shovel

Updating my review to not just be a meme:

Helldivers 2 is one of the greatest games released in the modern era, and it has the potential to not only become my game of the decade, but my game of the new millennium so far.

Every frame of this spectacular game is packed with detail and care, from the meticulous way firearms behave, to the wounds ripped into enemies as you shred their armour/carapace, to the dust particles settling after an explosion, to the quiet moments of calm amidst all the cinematic chaos where you can drink in the atmosphere of a wartorn strip of human-settled land, Helldivers 2 delivers cinema every single time I open it.

The Second Galactic War unfolds dynamically, with story arcs ebbing and flowing determined by the Game Masters over at Arrowhead (that we lovingly name J.O.E.L., after the first GM we had way back at the start), with enemy factions attacking planets, moving troops along supply routes, deploying subfactions, and forcing players en masse to not only consider their micro-movements in gameplay while on the surface of a planet engaged in the minute-to-minute frenetic gameplay of chaotic gunplay and awe-inspiring Strategems, but also the metagame of where to deploy, where to concentrate efforts together, and where to attempt to hold the line.

Last year, the game began with a quiet storyline of establishing a galactic line of 'Barrier Worlds' to hold back the insectoid Terminids. Today? Today the returning Illuminate faction from the first Helldivers game has begun their assault on the capital city of Super Earth itself, and I've been here for every step of this journey. Where other games would have this moment be a climactic final act, this is just yet another day in Helldivers 2.

I cannot predict where the game will be a year on from now, but looking back at the growth and development of not the ever-evolving gameplay elements supported by a new drop of weaponry/armours/stratagems every 2-3 months, frequent balance patches and whole new mechanical additions (we recently got weapon customization and city maps, a few months ago we got vehicles and colony maps), but also the storyline as a whole.

If you allow yourself to be engaged and immersed with the tongue-in-cheek satirical deconstruction of fighting for a fascist regime as just another cog in a great churning wheel of military industrial might, you will find yourself excited when you get a new toy to blow your enemies to chunks with, you will find yourself filled with righteous fury when another of Managed Democracy's planets is seized by expansionist factions, and you will find yourself grinning from ear to ear when a 500kg bomb is dropped right on the head of your enemy... and yourself, before you bound out of your newly dropped Hellpod to do it all again.

This is a very good game.

A jet black man stole my engine, so my friend slew him with a katana.

Then we drove.

Game good, game also horrendously cursed. Highly recommended!