Helldivers II: First Impressions

A little late, as always, but believe me when I say I’ve been playing a lot of Helldivers 2 recently. And this is more than just hype. This game is good. Really good. It’s the online co-op game we’ve needed for a long time. As with most of these online multiplayer focused games, I don’t think it’s right to score it yet, even if it would merit a great score at this point. But I will tell you what’s great about this game and why you should consider giving it a shot.

I am a highly conformist, super trooper death machine and I love it.

High Quality Vision, High Quality Execution

It’s easy to say that a great concept with great execution is common in the mainstream. But, rarely is it done this well, especially in what is, in many ways, a sort of debut. Yes, there was an original Helldivers released in 2015. But that was almost 10 years ago, and it was a top down game. Mechanically similar perhaps, but still very different from a 3rd person shooter. However, Helldivers 2 shows no signs of amateurism in it’s design or game loop and it’s camera and gameplay feel very precise. This may be a “AA” game with a $40 price tag, but it’s so polished and fundamentally sound that it’s vastly superior than many “AAA” games out now.

The mechanics and systems of the game are smooth and intuitive, while still remaining complex enough to keep gamers strategizing and being creative. There’s 3 forms of currency, each one being used for different things. The mission structure is well explained and conducive to all types of concepts, from simple “blow up this thing/kill this” to “destroy this base, then recover this cache, then claim this resource.” There’s side objectives that are easily findable, but definitively optional.

The UI is elegant and simple, with a good blend of aesthetic choices that feel as it they allude to classic sci-fi games while also doing their own thing. In general this is a very pretty game, much more appealing to look at all around than many bigger games. It reminds me of Rogue One, with it’s gritty yet gorgeous war focused palette. It also works seamlessly with the engine. Fire is bright and burns for a while, blood splatters and stays on your character. Buildings get blow up, creating ruins. It’s a ridiculously immersive game world that gives a sense of levity to every moment you spend in it, from the breezy “Trivial” difficulty missions, to the absolutely bonkers “Helldiver” difficulty ones.

An underrated element of the game’s design is its talent for streamlined storytelling. There’s not direct plot, but there’s a lot of immersion required to get the most out of this game. The whole thing is basically a satire of the invasion of Iraq set in space. There’s a lot of context that is implied. You play as “Helldivers”, who are basically space marines charged with bringing “managed democracy” to foreign star systems (under the control of Super Earth of course.) And yes, that is the actual name of this empire. Super Earth. That’s it. That’s the plot. The game tells it in 2 minutes, and those two minutes are far funnier and more entertaining than this paragraph.

For context, my armor is orange. After mowing down bugs, it is now green.

If you don’t like bugs, this may or may not be the game for you

There are currently two enemy factions- Terminids (bugs) and Automatons (robots). The Terminids are these weird bug creatures that range between the size of a pitbull to the size of a small building. Neither is pleasant to deal with. They are not only ugly, but they are also messy, spraying green goo everywhere after being shot. It is exactly as disgusting as it sounds.

Luckily they’re pretty dumb and primal. Because they’re just a family of creatures, with various forms and such, missions with them are basically hunting expeditions. They will engage you mindlessly and you can just mow them down. Big, small, or in the middle, they all pretty much operate at the same baseline of intelligence, which is almost none. I have never had to worry about these guys avoiding an air strike, or skirting a wall of flames, or avoiding obvious landmines.

That being said, at higher levels, where size and speed increase, these things can get pretty terrifying. Dealing with a dog sized Terminid certainly gives me the ick, but trying to battle one of the larger ones which are often the size of a tank and move at the speed of a car is a brand new kind of rush. I frequently find myself firing a few pointless rounds and then turning tail, only to dive somewhere that gets me immediately trampled. It’s not fun, but it’s also really fun. Go figure.

If you’re terrified of bugs, and don’t want to see one, this game might give you the heebie jeebies. If you’re terrified and want to exterminate them all, like some sort of Bug Nazi, then this could be a new favorite, It’s all a matter of fear and perspective.

Believe me, there is no fun distance from which to perceive these guys.

