Second Wind [Intro Music] I don't think I've been in a
restaurant with nicer atmosphere. Food's okay I guess. Helldivers 2 is a
third person wave shooter. Front loaded with
as much ironic gravitas and fanfare as can be
afforded to player without triggering a manic episode. But currently hasn't developed the
back end enough to keep the good times rolling. I'm more than happy to play this game
in small doses but any more than that causes the live service
ennui to start creeping in. And I also didn't know where
to fit this in so I'll inform you now. Helldivers 2 uses a
kernel level anti-cheat system. I'm not trained in the ways of cyber
security so I don't know what that entails. But I assume China
already has my information anyhow. I'm not mad, I just like a cut is all. But I digress as games available on
Playstation and Steam for PC for $39.99. Basic training was hell. But it was all
worth it for this sweet cape. We're Helldivers. The bullets of freedom
loaded into the chamber of democracy. We show up, call down our tools at the trade, and stop at
nothing to reach our goal. Unless our capes
get snagged in the bushes. Or the flowers explode. Or we step in each other's line of fire. We stopped alot actually. But we keep coming back. These bug infestations
aren't gonna eradicate themselves. We give encouraging
nudges with shotguns like machine guns, orbital strikes and
our fists if it comes down to it. Our loyalty and hard
works rewarded with credits for more toys and more
baddies for the receiving end. Why automatons are so
intent on preventing us from sowing the seeds of liberty? I'll
never know. Not my job to know. I thought surely
this game would need more than two hours to show me
everything in its bag of tricks. Turns out it both
was and wasn't enough time. As more and more games are
going the live service route these days it's difficult to know
where the boundaries start and end between what is here and
what could potentially be here. Even as I'm writing this
I have an article on my second monitor announcing
players have discovered a new baddie. I don't know if it was there the
whole time waiting to be found or if it's just part of the scheduled
content release patch job. A different topic
for a different day based on how I feel after
devoting more time I can safely retroactively say that what the game
was at two hours is what the game is at five hours, ten hours, twenty hours and so on. It's hard to not feel like
the main characters in Helldivers 2. You could accidentally bite your
tongue and that's reason enough for the omnipresent orchestra to
full send a cup of Liberty by Wilbert Roget II. With each heroic swell years of narcissistic
personality therapy are undone. [Watch Frost as he fails at a
baby puzzle and give us all anxiety in the process] Biomes aplenty, home to hostile
flora and fauna, are your military playgrounds. I tend to dislike
sci-fi environments because there's only so much
you can do to distinguish one desolate space rock from the next and if you've been to
one abandoned truck stop in Arizona you've been to them all. You're still mostly fighting on rocky terrain but there's
purple pastels, blue boulders, snowy steps, this is an
abandoned Colorado truck stop. Not a single cent was spared in the production budget for
this geopolitical sci-fi improv comedy show. It's whose line is it anyways, in
space and the game supplies the setup. For this and every other scene you
are a Helldiver, you dive for Super Earth. It's a lot like normal earth
but it's ruled with managed democracy. The citizens don't
vote directly, they take a BuzzFeed style
personality test and then an AI system votes
for them based on their favorite pizza
toppings and Marvel movies. Where's the joke? - You might ask. Not to get too
political but I believe people who put pineapple
on pizza should be allowed to vote. This is probably the plain cheese demographic that
launched us into this slapstick war anyhow. Every bullet and
shockwave transforms even the most stalwart
soldier into a co-hopping rag doll. Friendly fire on doesn't mean
a game is meant for trolls per se. But by my count
there are more creative ways to mess with a
teammate than there are ways to kill AI enemies. You can throw them off a
cliff into a wild beast stampede. Strategically litter
the extraction zones with mines. Forget to tell
them to duck your automatic sentry gun's line
of fire and the best one. Return the favor by landing
on their head with the karma pod. The devs didn't watch it
too then why is it in the game? Meanwhile, the game's real,
designated hostiles are dealt in two ways. Shoot at the choke
point, or bomb the choke point. Red or white wine. Yes, I've
