Recent reviews by Deltacommander

Rip and tear, parry and cleave. Kill them all.

I'm part of the science team!

Helldivers 2 is a sequel almost a decade in the making

General Statement:
Just like with Risk of Rain 2, Helldivers 2 went to make strides by making large changes, the most notable of all being the addition of the Z axis. With the change in camera positioning and moving away from the twin-stick top-down shooter Helldivers 2 has opened itself up to a larger audience. As well as allowing significant gameplay changes.

Atmosphere:
Everything in Helldivers 2 is meant to not be taken seriously, the totalitarian super democracy is the main driving force of everything in the game. All the NPCs and player characters ensure you know this by constant quips in the field or by just talking to them as they reference their lives, the enemies, or Super Earth itself. Ship upgrades and infield data pads have much in theme text which also adds to the immersion. The factions have their distinct colors and provide completely different gameplay experiences. The explosions from stratagems are beautiful, the guns sound and feel amazing weighty and the enemies react to being hit in a multitude of different ways.

Gameplay:
As stated in Atmosphere the Stratagems and guns look and feel amazing, if an explosion is going off nearby you might get knocked over, if you're standing behind a recoilless rifle the back blast will knock you down, the flamethrower leaves fire pools on the floor which cook anything that walks into them and much more minor interactions. However, a key aspect is that shooting enemies in different spots give multiple different effects; if you shoot off a terminid leg or two it will slow down and start limping, if you shoot an automaton gun arm it can no longer fire at you, if a charger is rushing at you and you hit its leg with a high power shot it will stop its charge and slide across the floor. All of these different options for engaging and different outcomes for choices made are wonderful. Just like the enemies you also take damage from where you're hit: a broken arm from being hit makes it much harder to control recoil, a broken leg from being blown up makes it so you can't run, and your chest breaking makes you bleed out, but stimms do fix these ailments if you have any left.

Compared to HD1 almost all enemies have weak points in which normal weapons can engage and destroy, albeit ineffectively, it is possible to take down a bile titan without AT which is a huge plus in making your primary not feel like its only use is to kill scouts or light armor enemies only. speaking of which, scouts are still in the game, patrols can and most likely will trigger enemy-spawning events creating a more difficult movement for your squad. On top of this there are hives/robot factories that will regularly spew enemies if not destroyed, so if you're fighting near a hive and are spotted be ready for a constant stream of enemies.

Objectives are as important as ever, except now there are also (Points of Interest) POI's. These POI's usually have anything from samples, which you desperately need, to weapons that you can try out and they are almost always worth checking. there are also secondary objectives such as radar installations, bases/nests, and artillery emplacements. These all provide different buffs for the squad, the radar installation will provide entire map knowledge to ease both sample and objective finding. While the Artillery piece will add a new stratagem depending on the shells you loaded into it it can either be a support slow field/ area denial shot, high explosive, or a mini-nuke making the secondary entirely player choice oriented. As stated before there are samples at each of these locations and they are necessary for the progression and improvement of your stratagems in field.

a negative on this is that there is now a 40-minute timer per mission, which forces you to rush forward, I've constantly found on higher difficulties we barely make it to extract with no time to spare, and when time runs out you get no more stratagems making the extract harder than it already is. This is not so much an issue on difficulty 5 and below as you are usually not constantly fighting boss enemies and can more easily clear hordes or escape. Many times on difficulty 6+ where extract was attempted, two boss enemies would spawn and we would have no way to deal with them as our stratagems were out due to time, and we were already low on AT from fighting the 4 other random spawns, holding out for 3 minutes with no support at these difficulties meant death no matter how hard you dodged and weaved.

Loadouts:
Loadouts have been improved dramatically, HD1 players rejoice, pistols and grenades can be swapped freely without sacrificing another important ability. there are still large varieties of weapons and many options for different play styles. Armors now have stats attached and there are three different types, such as light, medium, and heavy. These armors can also have bonuses, such as extra throw range, reduced limb damage, extra equipment, or more. Helmets and capes are purely cosmetic compared to armor so go wild. you can also edit your character at any time and provide them with random or select voices, emotes, victory poses, titles, and player cards. Lastly, there are boosters that provide multiple different team buffs, the same boosters don't stack so players can bring multiple different boosters at a time, such as starting with max supplies when dropping and taking less damage. In the field you can change your weapon's fire rate and flashlight toggle by holding reload and pressing either mouse 2 to cycle right, or mouse wheel to cycle down. However, there are no weapon upgrades or saved loadouts currently

Stratagems:
Stratagems are unlocked by progressing through levels and purchased with requisition. You get these both from completing missions and can choose what you would like to unlock. Stratagems are split into multiple different sections, these sections are how you both identify where a stratagem is from and upgrade them via ship upgrades. there's the Patriotic Administration Center which provides support and heavy weapons, then you have the hanger which is mostly focused on the Eagle fighter/bomber, and others which provide different options. The stratagems as stated before feel great and have beautiful effects if you call in the Eagle Cluster strike you see the plane come in drop the bombs and pop flares as it flies off. You can also look up when you call orbital bombardments and see your ships directly firing downward/ drop pods coming in. The way you upgrade now is through the ship as stated earlier, this will take samples. There are three types green common sample, Orange rare sample, and Purple Very rare sample. These sample types will increase in drop rate at higher difficulties, however you do need to extract to receive them like in HD1. However there are no singular stratagem upgrades so you'll be upgrading them through the ship only.

