Recent reviews by the great rat

EDIT: Sony walked back their PSN requirement. It was a scummy move, but it's been taken back and so this game is officially recommendable again. Democracy wins once again

I bought this game on Feb. 9th. It is now Feb. 12th at the time of writing this review. I have put ~29 hours into this game. That means that over the past 72 hours, I've logged 40% of them playing Helldivers 2. If that isn't a testament to how ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ good this game is, maybe the fact that it launched with Mixed reviews (due to plentiful server issues) and then QUICKLY ramped up to 70%+ Positive with 100k+ concurrent players will be. The game is so damn good that DESPITE having entirely inconsistent servers (which, at the time of writing is still a WIP), it still captivated it's audience.

Helldivers 2 is primarily a game about struggle. Progression is almost entirely horizontal. Even though your arsenal of orbital and aerial bombardments gets more intense, it's never to such a degree as to make the content trivial. You will be rushed, you will be overwhelmed, and you will die. It is the perfect example of "making the most of a bad situation".

I can tell already this review is going to be pretty wordy, so I'll try to be short from here on. The graphics are amazing. The style is great. The enemies are varied and deadly. The objectives are extremely varied, with tons of random, unique modifiers to change things up. The writing is hilarious (a real upgrade for an orbital gun is the invention of rear-loaded rounds. YOUR GUNS ON YOUR SPACESHIP ARE LOADED FROM THE BARREL). It's extremely, extremely fun and it can't be overstated by how much.

The servers are a mess right now, the developers are aware, and it's a work in progress. If I had to guess, within a few days to a week it'll be working great. There are definitely bugs, some of which are really frustrating to deal with (sometimes not getting mission credit for instance), but the absolute joy and panic of the gameplay is enough to make it all worth it.

I wish I could talk more about the gameplay itself, because I really think the design of certain mechanics is totally genius, but it'd really end up being way longer than anyone wants to read (as if it's not already). Just trust me that it is gloriously built, through and through, and is absolutely worth $40 and absolutely worth your time.

TL;DR - If you enjoy Destiny 2, Starship Troopers, Star Wars, Warhammer 40K, or really any other sci-fi action/shooter game, you are doing yourself a complete disservice by not playing this game as soon as you are able.

Ukulele go nuts