trivialized it, but the point I'm getting at is that
napalming a swarm of bugs loses its appeal quickly. But seeing your friends go into hysterics because now
they're being chased by flaming chargers because you
"wanted to help" never gets old. You do have to
have a sense of humor about these kinds of
things, but rarely does anyone engage in this manner if you
use the online matchmaking system. Because it's rude
to assume strangers will appreciate you
spoofing and goofing the limited respawns away like your friends do. Once we've added
each other to the friends list is when I feel comfortable enough to lob grenades at you going "you
ain't got no legs, Lieutenant Dayan". I haven't quite found the way to
get comfortable playing online with randoms. If I join someone
else's session, I feel the pressure to be as
little of an inconvenience as possible, which is
difficult to control and avoid. And after the mission's over, I leave the ship before they
get the chance to kick me or worse, send me a friend request. If I'm the one hosting the session, unintentionally because I
was trying to play alone but people can join your match whenever, then I feel pressured to expedite
the mission and objectives instead of exploring. I'm also still the
one that leaves the ship because I don't
want to hurt player feelings. Imagine moving out
because you didn't want to tell your
houseguest the party was over. Single player isn't too bad, but you have to put it on baby
difficulty so no one will want to join you and if something silly happens it's only
half as amusing because you're both the performer and the audience. I hate to discount the rest of the game's efforts by saying
this game is only better with friends
because it's put so much effort into making you and
your friends feel special. But I'm not gonna give
it full credit for our antics. The other part that fails
the vibe test for me is the grind. My patience is wearing thin on games
that lock progression behind in-game currency. Play get currency, unlock more game,
or pay real money to expedite the process. Yes, you can pay real money to lessen
the grind and the biggest defenses I hear for it are you can eventually
unlock everything without paying. Which doesn't completely knock down the paywall allegations,
just brings it down to waste height, or should
I say time wasted height. And the other justification is the later guns and gear
aren't even that much better. Then as I
understand it, you're telling me there's nothing to
look forward to and the grind is there for grind's sake. I can accept that
gear is seen as a secondary thing you get on the
side while you're enjoying yourself. Problem is, I'm
not really enjoying myself. I take it back that's a little too
harsh, I did enjoy myself when my friends logged on for two hour blocks
where we mostly goofed off. As far as life
service goes, it's not a bad spot for you and
your buds to hang out after school or after work. But I'm moving on
from this one because it gets shallow and
repetitive really quickly even by wave shooter standards regardless of its commitment
to making me feel like I'm in a Monty Python skit. I had more fun reading up on the lore
and watching the videos people were making of their time playing. This game's not for
people like me who don't find pleasure in
sissifian tasks even at the boulder that keeps rolling back
down the hill as a giant rubber chicken. This game is for people who want to drop their militant
payload until their barrels have shriveled and fallen off. And for those who
want to be immersed in the ironic Orwellian
authoritarianism of it all. Note, the first hint that a game is more about immersive
role-playing than actual gameplay is when you ask
someone to describe the game and they respond to
you in character instead of like a real person. Or maybe I'm too immersed in
Helldivers 2 and I'm the soldier who starts asking too many questions. Are we the baddies? Am I a patriot acting on the
orders of a panicked political system? We rage against the
machines, killing in the name of prosperity,
of liberty, of democracy, and for what? From what I've gleaned out of audio logs, the war can never
be allowed to end whether in our total
annihilation or total domination. Both lead to an
end of life as we know it. The people sending us to fight are
the same people providing us with an enemy. We're not fighting for freedom, we're
harvesting oil and labeling anyone who wants to stop us a terrorist. If you don't
believe me, read up on the lore. When the bugs break
down, their bodies turn into oil. Maybe I need to learn how
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