Helldivers Review — paulsemel

Thanks to a lot of little things, the arcade top-down, sci-fi shooter Helldivers (PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Vita) is more frustrating than fun.

[JMaine518]

Ouch. I could see how this game can get frustrating but it looks so fun and challenging to me! That's what turns me on the most about it.

[vishmarx]

lol the game is sitting close to 85 metacritic.
this guy is way off

havent played it though.will consider ying it regardless of whatever the mc score is.

[JMaine518]

I didn't read it but I'm not going to say he's way off. It's his opinion wether we agree with it or not.

[Kryptix]

@jmaine_ph

It's an opinion, but opinions can still be properly criticized regardless.

I'm going to highlight the things that he pointed out as negatives and add my comment on it. I find most of these highlights ridiculous and you'll read why.

==

"Like most games of this kind, Helldivers has you runnin’ with the left thumbstick and gunnin’ with the right one. But while many top-down shooters fire automatically, this has you pulling the trigger to shoot."

"This, unto itself is not a problem...
...No, the problem lies in the fact that your ammo is seriously limited."

Basically, Helldivers isn't just a mindless twin stick shooter, but one that requires high dexterity and practice. I bet you took points off because of personal skill, the game wasn't as fault here. The more you play, the better you are at timing your shots. It's like any other game, you play and play, you get better. That's the beauty of it, it's a reward to see yourself progress and become a better version of yourself through time.

"Granted, you can call in supply drops (which I’ll get to in a moment), or you can be more precise with your shots (though that’s easier said than done), but either way it’s still rare, and thus frustrating, that you begin a mission with enough ammo to complete it."

So you can progress easier if you learn when to pull that trigger and not only that, but you also get the luxury of extra ammo now and then. If you combine those two, that pretty much makes the first point about lack of ammo invalid.

==

"As for those aforementioned ammo drops? Well, they certainly do help."

Lack of ammo complaint = not really a problem then.

"As do the auto turrets, aerial strikes, and other helpful items you can have delivered. Except that when you want to ask for something, you have to punch in code using the D-pad, which makes this feels like busy work. It also doesn’t help that the arrow icons for these codes are small and light grey, so they often blend in with the background, while the icons for the kinds of drops available are also small, which makes it hard to distinguish the aerial strikes one from the reinforcements, especially during a firefight."

http://www.technobuffalo.co...

http://media1.gameinformer....

http://www.entdepot.com/sit...

Those arrows really do blend in with the background, don't they? Maybe it's possible that you either set your TV's brightness and contrast too high or an optometrist appointment needs to be scheduled.

You also know how you can fix the problem? You memorize them, again, learn to play... With your mentally, you must really struggle with fighters, those combos though. Incoming 2/10 MKX review because learning directional inputs will feel like "busy work." It's just a unique aspect of Helldivers and inputting 3-5 button presses on average only takes about 2 seconds. With time, I remember being able to remember countless cheat codes on GTA and with time, inputting 10 combo button strings in a few seconds. Once again, taking points off because of personal skill. You practice, you never have to look at that input list while focusing on your surroundings.

[Kryptix]

(part 2 due to 4000 character limit)

==

"The people behind Helldivers also made a mistake common in games that can be play solo or with friends: You can’t pause your game if you’re playing alone, even if you set the online, uh, settings to “private.”"

It's a game that mainly has drop in, drop out coop in mind. There's many games that have the drop in, drop out feature to prevent the whole level from reloading if one person decides to join your game.

==

"Helldivers also has a really, really annoying map problem: You can’t see the map while you’re moving around. You can pull it up to see where you need to go, but you can’t move while looking at it, nor can you shoot, or even set any waypoints. As a result, it can be really irritating when you’ve completed your objective and are trying to figure out where the extraction point is located while enemies are shooting at you."

Do enemies keep respawing infinitely after putting them to rest? If no, then I don't see how it can really be a problem when you can just clear the zone and then look at the map.

==

"While all of these problems apply whether you go it alone or with friends, playing Helldivers co-op manages to have its own unique issue: You can’t disable friendly fire when playing with other people. Which gets really tiresome after a while, given how people usually play these kinds of games with a “spray it, don’t aim it” kind of approach."