Machines Give Me Chills Pt. 1

The other faction is the Automatons and they are pure nightmare fuel. And I mean pure, unadulterated nightmare fuel. As a child, I always feared the Terminator. He was inevitable, relentless, and merciless. But most of all, he just didn’t care. He would let you hit him with a lethal blow as long as he got one back. And that’s part of why the Automatons are so unnerving.

The Terminids walk into fire because they are stupid. The Automatons do it because they have no regard for self preservation. They are, somehow, innately aware of their own soullessness and relish the terror they cause. Some might burn out walking through a column of flames, but that hardly matters because here comes twenty more from a drop ship. They instill a sense of helplessness that is rarely matched by other video game enemies. They are pure Death drive.

From a gameplay perspective though, they provide some great variety and add a whole new dimension to the game that doesn’t exist with the Terminids. The Terminids are by and large an infestation. They are mindless, their strength derived from their numbers and feral nature.

The Automatons are militant and heavily organized, with strategically placed outposts, patrols, lookouts, drop ships, cannons. I mean, they are probably the best incarnation of Skynet seen in a video game, and it’s not even a Skynet. The designs on these things are disturbing, with skull like features often mixed with chainsaw arms and blasters. Large models became increasingly distorted reflections of humanity, with large, boxy, bipedal models that towers over the player even as they charge them down.

The feel and vibe is very different. Against the Terminids, it feels like an extermination. Against the Automatons, it feels like you are being hunted by an unstoppable force. The Terminids are irritating, constantly trying to close in and requiring upkeep via firearm to deal with. The Automatons actually shoot back, overwhelming the player in a way that takes a while to adjust to. You can’t just stand in one spot and gun down a row of Automatons. You’ll be dead in 5 seconds. At points, it felt too realistic, and I was actually afraid to play.

This entire game looks like a Gareth Edwards movie.

Guns Good, Booms Good, Violence Great

The combat in this game is glorious. The gunplay is hyper realistic. Guns are hard to aim, fun to shoot and the haptic triggers go dumb. It feels like you’re in an actual war in some ways. It’s not the smooth bullet dancing of something like Fortnite or the hacky recoil of The Finals. It feels like your character is hauling around a 20 pound firearm or what have you. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature, and a damn immersive one at that. I love the guns in this game. They make me feel tougher than I have any right to sitting in front of my PS5 in the comfort of my bed.

Let’s talk Stratagems. Stratagems are basically deployable things your ship will drop for you if you enter the correct button sequence. There’s a great variety of them and they are all very useful in certain situations. It could be a landmine dispenser, or a machine gun, or a flyover barrage of gunfire, or (my personal favorite) a Nam style napalm strike. Stratagems are probably the key to the minute to minute variety in this game and they are foundational as a gameplay feature. They are how you get resupplied. They are how you respawn your team mates. They are a way of getting required machinery and tech to complete a mission. It’s one of the coolest, most well rounded systems I’ve ever seen in a game. There’s a wealth of options, but very little fat.

As far as the cool factor goes, blowing stuff up in this game is awesome. There’s nothing quite like calling in a napalm strike that completely destroys like 50 yards of landscape, killing 20 enemies and 2 team mates. (Friendly fire is a big thing in this game. Your team mates will miss, and their stray shots will hit and kill you. It’s part of the hazards of war.) Anywho, not only can you blow things up, but you can do it in a lot of ways. Big bombs, napalm, gatling cannons, missiles, rocket launchers and of course, grenades. Not to mention all the random shit in the environment that will randomly explode in combat. There’s this one plant that sprouts all over certain planets and their spores combust when you approach them. The Automatons leave landmines everywhere. There’s really no limit to the BOOMs in this game and it makes for a hectic experience.

GOTY??

I can’t say it’s my favorite game of the year. Yet. Because Dragon’s Dogma 2 is on the way and maybe Rise of The Ronin….who are we kidding. Rise of The Ronin will probably not top this game. This is an excellent game, and I strongly recommend it, and I recommend getting in now, while it’s still fresh. At the $40 launch price, it’s hard to see it meaningfully going down in price while the player count is still this high. It’s worth every penny and it might be worth more. So grab some beers and some buddies and get on the battlefield. It’s time to forcefully spread democracy across the galaxy.