Austin strongly recommends: Helldivers 2 (Review)

when I think back to my fondest gaming memories growing up there are some key moments that come to mind I recall spending hours upon hours in an internet cafe with a bunch of friends playing Left for Dead 2 in hysterics over that one friend in particular who keeps getting chased down by the charger I think upon my best times in Battlefield 3 and 4 that perfectly capture the atmosphere of a war zone the sound of jets and choppers soaring overhead laying down cover fire the enemy Abrams firing at your squad as you push the objective with explosions and debris filling the screen I reminisce on my times in Halo 3 and Halo Reach with friends where it's physics and sandbox allowed for hilarious Antics and emergent gameplay I remember a time when microtransactions were micro and a set of armor did not cost the same as an entire video game it's enough to make a grown man cry well I'm pleased to report that those times are not lost to the Past for there has finally come a video game that has allowed me to relive all of these moments and more and it's name hell divers 2 [Music] down so this game almost needs no introduction I mean if you've been on the internet at all over the last week you've probably got a good idea of what this game is even without playing in case you don't know though hell divers 2 is a co-op third-person shooter developed by Arrowhead Studios and published by Sony it's the sequel to their much-loved hell divers a similar sort of Co-op experience but as a topown twin stick shooter over the 9 years since Arrowhead have just been cooking and cooking and cooking and what a truly delicious meal they've served for us indeed hell divers 2 takes place in a satirical sci-fi setting where Humanity's governing body has convinced the population to enlist in an endless war against Alien Invaders it's channeling the camp of '90s sci-fi films the most obvious of course being Starship Troopers I'm doing my part the bugs aren't the only threat to mankind though there's also the automatons titanium minations operated by Rogue a guy who have run a Mark I mean you can't look at these guys and not be reminded of Terminator or RoboCop especially when you've got one of the humanoid ones staring you down with its skeletal face before sprinting At You full force with chainsaws for hands to be clear though there is no campaign here you're a disposable force of Marines spreading democracy and freedom to all corners of the Galaxy with your infinite Firepower that's it that's the story you drop into hostile territory with your fellow destroyers uh blow some [ __ ] up leave and then repeat until Galactic peace is achieved it's clearly parodying that amican patriotism and it commits to that satire on all fronts to hilarious effect between your characters In the Heat of combat yelling battle cries such as Freedom never sleep how you like the taste of Freedom how about a nice C of Liberty to the vending machines that miraculously still exist in these War zones that offer a taste of Freedom there's this amazing ad that plays in your ship for a product called Eagle Sweat I'll let that one speak for itself with an all new formula containing 83% more sweat Eagle sweat don't just smell it live it Arrowhead have really doubled down on the hysterical absurdity of it all and honestly it never gets old so if there's no story what exactly are you doing as I said blowing [ __ ] up but there's actually a bit more to it than that there's a surprising variety of mission types here from destroying nests to hunting down a specific boss enemy to disabling an illegal broadcast to Preparing and firing a nuclear warhead that one's my favorite taging map South they're quite involved objectives too where other games would typically have these as one very familiar defend the point style thing and then copy paste it along the game each of these have several other steps to perform while being battered by enemy hordes so for example Mission labeled simply as retrieve valuable data had us go to a location to find a hard drive which involved us clearing a bunch of enemies along the way interacting with a terminal and Performing some directional inputs and then defending the area until the hard drive had the data we then needed to Lug this suitcase sized hard drive to a relay on the other side of the map defending the carrier as we go uh we finally get there and plug it in someone then stays at the terminal to see which direction the SAT satellite dish needs to be pointing and guide someone else to go physically turn the dish in the right direction again all while enemies are coming in from all directions finally it's locked mission complete but we still got to make our way to the extraction point before the timer runs out where more enemy swarms will undoubtedly await us but that is just the main objective we're also looking out for other side objectives along the way like activating a radar dish to reveal all points of interest on the map or arming a missile launcher which provides us with extra Firepower or clearing enemy outposts by well blowing [ __ ] up so the general gameplay Loop is landing trying to complete the sub objective the main objective and as many side stuff as you can along the way for bonus rewards and XP all within the allotted time frame with limited time and more crucially limited revives there's some real risk versus reward at play here particularly at higher difficulties and it's it's a loop made even more engaging By the Fantastic Gunplay come out I have no idea how Arrowhead pulled this off