Helldivers

Game Info

Ever since my friend’s mom got a bunch of us 7th graders in to see Starship Troopers in theatres, I’ve been in love with the film.  Although it diverts way, wayyy away from its Heinlein source material, the movie had a great feel of its own.  Ridiculous, jingoistic, Jake Busey, and pretty good green screen effects for a 1997 B-grade action movie.  2005’s terrible FPS aside, Helldivers is the Starship Troopers game 7th grade James has been waiting for – and probably one you’ve been secretly pining over as well.

More an homage than a direct spinoff, Helldivers has the eponymous troops falling to various planets from drop ships to destroy bugs, cyborgs, and telepathic aliens (think Eldar from Warhammer 40K).  It’s an isometric view twin-stick shooter with a farcical take on and already silly genre.  SUPER EARTH (all caps, obviously) is in perpetual war with these other factions, and you must bring “Managed Democracy” to the various planets.  And while the premise is a little thin, the execution nails it.

Would you like to know more?  From the opening cinematic’s jingoism and the tutorial’s total lack of concern for your life – punctuated by your estimated chance of survival of 5% – the tone of the game is brilliantly set up.  Loading screens give tooltips, some of which are fourth-wall breaking (“Tip: Did you know that tips are shown during loading screens?”) but not like some other games that make you depressingly introspective.  After your tutorial, you’re set into a dropship to go spread democracy.  Planets offer little mini-campaigns, which reward you with special powers called Strategems.  These range from ammo drop (a damn necessity) to special weapons, airstrikes, turrets, and a host of other stuff – some more useful than others.  The basic game is a twin-stick shooting affair, but Helldivers ramps it up.

Everything will kill you.  Like, seriously, everything.  Enemies are obviously after you, but your own callous dropship will dump equipment right on your head.  Misthrow an airstrike marker and you’ll soon find yourself turned into a fine red mist.  Waiting for the evac shuttle right under the beacon?  Crunch.  Someone piloting a mechsuit that you’ve stepped in front of?  Splat.  Friendly fire is always on and a very real threat, as one close-range shotgun blast will make you the spitting image of that one scene from Scanners.  Of particular hazard are the nukes used to destroy fortified enemy structures like bug nests.  They have a short fuse and a wide area of effect.  You’ll die a lot, is what I’m saying.  Matchmaking includes a karma system, so playing like a jerk will eventually quarantine you to other like-minded trolls.  Play nice and you get a wider range of buddies to shoot bad guys with.  Make sure you bring some extra ammo, though, as you’re extremely limited with clips and some of the more heavily armored bad guys can run you out of ammo shortly.  There can be some light stealth as well, but you should know that eventually you’ll be blasting away.

All of these objective-based stages run into a long, loose campaign against the alien menaces.  This is all tracked by slick cross-platform counters that keep tally of all the players, kills, deaths (both hostile and accidental) – as well as every planet’s influence, be it by humans or the opponents.  Drive enough toward the enemy homeland and you can even invade it, knocking them out for a bit while they regroup.  But the opposite is true as well – if the bugs/cyborgs/space elves make it to SUPER EARTH, you have to help defend your home planet.  It’s a very neat system, and has a good push-pull dynamic, almost reminiscent of Lost Planet 2’s underrated multiplayer.

Neither the graphics or sound are particularly amazing (outside of the cutscenes’ constant, overbearing enthusiasm for SUPER EARTH), but this is really more an issue with the way twin-sticks can be presented while maintaining enough view to field 4 people shooting all at once.  There’s nothing that stands out above much else, but the action is smooth and little touches – shell casings on the ground, footprints in the snow – make it all good enough.  The customization-lite approach to cosmetic appearance is neat up close, but when the action gets into it, you’ll generally fail to notice whether yours is the cape with the skull, or the chevetted trim.

The best part of Helldivers, though, is that it’s a 4-player co-op affair with the added feature of local/internet co-op compatibility.  You and your buddy can crush aliens sitting on the same couch, with two other players online.  Plus, the generally humorous ways you’ll be dying is much better to laugh about with a friend sitting next to you.  Except when he stomps on you in a mech suit.  Online runs smoothly, and the load times are quite quick.  There’s always the single-player option, but it’s a lonely game by oneself, so hop into a game.

The Recommendation

For anyone who’s ever wanted to be in Rico’s Roughnecks, who enjoyed Magicka, or just needs a slickly-presented twin-stick shooter on your PlayStation, Helldivers is a fine choice.  The great co-op options add substantial value as well, and although the unforgiving ammo management can be a bit of a pain, the strategic depth presented in the game as a whole package makes most games a fun, tense time.  Although the over-the-top friendly fire kills aren’t as silly as Arrowhead’s previous title Magicka, there are still funny deaths that you’ll certainly be seeing firsthand.