Preface: I'm going to go ahead and give this the score it deserves because it is the best multiplayer experience I've had since Left 4 Dead 2. Right now at launch, this game's servers hold it back from its true potential, but I have faith that Arrowhead and Sony will resolve it sooner rather than later. As of writing this review/impressions (Feb 19th 2024), it has been almost impossible to enjoy Helldivers 2 for too long because of long wait times since servers are capped at 450k. It really brings the game down, but if we don't take that into account the game is incredible.
Having friendly fire on anything you do is always a blast. I've died more to my friends than I have to enemies, and it's always hilarious when that happens. The enemies are fun to fight (some can be annoying looking at you, automatons), but the difficulty isn't really balanced, which--imo--adds to its charm. When going up the difficulty ranks, the game can get borderline unfair, but that's what makes it fun. Scrambling from point of interest to point of interest with your team while contemplating if you should kill everything in your path or run to conserve ammo and stratagems makes the gameplay fairly meticulous. Many have said this, so I'm gonna echo it: this game is a video game ass video game. You're not playing it for an overarching story (but the premise of it is nice), it's all about the gameplay. The gunplay is perfect, and it has gyro aiming which makes it even better. Having to put in directional codes for stratagems is also great since it adds to the tension of every fight. If you come unprepared, you will die, so you need to make sure you go into each mission and encounter with a game plan. The game can also look quite nice sometimes. It's not pushing anything graphically because of the amount of enemies, but it can look amazing in some conditions. As of now, I have no major complaints about Helldivers 2, but I don't think it's deserving of a 5/5 just yet. We'll have to see how the game evolves over the next few years and see if it's able to keep my attention.
Helldivers 2 proves that live service games don't need to be predatory to be successful. This is Sony's first major live service (not counting Destiny or MLB), and they start with the most compelling service game I've ever tried. If Arrowhead is able to keep up, I could see myself playing it for years to come.
Having friendly fire on anything you do is always a blast. I've died more to my friends than I have to enemies, and it's always hilarious when that happens. The enemies are fun to fight (some can be annoying looking at you, automatons), but the difficulty isn't really balanced, which--imo--adds to its charm. When going up the difficulty ranks, the game can get borderline unfair, but that's what makes it fun. Scrambling from point of interest to point of interest with your team while contemplating if you should kill everything in your path or run to conserve ammo and stratagems makes the gameplay fairly meticulous. Many have said this, so I'm gonna echo it: this game is a video game ass video game. You're not playing it for an overarching story (but the premise of it is nice), it's all about the gameplay. The gunplay is perfect, and it has gyro aiming which makes it even better. Having to put in directional codes for stratagems is also great since it adds to the tension of every fight. If you come unprepared, you will die, so you need to make sure you go into each mission and encounter with a game plan. The game can also look quite nice sometimes. It's not pushing anything graphically because of the amount of enemies, but it can look amazing in some conditions. As of now, I have no major complaints about Helldivers 2, but I don't think it's deserving of a 5/5 just yet. We'll have to see how the game evolves over the next few years and see if it's able to keep my attention.
Helldivers 2 proves that live service games don't need to be predatory to be successful. This is Sony's first major live service (not counting Destiny or MLB), and they start with the most compelling service game I've ever tried. If Arrowhead is able to keep up, I could see myself playing it for years to come.