(logo trills) - [Jake] Hey, and we're
back with another episode of "Before You Buy," the show where we give you
some straight up gameplay and our first impressions of
the latest games releasing. We've been playing "Helldivers
2" since it launched. This is from Sony and
Arrowhead Game Studios. The developers of the original game, the original "Helldivers." This is a departure from
the first game's top-down, twin-stick gameplay. This is a fully 3D, third
person, run and gun shooter. "Helldivers 2" is an over
the top, fun, simple shooter, that we've only scratched
the surface of progressing through everything, but it has been an absolute blast. The game has the fun factor for sure. It is part like "Starship
Troopers," part "Terminator," part "Earth Defense Force," and it's a perfect
recipe for just shooting and exploding everything
with your friends online. The game has had a bit
of a rough launch though. I will say that we got booted a few times. We had a few crashes. Steam reviews are reflecting that. We're hoping these issues get
fixed and ironed out quickly because beneath it is, like I said, a really simple, fun time. It's on PC and PS5 for 40 US dollars. And when you jump in, you go through this brief, funny tutorial, and then from there you set up
your character and your ship. The bridge of your ship
serves as kind of like the hub for you to upgrade your
ship, weapons, and equipment, and jump into game modes
through this big galaxy map. Now in this game you're a citizen and a soldier of Super Earth, that is out in the galaxy
fighting against enemies that threaten freedom and democracy. The enemies are just kind of
like giant bugs and robots. The the tone in the game is great. It's like a funny, satirical
take on over the top, futuristic patriotism, very
similar to Paul Verhoeven's, "Starship Troopers," like
one of my all time favorites. And here it absolutely
nails it in the dialogue and the random text you
find, character chatting, and even the name of your ship. You can pick and combine words
to make silly ship names, like mine, The Prophet Of Patriotism. So when you're on your goofy name ship, you access that galaxy map I mentioned and you jump to planets to
drop into and do missions. All the planets kind of
have their own score, like a community score, where all players online
collectively are beating back the enemy forces and essentially
capturing that planet. Jumping into the missions
on these planets, it's usually a main objective that may have a few other
things to accomplish. And then if you wander, you can find a sub objective to take on and even find some points of interest with extra collectibles and secrets. Main objectives are usually pretty simple, like, you know, turn on a radio tower or defend a location or
kill X amount of enemies or destroy their nests. But the further you get
in and the harder missions you take on, the cooler stuff you'll see, like objectives and enemy
type differences and stuff. Now I still don't know the
extent of the variety really, as you know, this is
only first impressions, but what I can say is that
matches are perfectly paced. Some can wrap up in just
a couple of minutes, but more can take like 30
minutes or so and feel grueling and challenging, but in a good way. You know, like a desperate
long push across a big map, your teammates constantly dying, only to get to the evac
point at the last minute and get in and win and get a good ranking. That can be really satisfying. Plus, the game does a
really good job of ranking and tracking your performance,
your kills, your stats, the way it rewards you
at the end of a mission, all that stuff is pretty good,
but it's the gameplay, man. Gameplay is simple but
it feels really great. You run and gun, you aim down sites, you can even view in first
person, you can sprint, crouch or go prone, and they all have their own use cases. You can also dive onto the ground and then in "Max Payne" style
or "Resident Evil 6" style, you can have like 360 degree movement while laying on the ground to shoot stuff before standing up. And the guns feel really solid with good responsive feedback, a manageable amount of recoil, and some nice, aggressive, punchy sound. Weapons are not upgradable or customizable from what I can see, which
is a bit disappointing, but you do work your
way towards new weapons. The grind seems to be a bit long for the weapons in particular, but it's a bit early for me to judge. Still, there are a lot of
weapons and they're good. You know, giant laser
cannon, anti-tank missiles, submachine guns, heavy machine
guns, full auto pistols, futuristic shotguns, energy weapons, a pretty dangerous flame
thrower, and a bunch more. Your other bit of weapons
is actually the ordinance that you can call in on the fly. You complete missions and
explore to find currency that lets you unlock
more of these as you go. So what starts with like, a supply drop and a simple orbital strike, later ends up being bombing
runs, nukes, napalm, EMPs and more. And then for supply
drops you can get bigger, heavier weapons that like,
require two people to operate. There are turrets. There are automated defenses, mines, and just a bunch of other things to keep the hoards from coming. Now you are mowing down hoards and hoards of pretty challenging enemies that can kill you in a
couple hits with cool weapons and the gore and destruction
really help sell things. Gut spray everywhere, fire burns, shells of bugs are blasted
off and fly into the air exposing their weak spots. Some small buildings explode and all of it just makes
for satisfying chaos that didn't really get old for the groups that I've been playing with. Also, friendly fire is on, meaning that there's a lot of funny, ridiculous stuff that can
happen as your gored body can like, fly across the
map thanks to your friend accidentally drone striking you. There's a lot of experimentation. Every time you get a
new weapon, you're like, "What's the range on this? "What's gonna happen if I call this?" And usually it results in you
murdering one of your friends. But the way it's done, it's really funny. Like, the sandbox freedom
