Spreading managed democracy, on an epic scale.
By Ameer Ammar
Helldivers 2 is one of the most epic multiplayer experiences I have ever had, providing cinematic moments on par with some of the greatest scripted sequences from this industry while also being somehow entirely non-scripted, everything in helldivers 2 is entirely all organic and player-driven, A never ending amount of moments created by you and your friends that will have you screaming at the top of your lung, panicking and spamming the dive button as you get away from 500kg bombs in the middle of "Robot Vietnam" aka Malevelon creek.
There is simply nothing like Helldivers 2, this is a game that we really needed, the coop shooter genre as of the past few years has gotten stale, mainly retreads and attempts at re-capturing past glories that have unfortunately resulted in many flops, bad sequels and badly designed live-services, designed to suck away money and player retention. In many ways I felt that the genre might have been pretty much dead under the waters of greed, That is until Helldivers 2 came along.
A coop game that feels distinctly next gen, from insanely fast load times and incredible visuals to the galactic war, Helldivers 2 takes full advantage of the next gen hardware and it really shows.
Specifically with the entire premise of the "Galactic War", In Helldivers 2 every single player is contributing to a war being fought on two fronts, the automatons and the terminids fronts, every mission accomplished contributes to the percentage of liberation of a planet for the entire community and every mission lost loses us points, so there's a massive community effort at all times slowly pushing back and forth on various sectors of the galaxy with a Game Master in the background adjusting numbers at all times to ensure the war feels challenging and real, Recently the entire community was commanded to liberate a planet to earn Mechs, upon doing so everyone for the next few days could drop a mech for free during any mission and also we unlocked the mech strategem, the entire community got rewarded for it's efforts and actually managed to do it 4x faster than the devs expected, showing just how dynamic and entirely community driven this experience is.
Story
While Helldivers 2 lacks a conventional story for the most part, the lore and dialogue here is absolutely hilarious, heavily inspired by "Starship Troopers" it is complete satire as you and your buddies cannot stop shouting "DEMOCRACY FREEDOM!!!" as you attack outposts that are broadcasting information not approved by the ministry of truth, even the loading screens made me laugh out loud as incredible tips such as "When in doubt, Simply shout "FOR DEMOCRACY" and charge headfirst into your problems".
There is a hilarious sense of irony to it all and the incredible memes and role-play by pretty much everyone playing really adds to the community feel surrounding helldivers 2, when you play it, you really do feel like you have become a part of something massive. Also Yuri Lawanthal's voice acting makes it all even better.
The actual story and tale of our helldivers will develop depending on how the war goes, Malevelon creek has already earned legend status for it's difficulty in being "Robot Vietnam", I imagine there will be entire lore videos in the years to come chronicling this galactic war and the community's progress and various victories and loses.
Gameplay
Helldivers 2 is nothing short of a pleasure to play. the movement has been compared to Metal Gear Solid 5 and it's clear why, it has a very realistic feel while also being incredibly easy to control, it is beyond incredible how Arrowhead on their first ever third person game, actually managed to come out with some of the best third person shooting we have ever seen, all weapons have an insane punch to them and cut through enemies, the strategems are a huge highlight, similar to killstreaks from Call of Duty, you can call in various airstrikes and upgrades to your helldiver while on mission and some of these really make this game what it is, There is simply nothing like dropping a half a ton bomb on an army of bugs that are surrounding your positions and watching everything get engulfed in glorious democratic flames.
There's a great variety of objectives to do and since all locations are procedurally generated there's very little repetition which is usually the fear with titles like this, somehow each mission manages to feel unique in it's own way, especially with how difficulty is handled; Instead of artifically increasing health of enemies, Helldivers difficulties simply amp up the number of enemies and this results in higher difficulties managing to be even more fun and chaotic, rather than feeling unfair, you are not meant to make it out alive on higher difficulties and that is okay, it adds to the cinematic feel of it all.
Plus the live service and galactic war nature of this game means there's a constant stream of new content and planets to fight on, Arrowhead have already shown how fast this content comes so I imagine Helldivers 2 has a lot in store for us as they've already shown.
Graphics & Technical issues
Helldivers 2 is gorgeous, it looks "next gen", from it's incredible vistas, amazing lighting that shines across the worlds, atmospheric fog, huge variety in environments between planets and the best explosion effects of any game ever, This is a feast to the eyes and will age like fine wine for years to come.
On the technical side, I haven't had any server issues in the past week that I've been playing so we are far past the issues of launch, however a bug preventing me from adding my best friend through cross play to play with them has been massively detrimental to the experience and as it's already on the known issues list, i am hoping it gets addressed and fixed as soon as possible.
Audio
The audio is stellar, explosions feel real, gunshots are heavy, your soldier's dialogue is between hilarious and hysterical from all the various voice actors and especially Yuri Lawanthal and of course there's the music, Which has already become quite iconic and is simply unforgettable, especially that theme when extracting that just gets you so pumped to spread democracy.
FINAL VERDICT
We needed a game like Helldivers 2, just like Battlefield 4 did for the PS4 back in 2014, We needed a multiplayer game that shows what the console is capable of and show us warfare on a new scale.
With it constantly providing new experiences, it's safe to say I adore Helldivers 2, it will most likely be one of the GOTY contenders of this year and deservingly so.
Helldivers 2 - 9/10 - MUST-PLAY
