Helldivers II has finally launched, allowing us to become Champions of Managed Democracy, Legends of Liberty, and the first line of defence in Super Earth’s assault on those needing a compassionate helping hand with our iron fist of justice. Published by PlayStation PC LLC, Helldivers II is pretty much an updated version of the original game, moving away from the original top-down view into a full-fledged third-person shooter, bringing it to the modern age, but still offering long-time fans some familiarities.

Arrowhead Game Studios, the developers, have done an amazing job bringing us a satire-filled version of a heavily militarised Earth, filled with the jokes and cliches you always hear about the American military being rowdy cowboys, or the shoot first ask questions never type, but even more heavily exaggerated. Think Starship Troopers on steroids – that is the best description I can parallel Helldivers II with, and I am here for it.

There is no story, per se, so it’s more of a general understanding of the situation. There are Bugs, and we don’t quite understand how they travel between planets, and there are Automatons, and they are getting closer to Super Earth. That is bad, and to maintain peace in the galaxy, we must introduce these interlopers to our advanced weaponry and show them that encroaching on us is not a smart decision.

That’s the mission, and that’s the game. Team up or suffer solo, but push the enemies back by wiping their existence from the planets, and since everything plays out in real-time, if no one plays, the bugs keep moving towards Super Earth. As long as there are players, we will push them back, and that’s a pretty awesome concept.

I have a love-hate relationship with the controls. On one hand, I love how extra focused you have to be on your character, as well as your surroundings. Your guns won’t auto-reload – you have to actively do this, and it takes time, especially with certain weapons, but if you have to interrupt this for any reason, the time it takes shortens.

This is a nice feature, otherwise, there would be times it would be nearly impossible. Being able to dive away from enemies or ranged attacks adds some extra momentum to the movement, however, if you are not careful, you may find yourself crawling along the ground instead of getting up and running, becoming an easy meal for the bugs.

Climbing is a mechanic I wish they would work on – if the ledge is at head height or taller, you just stand there staring at a red no climbing symbol instead of jumping, grabbing the ledge, and pulling yourself up. I get only wanting people to vault over stuff, but it kind of ruins the immersion when your character cannot climb a simple ledge, but the mechanic for requesting stratagems and support items is genius. You use the D-Pad to input key codes, and this is my favourite part of the gameplay.

Another thing I dislike, although I like the idea, is the weapon and armour purchasing. As you progress, you gain different resources and currencies used to get new stratagems like support weapons, bigger orbital strikes, and an assortment of turrets. The list of stratagems is huge. You can also use the samples found on the planets to upgrade your ship, giving passive bonuses to yourself, such as cooldown reductions to certain stratagems.

The purchasing of new armour, weapons, emotes, and the like, is a great idea. You’ll use the medals you earn through completing missions to unlock new armour and whatnot, however, each tier can only be unlocked by spending a certain number of medals over the past tiers, and the issue I have is the armour I just unlocked, the Bonesnapper armour. It comes with a buff that makes stims work longer, and can carry an extra two – it’s basically medic armour.

A few more tiers down, there is another armour that looks like it should be the upgraded version of the Bonesnapper, but it’s the same. It just looks different, making it pretty pointless to want to strive for it. You’ll be getting the currency anyway, but it doesn’t make me want to unlock it as quickly as I can by playing the game a lot. Any other issues I had found with the game have been, or are being addressed, like not receiving EXP and rewards after matches, or the disconnection/server issues being labelled as problems stemming from high traffic on the servers – fixes are being worked on, which, while still frustrating, is a good sign.

The visuals of Helldivers II are amazing, and with the sheer amount of craziness going on, I was expecting more frame drops than I received, and that is great. There were a few issues with the Bug’s profiles stretching to enormous lengths, but this only happened to dead bugs, so it wasn’t much of an issue. It was more humorous than anything.

The weapons look amazing, as does the armour. Some more than others, but everyone will have their preferences, and I’m hopeful that more weapons and armour will be added soon. I also hope we get some more cutscenes like the trailer video, because that was gold, and it probably swayed a lot of people to give it a try.

The voice lines in Helldivers II are expertly delivered, and you can tell they had fun with it; from the psychotic laugh when you empty a whole mag into an enemy to the contradictory one-liners that your character enthusiastically yells while destroying everything around them.

This game, apart from the action, offers a lot of laughs with these over-the-top lines. Kudos to the writers and the voice actors who gave us, “How about a nice cup of Liber-Tea?”, or, “How do you like the taste of FREEDOM!!” I can’t speak much on the weapons – they sound like guns, but then you have the stratagems – the orbital bombardments, turrets, the hellfire side missions. It’s like Michael Bay was a part of the development. The constant explosive sounds of destructive peacekeeping stratagems are never boring, and I love raining down democracy on unexpecting enemies. It’s my new favourite pastime.

Helldivers II surprised me. It was a lot better than I expected, and besides a couple of bugs that were addressed quite quickly, there is not much I can fault it for. The only thing I will suggest is to get together and play with friends. This game is twice as fun when played with others, even if you play with randoms.

Most of the time, it is a good time, and I do hope that the community can stay away from the toxicity that can quickly surface in online multiplayer games, so try to remember that this is a fully cooperative game, but friendly fire is always on, so just watch each other’s backs and laugh at the mistakes, because if we stop playing, the bugs will take over, and our managed democracy will be destroyed, so get out their soldier, and make me proud.

Written by: Adam Brasher