approach to weapon and encounters and just the way the
characters move and dive around and animate, just make for some really, really funny laugh out loud moments as like all players
inevitably will make mistakes. And it's all challenging and fun. My only complaint is that
like when you get cornered by a bunch of enemies, your
options are pretty limited, and it can feel a little bit jacked up. You know, you have like a weak
melee attack and that's it. In reality, you are a
helpless, expendable soldier, but playing it, sometimes I wish I had a few
more tools at my disposal, like a jump button. I want more verticality to these battles. There is a jet pack that
definitely does help with that, but really when you're on
the ground you can only vault over stuff and climb up
a select few bits of things. It can be a bit frustrating. The jetpack solves some of that, but I just wish there
were some more options. Also be warned, the game
does have microtransactions. It's a co-op multiplayer game. No real PvP. I kind of expected something like this, but you do have two battle
pass style progression things to work through, a free battle
pass and a paid battle pass. Thankfully the free
one seems more generous and longer than the paid one, but the paid one does have a couple of cool elemental weapons. I wish weren't locked
behind that type of thing. Still the currencies are fairly generous, including one that you
can earn on missions that you can also buy via
more microtransactions for a few bucks. And I don't like that stuff at all. I've been very clear on
this for many years now on the record, I especially don't like these
type of microtransactions when it's in a game
that isn't free to play. I paid $40 for this,
so I had to note that. Still, this is a pretty good battle pass and progression that
seems paced fairly well, besides, like I said earlier, it takes a bit of time to
get to the more weapons, but like armor and helmets and banners are all pretty awesomely designed, really nailing the tone they're going for, and they actually feel worthwhile to get. I wanna look cooler than my friends. One thing I will say, I strongly feel this game is much better with a group of friends. If you're matchmaking
with randoms, that's okay, but communication really helps. And if you're trying to
play it completely solo, I don't recommend that. This pains me to say that as a solo gamer. You know, I really think some people might disagree with me here, but I just didn't find
this game anywhere near as fun on my own. Especially, specifically,
because it feels like combat is designed around having
others watching your back, you know, enemies swarm you on all sides. And the indicators from
where you're getting attacked aren't always the greatest
depending on your equipment. You need that three or four man team to really feel like
effective killing machines. I'm just going on feel, you know, especially because I do
tend to be a solo gamer. This is a significantly
bigger blast with friends. It also does some fun
little creative things, like directional inputs, almost like little cheat
code inputs you have to input in order to call down your ordinance. So like, you know, bugs are on your tail, and you're trying to call in a new forum, and you're frantically trying to be like, "Oh, left, right, left,
right, left, right, up, down," you know, that type of thing. You can also use this input
method for activating terminals and stuff during missions. So you might be getting
swarmed by creatures as your friends are trying to defend you, and you're frantically just trying to type up, right, left, down, right, like, into a computer without
getting your head chopped off. It's really creative and
tense and it works perfectly. More games should have
this style of little input, mini game thing. That, and the game has a really
impressive on-the-fly map. I wanna commend them for this. Like in a really challenging twist, you have to manually bring the map up. You can't really see it
on the bottom right always when you're running and gunning. So one player will usually help navigate, but the map and the
tagging and how it works, and you can use the DualSense,
like the little touch pad, it's all really slick,
it's easy to navigate, even when you're sprinting. It's just very nicely
done, nicely implemented. Like I said, there are server issues and
some real hard crashes I had, but underneath that
there is something here that just feels polished all around. Now overall with this game, I don't know how long
I'll end up playing this. You know, it might be a fun
weekend or two and I burn out, or I'm hooked for the long term. I'm not sure yet. But it's a lot of fun especially, especially for "Starship Troopers" fans. I know there are "Starship
Troopers" games out there, but this one just nails the feel. It needs more, you know,
more mission types, vehicles, crazier stuff. I think it will get that over time, the support structure is there. If you don't get to this
game right away, that's fine, but I do think you should consider playing it with some buddies
at some point or another. Also, I just love a good
third-person shooter. Bring more of those. Third-person shooters
with hit fire mechanics. Always good, they'll always get me. But this is a Before You Buy,
you know how this goes by now. We give you some pros, some
cons and some personal opinions, and now I wanna hear yours
down in the comments. You got some first impressions
on this one like us? Maybe you got further than
us, maybe you just started. Would love to hear what you're thinking about "Helldivers 2." You know, I didn't have
time to go into like, the armor attributes and those
types of perks and stuff. So anything at all you're
thinking down in the comments, let us know. And if this video helped you,
you know, seeing some gameplay and hearing a guy talk about it, clicking a Like button does help us. We would really appreciate that. That's it though. As always, thank you guys for watching and we'll see you next time. (guns firing)
(dramatic music) - [Game Announcer] That
is one minute, 30 seconds. (guns blasting)
(dramatic music)
