fell off a bit, I can say that the game is rather pleasant but quite under-baked. DO YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE?

Helldivers 2 has lots of positively good ingredients, ranging from assets such as music, sound effects or graphics through the general mood which is at first glance Super serious yet quite goofy, just like the first one. I can't get enough of the famfair of the buildup before the mission and of the tense while doing the foot-work of liberating planets and the positive or vainful departure from the surface.

I don't consider myself a gun-freak but the guns feel genuinely fun even though they aren't by any means overpowered against the hordes of enemies. Since you face enemies face to face, you are given more granular control over how your weapon behaves via weapon menu allowing you to choose mode of shooting (auto, burst, semi) zoom level when aiming down the scope or other attachments behaviour. Me likeyyy.

I've had success getting into only a handful of multiplayer sessions as the initial launch is suffering from massive matchmaking issues and there is quite a noticeable amount of crashes too. I'm hoping for a quick fix but it's worth rather thorough consideration as of now.

Those attempts were of various co-op qualities ranging from uncoordinated bombardment spams to wholesome voice-com accompanied butter-smooth bug-smashing sessions.

When going in solo, you're left off with the rather slow unlock system where a new weapon may severely turn the tides of a match. An interesting change is that instead of a specific gear for self (as seen in the first Helldiverss game) you choose a boost for the whole squad and I can see interesting synergies raising from such options.

Beware that other than that, the glue that puts all of this together feels very grindy and shallow. The first war is in it's early stages but as of now, there seems to be only a few stratagems worthwhile (for a solo missions) and most of my time I've been spending against bugs. Currently we know of only one other faction - the bots - which I'll need more time getting used to and as of now it feels like your typical third person shooter. More to be said when I find my way to try a non-crashing multiplayer missions.

All in all, the game launch is a bit disappointing but I have high hopes that the technological bugs can get squished soon and that hopefully the content will grow over time similarly to the fashion of the first Helldivers' installation.

Supporter III Upgrade when?

1-2-3 let's cause a vermin-cide. I have mixed feelings about this one but with one eye closed, I think it's mostly attractive and very well worth looking into.

--- The iffy

Lots of this game's replayibility sauce comes from RNG and stuff you can't really control other than by grinding. Things like equipment or its stats and traits are assigned at random and you can only re-roll them into "something else" if you've obtained high enough number at specific crafting material counters.

The progression consists of grinding for boxes with random equipment and for difficulty-independent constant XP rewards. You can boost the rewards a little bit by taking upon increased challenge in each mission. Upon gaining levels on individual characters you gain "hero power" boosts, talent points and new weapons. This is IMHO utterly unnecessary and only delays the inevitable. On top of that once you've "progressed" or reached the max number, this grind fuel is depleted and there's quite nothing to progress to.

There are a lot of moving parts in this game that tend to overwhelm new players and only serve as a steep learnrning curve without really telling player that they're there and teaching the player why they want to interact with them. The only immediatelly apparent thing, at least for me, is that it's a lot about grinding.
The challenges in missions are also constant and well hidden and once player learns about them, they are pretty much only a chore for each and single run of a mission.

--- The good

While all of the above reeks of repetition and grindset, the gameplay and battle capabilities themselves are pretty enticing. In order to be able to effectively complete missions, you learn how to battle-dance with various enemies and groups in 20 to 40 minute long missions sprinkled with occasional supplies making you also learn to be well versed in resource management.

Each mission can be played in ramping difficulties unlockable through increasing your hero power. The only difference I've noticed is that the world throws more enemies on you at same time, is more punishing for making mistakes and less forgiving in not offering you as many breathers and restorative items.

If you know you want to play it or if you are willing to accept the grind part of the game, it can grow on you with its gameplay mechanics and gritty characters. To me, it took several hours of playtime and wiki-browsing to learn how grindy it's gonna be and to make peace with that. I stayed for the battling and dancing fueled by the grind in hordes of enemies which is pretty satisfying once you get the hang of it.

My last few cents are to mention the in-game store through which you can use Shillings, currency obtainable through in-game challenges, and human-world currency to buy cosmetics. Imho it's a fair feature if you could get the game in a good deal (-100% for me).

--- The alternative

Imho the unlock system could be replaced by taking on something like "teaching assignments" where you could choose your path and potentialy examine, what you are about to unlock.
The hero power system could be entirely dropped as it essentially leads to everything and everyone ending up on an arbitrary max-value and anything else is plainly less efficient - the game offers no variety in this area through, for example, different equipment builds.

PS: The one eye closed was not a Saltzpyre nod; this is: <|°-)

Oldie but goodie. Feels just like how I remember it on PS1.

All hail the Lamb!

This thing got some key things right for me, be it the mix of cutesy community with dark cult or the smooth entanglement of progression with encampment expansion. Maybe it was the fighting mechanics, where you don't get to steer the wheel of your destiny but only nudge the direction by choices of weapons and curses. The adversity was pretty interesting too with the four bishops doing their things, revealing their stances and occult history.
I'm pretty sure it was all of the above and the simple nature of all of the game. All the game parts were pretty fair and easy to understand but tough to master.

Now be warned, even the lamb isn't flawless and has some bugs around it. I've met most at later point in game, starting around days 65+. I think the save file got too big and I've got choppy performance and unnatural occurings at the cult settlement.

Well here I am, with 20 hours in 3 sessions feeling quite joyed by what this game offered. If you aren't affraid of some bugs I welcome you to try and bring up your own cult - it's full of surprises.

Get shamed for your length. 5/7 would put it in again

This game has character. It's character is Rock and Stone!

Peculiar little platformer with entertaining puzzles and thrilling combat. It's a bit shame that the first book ended so soon.

The controls are relatively easy to pick up except for one part with shooting where it was difficult to translate the Vive controller hints to my Knuckle controllers and I learned to use the other thumbstick the hard way by going crazy with all the buttons until something worked. :D
I've also met a drift-like behavior which led me to several awkward deaths and only later I learned that this is caused by leaving xbox controller plugged in.

These were but a few technical issues which, in the end, didn't stop me from enjoying the compelling atmosphere of this adventure of unlikely hero.

This game did not do it for me. It looks pretty nice and it completely sold me on the trailer which arranged together the best parts. I found out that the other stuff in between and some of those glorious trailer scenes, when actually played through, were quite uninteresting to me.

The examination of the Finch family tree was oddly pleasant and I like Ediths take on all that but in the end, most of the stories felt like darwin award contests and it saddened me how the rest of the family treated the only apparently sane Edin.

I don't regret going through it as it wasn't exactly bad but I am pretty sure I wouldn't go through it again.

Picked it up for the chills, stayed for the challenge

Lofi Ping Pong has very unforgiving timing frames which made me realize that I'm not all that good at pressing a key in a regular frequency but the setting of locations and matching songs and rather pleasant "fail-retry" cycle made me pick up the slack and pull through.

I'm curious about the custom songs feature