![]() You can summon turrets or other automated weaponry to help you defend a position and fend off waves of enemies, but if you’re not careful (or don’t remember to hit the dirt and crawl under their fire), those turrets can wipe out your whole team. There’s a bit of slapstick to this game, and it works best if you don’t mind laughing at yourself.įriendly fire is a constant consideration in Helldivers, and it’s easy to screw up aiming your heavy machine gun and waste one of your teammates at an inopportune moment. Their new game has a certain philosophical alignment with Magicka, particularly in how thanks to friendly fire, your hapless characters will often kill one another off. Helldivers was made by Arrowhead Game Studios, the Swedish outfit behind the PC game Magicka. If you spent any time playing Dead Nation, that’s a good frame of reference, too. The sense I get is that the portable version will work best as a supplement for the “main” version, which you play on your TV.īasically, if you played as a demon hunter in the console version of Diablo III, this game will feel familiar. I haven’t played the PS3 version, but Stephen reports that the Vita version is fine, though doesn’t look as good as the PS4 version (unsurprisingly), nor does it play as smoothly without the controller’s two extra shoulder buttons. Drop-pods slam into the ground with satisfying heft, the sun casts lovely shadows across the hot sand and freezing ice of the planets you’re exploring, and your weapons explode with beautiful luminosity and cascades of shell-casings. You’ll be earning XP and unlocking new weapons and abilities, fighting off swarms of enemies, and gradually upgrading your appearance and loadout. The game itself plays (and looks) a bit like a sci-fi tinged Diablo III. Before you deploy, you’ll look over a map with a number of objectives - go blow up the bug hive, or transport the briefcase to the drop point, or activate the SAM site - and come up with a broad plan of attack. Maps and mission objectives appear to be procedurally generated. You’ll play with up to three teammates, all four of you on the same screen. You move with your left stick, aim with your right stick, and can equip all manner of sniper rifles, rocket launchers, lasers and grenades. You’re a tiny cog in a massive war machine, and as you blast your way through enemy troops, your characters will yell things like “Get some!” and “Say hello to Democracy!” It’s silly half as sharp as the film it’s aping, but it works. You play as a citizen of “Super Earth” who has signed up to join the Helldivers, an elite commando team that wages war against aliens abroad. It’s a knowing homage, and the whole game carries that sort of tongue-in-cheek bravado. Helldivers opens with an ironic propaganda video that immediately recalls the “Would you like to know more?” infomercials from Paul Verhoeven’s wonderful 1997 cinematic adaptation of Starship Troopers. Helldivers - which is out today as a cross-buy (and cross-play and cross-save) game for PS4, PS3 and Vita - is another one of those “sum of various influences”-type games. I’ve really liked what I’ve played so far, and while I’m not equipped to make a final judgement on the game, I can at least tell you what it’s like. Last night, I teamed up with a couple more friends and kept playing. ![]() I fired up my PS4 and we played for a few hours, and after he signed off I played for a few hours more.
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