But this isn't a "spray it, don't aim it" game. No matter how badly you want it to be, this game is meant to be more tactical, more teamwork based, a need to be more patient, thoughtful, and discipline. The problem is that you keep looking at this game and you're thinking that this game should be more casual, more easy. No, it's meant to be hardcore, thus, more rewarding to you and your team. There will be pitfalls, when you have a team member be terrible or be a troll, but that's how it also is in any other game. With friendly fire always on, not only is it more hardcore, but it promotes team work, careful planning, mic use, trust. This game doesn't hold hands and that's what makes it unique...

==

I think the problem with this review is that the person reviewing this game expects it to be the same as any other twin stick shooter. Not only that, but I see hints of not willing to take the time to become better at it. It's different, so that's what makes Helldivers a breath of fresh air. Your "negatives" is what makes it stand out even better.

I'm starting to get tired of reviewers scoring a game lower because it's different or not what the casual expects. And difficulty should never be a factor in score or we'll have amazing games like Demon/Dark Souls scoring lower than it should...

[THC CELL]

Yep, becoming a thing now give a game a low score get hit reaction, I've played the game it's awesome hard tho. Friendly Fire oh that can become purpose fire lol.

Playing with Vita friends and ps3 friend is cool too them who not jump ship

[the_dark_one]

I havent played this game yet, but from what i have seen it really looks kinda fun, challenging and intresting. Now i dont know if this game deserves this score but if i have noticed something in my time on n4g its that this guy/website always but always seem to give PS games exclusives very very low reviews so i can see this review as bullcrap. But then again i could be wrong

[Spotie]

But it's just a conspiracy theory! There's no way any sites out there target certain games, especially not Sony games. That's just fanboys letting their imagination run wild. /a

I sure hope this site isn't on metacritic.

[zsquaresoff]

That article about websites giving low scores to garner attention is becoming more believable by the day.

[Benjammin25]

The game is sitting at 82 on metacritic. Pretty sure that means this 'review' is a load of crap.

[Infamous298]

Isn't this the website that gave Drive club a seriously low score?

[UKmilitia]

wow alot of hate towards ps games lately.
wonder what gonna be said about bloodborne.

very few reviewers have credability imo because games which i have enjoyued have been slated.

borrowed bro inlaws xb1 and enjoyed ryse
loved the order

plus many others.
i do wish all games would come with a demo but i suppose there to busy planning DLC these days .

[BloodAddiction]

I have trust in from software Bloodborne well be the shit i cant wait to play it

[johndoe11211]

"wow alot of hate towards ps games lately"

You're wrong about that. That hate has been there since microsoft got into console gaming. Let me explain how the gaming media has worked since then.

After microsoft got into gaming they began throwing money at the gaming media for good press coverage of their games and consoles, even going as far as giving polygon $750,000 to start their site. Since then the american media has been heavily pro microsoft.

Why do you think a rehashed game like HMCC could be released and be completely broken and still get 8.5's and 9's but Driveclub a new IP with the same problems gets 5's and 6's? Why do you think last gen resolution meant everything for the gaming press when xbox had a few more blades of grass but this gen it means absolutely nothing when PS games are clearly out performing xbox games in resolution and framerate? Why do you think xbox can release games regardless of how generic they are and get 9's and 10's but all sony games for some reason or the other must reinvent gaming and game mechanics or suffer deductions in scores?

This has been going on for years and you have people that will come here and disagree with me just because they want to push an agenda for their preferred console. They will pretend that everything I said is completely false even though gamers have been pointing these issues out for years. A simple google search would prove some of what I said. you cannot win against a corrupt gaming media and rabid fanatics. They would prefer encourage a corrupt media because it supports their biases.

[gangsta_red]

@johndoe11211

Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

Well said Johndoe, I couldn't ( I actually can't!) have said it better myself.

[dcj0524]

Not really much hate. People hated on the order because it's lackluster. Infamous got high praise, killzone got high praise. Driveclub was received ok, people still love tlou. It's just the order.

[johndoe11211]

What rock have you been living under??? Infamous was heavily criticized for story and gameplay by the media. The only thing it was praised for was the graphics. Same goes for killzone. The media all but ignored the multiplayer in killzone (which in my opinion was one of the best multiplayers this gen) and only focused on the single player in order to justify deducting points. Driveclub was NOT received ok, it got a ton of 5's and 6's from the media and was SEVERELY criticized for not "adding anything new" to the racing gen (something Forza was not required to do in ANY review). It also got completely raped by the gaming media for having a broken multiplayer, the exact thing that did not stop HMCC from getting 8's and 9's. I have no idea what blinders you are wearing but you really need to take them off.