given this is their first time ever making a third person shooter but this is some of the best feeling third person gun play in the business no joke I feel like we've all grown accustomed to what Shooters in general should feel like you know they're all Snappy borderline twitch Shooters at this point yes there's recoil reload and aim down sight speeds to distinguish each gun but you never expect any resistance when you want to spin 180° to head shot some poor kid in fortnite or whatever for this reason I suspect some might not actually like what hell divers 2 is going for but personally I love it moving around feels feels super responsive you can even Dolph and dive in any direction to get behind cover or bunker down for a nearby explosion or just for style points it's such a fun mechanic when aiming your gun though it will not instantly snap to match your direction it'll take its sweet time depending on the weight if it's a pistol yeah you can aim it pretty quickly but with a heavy machine gun this is something you've really got to account for this makes dealing with enemies very tense they tend to move quite fast they're leaping in the air some straight up bull rush you and they're coming at you from every direction by the dozens so you've got to try put some distance between you and them and find the right angles to hit the most amount of enemies with the least amount of turning the recoil and spread on these weapons are wild as well though it dynamically adjusts with your movements so crouching and lying prone will provide better control you're also keeping a close eye on your ammo the scarcity of it is tune such that you need to make every shot count and reloading before you finish the clip will actually waste it discouraging that impulsive reload habit after every kill so there's a lot to be mindful of In the Heat of combat it really feels like I'm dragging this heavy Weaponry around accounting for these factors in every engagement and trying to squeeze out the most bang for my Buckshot more than anything hell divers 2 just nails that game Feel You Know The Punchy sound design and dismemberment add so much to the catharsis of tearing through hordes of these bugs and machines it feels especially great with the PS5 control as well with all the haptic feedback that kicks in as you unload it's a symphony of guts metal and bodily fluids splattering all over the walls all over you there are no damage numbers or health bars popping up all over the place because frankly you don't need it you can see the damage you're dishing out through the enemy's mangled bodies you'll send limbs soaring causing enemies to drag themselves across the floor toward you before a quick double tap to the Head stops them in their tracks I hate to use the word visceral because it's so played out in game's criticism but there is no better word for it it's so visceral you can almost taste it it's meaty crunchy juicy any word you can use to describe the perfect bowl of nachos that is what this game feels like to play and also what you look like you've lathered yourself in once you're done with the job it's worth shouting out the music and the visuals too which really add to that immersion the heroic soundtrack that kicks in when you're lock in for a mission blasting through your headphones with the pods roaring down to the surface never fails to Hype me up every time then you exit the drop pod and you scan the planet stunning expanse such a diverse range of biomes on offer here each with their own weather patterns that can drastically change the mood over the course of a mission the lighting and fog in particular looks phenomenal really brings the whole thing together often the fog is so thick that you can just barely make out enemy Silhouettes against the sunlight and then when all hell breaks loose your blind firing in all directions you can hear the air strikes launching from above explosions lighting up the scenery and allies cheering as you collectively tear through the Swarm I mean it all looks and sounds badass it's not just Mindless mob grinding like you might expect though there's a good variety of enemy types you'll need to learn how to dispatch I'll let you discover the automatons for yourself because fighting them for the first time is quite a humbling experience on the termined side for example though those are the bugs you've got the fresh hatchlings that aren't too threatening on their own but if you get complacent and find yourself backed into a corner they'll very quickly take you out there are larger ones that are more heavily armored and you'll need to break their carrus with higher caliber Weaponry or you can try and get a good angle to hit their exposed areas there's also much much bigger ones and for those you'll need to call in the big guns and by big guns I do mean big guns a core part of your kit that you'll lock in before launch are your strategems which you can command and your ship to fire down to the surface so these are things like various bombs strafing runs orbital strikes but also turrets and special weapon ordinance like rocket launchers and machine guns you can only equip four of these on a mission each with their own cooldowns to be mindful of and there's like over 40 of these to unlock each with their own meaningful utility they're a major part of progression and I was so impressed by how vast this Arsenal is there's two things especially that I love about how these function number one that sequence of directional inputs I mentioned for the terminals yeah uh each strategy has the same thing and while muscle