Helldivers Is Like A Video Game Version Of Starship Troopers


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Helldivers Is Like A Video Game Version Of Starship Troopers
Kirk Hamilton

 

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Until last weekend, Helldivers was totally off my radar. Then my boss Stephen texted me on Sunday saying we should team up and play it. It was good, he said. It was like a tactical, sci-fiDiablo, he said. My interest was piqued.

 

I fired up my PS4 and we played for a few hours, and after he signed off I played for a few hours more. Last night, I teamed up with a couple more friends and kept playing. 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.

Helldivers

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I stayed at my parents' last night due to weather making my long commute iffy, and my brother and I ended up playing this game all night. It is totally worth the $20. ($18 if your a PS+ member this week) It is a fantastically fun game, and it has cross-buy, cross-save, and cross-play! Can't beat that.

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Helldivers Has Some Great Achievements
Kirk Hamilton

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Yeah, I know, they're called trophies on PlayStation. Achievements, trophies... whatever you want to call them, Helldivers has some of the funniest I've seen in a while.

 

Take the one in the gif up top, called "Dancing Queen." 

 

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Every time I'm playing with someone new, I stop everything on the bridge and tell them to start twirling their right thumbstick. Last night, Patricia and I stood on the bridge of my ship for a few minutes while she tried to twirl 25 times in a row, cracking up. It's harder than you might think!

 

Or how about this one:

 

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I have a soft spot for achievements that can only be earned on certain days of the week, and also for terrible/amazing pop tunes, so this works out well.

 

The basic achievements for a few "firsts" tell a funny story:

 

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And of course, there are a couple Starship Troopers references in there:

 

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Then again, joking about escort missions doesn't make them any less onerous...

 

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...though I guess that Brian Fantana reference makes it a little better.

 

We've seen games go the extra mile with achievements in the past; Gunpoint and The Stanley Parable come to mind. Glad to see Helldivers following in the grand tradition.

 

Source: Kotaku

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My brother and I played again last night, though it was online multiplayer this time since I was home. We had some trouble connecting to each other's games; but I will attribute that to a launch window hiccup. After several tries and even each of us rebooting our PS4s just to be sure, we were able to connect. Once we in, there was no discernible lag and everything played great.

 

We did some higher level missions, and tried out the flame thrower, rocket launcher, and machine gun support weapons. They were all fun to use. I'm a fan of the shotgun for my primary weapon though. :) All the weapons have great sound effects too. Especially the turrets. Such a hefty chunk-ca-chunk-ca-chunk to them.

 

I'm not sure I understand the galaxy map though. We started playing yesterday not long after the game was available on the US store, and there was only one section in the bug wedge that was selectable. I thought we were supposed to be able to choose from a bunch of sections depending on where we wanted to help out the war effort. Did I miss something?

 

That being said, we tried out the cyborg missions last night after they opened. Just as much fun as the bugs. I can't wait to try out the Illuminate ones tonight.

 

Pro-tip: the support weapons can be restocked with supply drops just like regular weapons. So we were calling in our support weapons and supply drops at the beginning of every mission to fully stock up on ammo. (Y)

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My brother and I played again last night, though it was online multiplayer this time since I was home. We had some trouble connecting to each other's games; but I will attribute that to a launch window hiccup. After several tries and even each of us rebooting our PS4s just to be sure, we were able to connect. Once we in, there was no discernible lag and everything played great.

 

We did some higher level missions, and tried out the flame thrower, rocket launcher, and machine gun support weapons. They were all fun to use. I'm a fan of the shotgun for my primary weapon though. :) All the weapons have great sound effects too. Especially the turrets. Such a hefty chunk-ca-chunk-ca-chunk to them.

 

I'm not sure I understand the galaxy map though. We started playing yesterday not long after the game was available on the US store, and there was only one section in the bug wedge that was selectable. I thought we were supposed to be able to choose from a bunch of sections depending on where we wanted to help out the war effort. Did I miss something?

 

That being said, we tried out the cyborg missions last night after they opened. Just as much fun as the bugs. I can't wait to try out the Illuminate ones tonight.

 

Pro-tip: the support weapons can be restocked with supply drops just like regular weapons. So we were calling in our support weapons and supply drops at the beginning of every mission to fully stock up on ammo. (Y)

 

Sounds like fun! I am eagerly awaiting Aliennation as well. House Marquee are a great dev.

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Helldivers Has Some Great Achievements

Kirk Hamilton

 

...

 

Source: Kotaku

"It's raining Hell, hallelujah", and "80% of the time, I hit every time" are pretty easy actually since they don't require a specific mission difficulty.

 

For the former, just start a level 1 mission, and equip four turret strategems. note: do not melee or shoot your weapon or else this trophy will not unlock. Even if you hit nothing, it still voids the trophy.

 

For the latter, a similar approach works: start a level 1 mission, and switch to your pistol. Level 1 missions only have those small scout bugs that die in one shot. Just run around, let patrols see you so they spawn their max number of enemies, and kill everything. I think you get about 8 enemies per patrol, so you only need 38 of them or so. It takes a while doing it this way, but it's super easy.

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I'm not sure I understand the galaxy map though. We started playing yesterday not long after the game was available on the US store, and there was only one section in the bug wedge that was selectable. I thought we were supposed to be able to choose from a bunch of sections depending on where we wanted to help out the war effort. Did I miss something?

My understanding is the different wedges are related to the different enemies. The game only launched with the bugs opened up so only that wedge of the galaxy map was available. The cyborg missions unlocked yesterday (and you mentioned trying one) so that should have unlocked another wedge of the galaxy map (haven't checked and can't at the moment.) When the illuminate ones open up another wedge will unlock. It's all linked to the story on when you encounter the different races and then the progress depends on how everyone playing the game is doing at the missions. Each time you complete a mission you nudge the war toward the race you beats home planet and each time you fail they come closer to earth. I only played so far when the first race was unlocked and early in the war but I've read that apparently once cycle has already completed and the bugs destroyed earth... so the game resets and we try again.

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  • 3 weeks later...

If anyone still plays this then feel free to add me - Boxster17.  I still play it a fair bit here and there so feel free to jump into my game if you see me online.

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  • 3 weeks later...
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