Helldivers 2 Review

thesixthaxis.com:

Do you have what it takes to defend the Freedom, Justice and Liberty of Super Earth? To fight back the rampaging hordes of chitinous Terminids and the implacable robotic Automatons to defend our home? Do you want to see exotic new planets, and smash them into submission with high explosives? Then Helldivers 2 is the game for you!

Helldivers 2 is about as close as we’ll get to having a video game adaptation of Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers, a film that pretty much every late 90s teenager mainly wanted to see for some steamy T&A, but has grown into its cult classic status as people reinterpreted its satirical themes and messages. From the opening cinematic introduction, to the slapdash basic training that you get before being sent hurtling in drop pods down to alien planets to fight horrendous alien foes you had no real preparation to face, it nails the tone and style of Starship Troopers in brilliant fashion. The big difference from the first Helldivers to this sequel is that it’s gone from a top-down view to a third-person shooter camera.

You’re both horrendously under and hilariously over-equipped for whatever missions you’ll face. As you land, you have just your main weapon, sidearm, a handful of grenades and stims to heal yourself up. That’s good enough to push back the smallest of enemies, and even carve up tougher chitinous beasts that are your height – they’ll keep coming at you as you blast away limbs and even their heads – but it doesn’t take long before you face off against towering enemies with armour that deflects your basic bullets, or can do away with you in a single gush of toxic fluid.

You’re going to need some bigger guns. And more people who also have more and bigger guns.

That’s where your very own Super Carrier comes in, giving you access to a catalogue of Stratagems to call in heavy weaponry, orbital bombardments, aerial bombing runs, defensive turrets, minefields, drones, and more. All you need to do is bring up the Stratagem overlay, tap in