memory will eventually kick in here trying to input the Konami Code with 20 giant space bugs swarming my position is certainly not a chill time you might think to input the command beforehand and then run around with the beacon but uh that's not always ideal cuz you can absolutely get knock down and drop it on the floor leading you to scramble for your life before Hellfire rains down on your position number two Friendly Fire like the previous hell divers Friendly Fire is on at all times for everything including that 500 kg nuke you plan on dropping yes it results in the obvious Shenanigans but more than anything it means you've really got to be aware of you and your allies positioning so as to not waste revives but yes it is also quite funny to drop a nuke on your friends the combination of the mission structure the gun handling the enemy types and strategems you can employ results in this game feeling far more strategic than I expect Ed it is dumb fun but it also rewards considered planning before and during the mission and demands you adapt on the fly as things go pearshaped Arrowhead Studios have hit a home run on the gameplay Loop here on both a macro and micro level and I mean it's such a joy to play that even as I write this I'm itching to drop back in and squish some more bugs the automatons have just launched surprise invasions of multiple developed worlds in response the hell divers have been partially redirected from operation Valiant enclosure to defend against the bot incursion the final thing I want to talk about is how Arrowhead have perfectly positioned this game as a live service and how excited I am for the future of this game in a way that I haven't been for many others when you go on your first mission you'll come over to this galaxy map and select a planet that's currently at War interestingly you'll notice the vast majority of these planets on the Galaxy map are grayed out and that's because the community has completely liberated these planets and the ones further out are ones we haven't yet pushed the enemy back to each planet has a push and pull going on successful missions will bump our progress up but failures will bump it down it is my understanding then that there's a ton of planets we haven't yet seen and that we won't see until the community at large completely drives back the enemy or even succumbs to them I mean just the other day after like three long days of battle on the final plan planet of a sector we finally managed to liberate it and now there's two completely new maps available to us in the next sector and then on the other side we actually just lost the battle against the machines and they've now pushed us back closer to Earth so the live service model already makes sense within the context of this world this hasn't been twisted and contorted to fit it like many other live service titles have what better setup for an ongoing game than an ongoing War a mutual goal that encourages you to get in there and do your part and then rewards that Community effort with new content on the regular it is the very definition of an evolving game a goal that few live service games succeed at you can imagine then that in the future logging in one week will have an entirely different roster of locations to the next and I can totally see the unveiling of those planets eventually bundled with new objectives enemy types and even strategems like for example vehicles and mechs which they have teased remains to be seen if the game will evolve over time in the way that I expect it will but it's an exciting prospect nonetheless then there's the progression and monetization so there's two main Avenues of progression here strategems and requisitions strategems you'll unlock using credits you've earned on missions but you'll also earn medals that allow you to purchase items in the requisitions tab which is kind of like a battle pass there's of course a free one and a premium one you try to unlock everything on one page before you move on to the next unlike a lot of other sort of live service games the pass that you get for free here isn't filled with garbage fluff like emblems or boosters or whatever this is where you unlock a lot of your weapons and armor again completely free the premium one works on a similar system with different offerings but it does take longer to work through there's been a little controversy here in that this could be considered pay to win because there's weapon variants and armor in here I don't agree with that not because this is a PVE only game or whatever but because I simply haven't seen anything in here that'll give you a measurable leg up especially given how difficulty Works in this game but we'll talk about that in a second that could change of course uh for sure but for now it seems like most player power is tied to the strategems and the free track both of which you cannot fast track with premium currency but what about all the stuff that does cost premium currency well I have a bunch of great news for you first of all you can very easily earn it from Simply playing the game there's bundles of them in the free pass for very low cost and you can even find them in cases on missions so after just a few hours of play I had maybe 200 or so and I thought to myself cool that must be like a tenth of an armor piece in the cash shop to my utter shock uh no armor costs anywhere between just 150 to 300 currency but maybe you want to spend some money to pick up some currency what's that conversion like I thought $150 was going to be like $15 or something given what we've sadly grown