[mafiabrett]

Considering the full game ain't even released yet. They probably only played a 'taste' of the full game, got rekt by its difficulty and proceed to give it a bad score cause its to hard? HAHA clickbait

[PaulFiend]

Low score is new high score these days. I really want to try this one when it's out.

[TwoForce]

After the review of Order 1886, I'm done with gaming sites. I'm going to buy HellDivers. Mark my word.

[TwoForce]

I love Top Down shooter like Dead Nation and others game I liked.

[izumo_lee]

Oh is the game too hard for Palsemel or they have no friends to play with. With this score this person missed the entire point of the game!

Played it. Sure its hard when you are alone. That's why you get friends to join you & work together to achieve mission objectives. Coordination & teamwork get you far into the game. It's a team base shooter.

Another 'look at me' site. This guy has no credibility & why is this site even approved on here?

[Milkshake]

LMAO! What a sad excuse of a review! Waaaaah! It's too hard for me! Waaaaah! Reloading is not automatic! Waaaaaaaaaah!
I've also noticed he gave f**kin' PINBALL games 8-9 out of 10 scores!!! Pathetic!

[ninsigma]

I haven't read the review because I don't give clicks to reviews, so if I'm wrong, please do correct me.

"Thanks to a lot of little things, the arcade top-down, sci-fi shooter Helldivers (PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Vita) is more frustrating than fun."

This right here sounds like he got his ass kicked so he didn't like it. Now like I said I could be wrong, and if he has said it's frustrating because there's lots of broken stuff in the game then let me know. But if it is because it's a tough game, then this is really bad journalism. Seriously, keep personal feelings out of it. A review is supposed to objectively point out the good and bad points of the subject being reviewed despite what you actually think of it. The author is well within their rights to not like the game because it's tough, but that doesn't mean it should be a 3.5 out of 10. I wouldn't even give a mess like assassins creed unity a score that low.

[izumo_lee]

The game doesn't hold your hand in combat. You have to manually reload all the time. Your shots can damage or destroy your objective. Your buddies can kill you with friendly fire, a turrent you deploy can kill you to. So basically it's like real life.

Nothing is broken, it runs smooth even with all the carnage involved. The setup of skills, your loadout is easy to understand.

So basically the guy is a wuss who can't grasp a difficult game. Granted playing alone is suicide which is why you get friends to help you but that too is so much fun the trolling & griefing that can occur.

Personally i would give it a 7.5 or 8. The insane difficulty may deter people & getting friends to coordinate may be frustrating in a good way. But nowhere near the ridiculous score this 'person' gave it.

[MasterCornholio]

Well the developers did warn people that it would be hard.

There's nothing wrong with a game being hard as long as its not due to the game being broken or cheap.

[ninsigma]

Thanks for the info. So I guess I presumed right about the author. Which is a shame cuz I'd like to see some proper reviews come out.

I can't give it a score myself, i'm not into top down games, it's just not my thing, and i don't like putting hours upon hours into a single game (with some exceptions of course like kingdom hearts), so i usually steer clear from games such as dark souls. I imagine this is another game geared towards a particular audiance, which is cool. I have seen videos and it looks crazy, so if the devs have kept it smooth like you say then fair play to them!

[Milkshake]

This guy also gave Akiba's Trip 0/10!!! LMAO!!!
I do understand that it may not be everyone's cup of tea but to give it a ZERO?! (sigh).

[Jamiex66]

Seems he more based the score on the gaming being too hard, than actually being functional. I'd hate to see the review for Bloodborne.

[GiantFriendlyCrab]

this is what casuals would say

[Predaking77]

The disparity in today's reviews is getting bigger and bigger and it proves that you cannot trust reviews these days. The opinion of one person does not represent the experience that everyone else will get.

Look at The Order, it received more positive reviews than negative but the media focused on the negative and yet despite it the game has been a success and topping the charts.

[realplayer82]

Another website to blacklist....

[q8kik]

Don't let casuals review games, especially not hard ones.

[Master-H]

Lmao. This trollish joke of a site again.
The same site that gave DriveClub a 3/10, then gave the Halo MC collection an 8.5 LOL