Recent reviews by Setner

Love it!

Finally, a proper GOTY meal. Bon appétit🐀🍲

No fishing. My disappointment is immeasurable

No fishing. My disappointment is immeasurable

Я не поленился и зашел проверить. Дейстивтельно ли я помню игру такой, какой она на самом деле была? Да все так же заебись, все так же весело и все так же хорошо ощущается импакт от смерти мобов.

Больно. Реально больно видеть, как можно было взять Painkiller и выжечь из него всё, за что его любили.
Импакт от стрельбы исчез. Коломёт не чувствуется вообще, дробовик будто стреляет ватой. Ни звука, ни отдачи, ни удовольствия.
Можно было поменять сюжет, атмосферу, добавить кооп, хоть клоунов ввести и это бы схвали. Но нельзя взять и просрать смешной регдол моба, когда ты прибиваешь его к стенке. Это была душа игры.
Теперь её просто нет. Рефанд.

Guys, the game is awesome! 🔥 Please add macOS support - would love to play it on my Mac ❤️❤️❤️

Ультра норм

Достичь-собраться-взаимодействовать

There's this cool story about Paul Verhoeven, the director of "Starship Troopers," supposedly saying: "I wanted to make a film so painfully obvious in its satire that everyone who understands it lives in endless psychological torment created by all those who don't get it." When Helldivers 2 came out, directly inspired by "Starship Troopers" both aesthetically and politically, it became clear that the same fate awaited it as the film: satire wouldn't hit the mark as many expected.

Just like in the movie, in Helldivers 2, human civilization hits a critical stage of development and starts cosmic expansion, literally spreading "democracy." For this, the government needs fresh recruits, Hell Divers, which they recruit at accelerated rates, hilariously mocked in the tutorial: according to official data from Super Earth, the average age of Hell Divers is 18.7 years, combat readiness is 27.1%, and their overall loss rate is 76.4%. Essentially, they're teenagers turned cannon fodder, just like in the movie.

After brief training, recruits, without asking too many questions, are sent to planets in their capsules to "spread democracy." The government constantly bombards Hell Divers with select propaganda, prohibiting them from questioning official narratives.

Bugs, actually bred for oil production, are portrayed as horrible and bloodthirsty enemies of humanity. And the automatons, direct descendants of the cyborgs from the first installment who rebelled against the enslavement of Super Earth, are depicted as mindless and bloodthirsty killing machines, programmed for murder (oh, the irony).

In general, the context is pretty clear: an extremely militarized and technologically advanced dictatorship with an inflated military budget, waging expansive wars, conducting powerful propaganda, and suppressing any dissent, sending its citizens to slaughter in huge numbers. In other words, like in "Starship Troopers," it's a kind of fascism.

Developers, on the other hand, cleverly reveal the potential of the service model: they produce a story, constantly adding new events, new goals for war, and fueling "in-game propaganda." Interestingly, developers communicate with the audience just like the government communicates with Hell Divers. So essentially, Helldivers 2 now is a real big war within the virtual space. And the game developers are its main ideologists.

On the expanses of gaming communities, real politics unfold: some explain why Super Earth should stop genocide, exposing the state's lies and contradictions. Others lean towards fascism and justify genocide, repeating official narratives.

Just like in the case of "Starship Troopers," there are people who want the game to be apolitical because "it's just a shooter about killing bugs." The desire to be apolitical is, first and foremost, a desire not to think about what's happening. So, ironically, such players in some ways become real Hell Divers: they just kill and don't think. I'll go even further and say: they become real soldiers.

Do the defenders of Super Earth "not understand satire"? Understanding satire means, first of all, agreeing that what it ridicules is bad. And here comes the scariest expectation gap: some people don't think fascism is bad, find many justifications for it, or are simply ready to ignore it.

So Helldivers 2 is real eye-opening art, exposing the contradictions and tensions of society. After all, if satire on fascism is met with great misunderstanding, it's high time to realize the real political context in which we find ourselves and think about its sources.