customed to uh no again it's $2 $2 the highest bundle you can buy is like $20 and so far there's been nothing even remotely close to that cost in the store I don't know man that sure feels like the good old days to me when microtransactions were actually micro and it comes at the perfect time too this is a shining example of what a live service game should look like it's a game whose systems have been cleverly built to facilitate that with monetization that is actually reasonable for once and it certainly helps that the foundations of its gameplay are rock [ __ ] solid it's no surprise then that hell divers 2 has found great success despite General trepidation towards the life service [Music] model oh that'll [Music] work so perhaps unsurprisingly this has been a very glowing review but there's a few things to note before you go and pick this up a lingering question you may have is can I play this solo now if you mean literally just going completely alone on missions the answer is yes but I suspect you'll only get so far when pushing the difficulty see difficulty does not scale to the corresponding amount of players in a squad each difficulties parameters are fixed and are calibrated specifically around Co-op play for this reason it's a great drop in Dropout game as there's no gear grind or level gating or anything you can just play with your friends straight away but it does make soloing a challenge you can probably play on easy and medium solo anything above that though you'll want some allies this is where things get a little dicey now most of my playtime has been with complete randoms through the in-game matchmaking my experience has been admittedly turbulent though most of the time the quickplay thing straight up doesn't work at all so the other option is to join one of the available groups that pop up on the map in which case there's like a 50% chance that'll work for you uh it's a little bit better now but at the moment there's an equally good chance that you'll get disconnected during a mission so the most reliable way to play of course is to group up with actual friends that you know and there is crossplay if you're on different platforms which is nice all this is to say the game is best enjoyed Co-op but your ability to do so is kind of a dice roll particularly on PS5 where I've heard the issues are far more rampant on the performance front as well I've heard mixed reports though in general the game seems decently optimized on my PC with an RTX 4080 super it runs flawlessly at 4K Max settings but that's hardly surprising I also played a lot of this though on my mid-range laptop with an RTX 3060 and running on a mix of high and medium settings at 2K resolution I was getting about 50 to 60 FPS most of the time and the game still looks fantastic to that said I was dipping to as low as 40 on occasion when the action got particularly hectic on Steam deck though uh I tried it it is playable at like the lowest settings with some finesse hovering at like 30 FPS is though I certainly don't recommend it on there given how degraded the image quality is that said during the course of about 20 hours play time I've experienced the shop breaking a couple times menus not loading on occasion and about three hard crashes which I understand isn't great for your PC biggest issue for me is that I can barely play at all right now because servers are at Max Capacity I mean the game has eclipsed the peak player count of Destiny 2 and Starfield so that certainly bodess well for Arrowhead but yeah definitely makes it difficult for us to log in at the moment so yeah those are some things to be mindful of uh Arrowhead Studios appear to be working diligently and transparently on these problems and I'll definitely be keeping an eye on how they track these things were definitely annoying but if it wasn't enough to sour the overall experience for me frankly there just aren't many games right now that rival what hell divers 2 is doing I get small glimpses of it when I eventually find a big Team Battle match in Halo infinite after like 30 minutes of matchmaking or when slaughtering hordes of grunts in dark tide and lethal company fulfills those fun Shenanigans with friends but this game manages to combine those elements it captures that feeling of the before times buming around with your homies in chaotic Co-op adventures in a game with tight gameplay and palpable atmosphere and it laughs at the absurdity of it all alongside you it's also liberating to enjoy a game that's largely uncompromised by current live service trends like an evolving world that boils down to just breadcrumb story offerings Mega free progression and price gouging it's just fun and is that not what this medium is all about as long as Arrowhead Studios can keep the ball rolling and iron out those technical issues I have no problem telling you that hell divers 2 is a superb multiplayer experience well worth your time it retails for $40 on Steam and PS5 and I strongly recommend [Music] [Music] it [Music]

Channel: Skill Up

Views: 440,501

Keywords: skill up, skill, up, gameplay, games, guide, Action, Arrowhead Game Studios, Helldivers, Helldivers II, Offline Co-Op Multiplayer, Online Co-Op Multiplayer, Online Connection Required, Online Four-Player Multiplayer, PC, PlayStation 5, Shooter, Third-Person, helldivers, co-op, starship troopers, impressions, helldivers 2 review, helldivers 2 review ps5, helldivers 2 review ign, helldivers 2, helldivers review, helldivers skillup

Id: 5j4TsO8vngA

Length: 22min 41sec (1361 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 18 2024