Monetization:
There are two battlepasses, the basic one: Helldivers Mobilize! and the premium Steeled Veterans. The free one gives premium currency up to 750 Super Credits, and the premium costs 1000 Super Credits. However, the premium currency can be found in the game it ranges from 10-40 credits per hour, (stated by the devs) and can be found in any mission with no weekly/monthly limits. The battle passes themselves do not expire and can be accessed at any time. The battle passes contain an assortment of items, such as playercards, weapons, boosters, armors, emotes, victory poses, and Super Credits. This is the only way to currently unlock weapons and boosters. there are 10 pages of the free battlepass and three pages of the premium battlepass. the other option is the Super Store which has rotations every two days and will always come back if you don't get them.
Overall the monetization model is player-friendly compared to many others.

Overall a great sequel!

The Game play:
The formula is only slightly changed and can be easily reverted via the rules menu if wanted, The new flow from the old Risk of Rain is a welcome sight as having to clear the map before leaving was a major chore and time waster in the original version The enemies are back to themselves and some can even climb vines/ladders now making them no longer extraordinarily safe. There is as before no way to shoot upward, but that is no issue, the only minor issue is that if you select the Risk of Rain 2 controls characters don't aim to the side the mouse is pointing, which is inline to the original game as you had to turn to shoot, but it does feel clunky for the character to not auto do that when the left click is held.

The Graphics:
Amazing rendition of the old sprites, they went all out with remaking and modernizing everything. In the credits, you can see the side-by-side comparison of the old ones to the new and they are true to their original design and simply updated to be more detailed as well as distinct from before. Special enemies stand out well and are well-telegraphed to see their attacks.

The UI:
A large improvement on UI as a whole, the main menu is well laid out and explains itself well, a simple but effective base design, the HUD UI is good, but could use some adjustments such as easier to see teammates when off-screen, drone health displays aside from the drone itself looking damaged.

The Difficulty:
Enemies as a whole have changed from being extraordinarily tanky in Risk of Rain 1 to doing more damage, an overall better trade as you're not hitting damage sponges the whole time. However, the biggest change is personalized difficulty which allows players of all skill levels to play together, having one player on normal monsoon difficulty and another taking less damage or dealing more to help them out. These changes make the game significantly more friendly to those who can not play well at higher levels.

Unlocks:
The unlocks come at a decent pace and you aren't completely bombarded after the first game, as usual, unlocks are tied to progress and challenges. There are many ways to get unlocks from getting certain item combinations to the new providence trials to even level secrets. You can unlock a multitude of things for total progression as compared to run progression, there are items, logs, characters, and usable which are obtainable a multitude of ways and allows players to experiment

Characters:
There are 16 characters and each one is as lively and distinct from each other as before. There are some new abilities and each one starts with 4 recolor skins at the base, you can unlock more by doing challenges or providence trials. There are new ways to get abilities for survivors as well as the original way through the normal game, there are challenges that test your skill and unlock abilities more quickly than other ways, however, there are also unlocks that can only be done doing a normal game and rewards you for utilizing specialized kits well. The new secret survivor is an interesting take, and actually fits well into the roster.

Providence trials:
As mentioned before these are ways to get new items, abilities, skins, and even medals, in the game. when doing these trials there are two win states, the basic pass, and the gold medal. Getting gold medals rewards you with extra unlocks after hitting prerequisite amounts. However, most of the trials are not easy and will require not only skill but exceptional knowledge of game mechanics to ensure a gold medal and to even pass some. The difficulty of some of the trials are harder than others, but most are fair and reward proper problem-solving.

Stats and High scores:
The stats page has been remade and it's better than ever, showing the pie chart of characters played and total stats on the first tab, but now also includes run history in the second tab so you can check and show off your wins and losses to others after the run has long ended. Lastly there's a high scores tab that records your best game play and which difficulty it was achieved on a per-character basis.

The music:
The classic music is back, and its as fire as before.

Overall:
Risk of Rain Returns is definitely a love letter to Risk of Rain. They only improved on aspects of the original game and provided a huge sweeping quality update to it which allows players both old and new to experience the game like never before! They also added new characters items and game modes which provide even more to do in an already well-defined game. They've also set themselves up for the ability to continue to add more characters locations and items in the future if willing.

10/10 fantastic remake.

Review Rewrite as the game has entered a new state due to this update.

New talent trees are very good and significantly more in-depth than compared to before, however, it does have its flaws, it does still slightly box the player into set paths and it is a little problematic to mix and match from junction points. If the junction points were 1 cost to swap from any tree it would allow more diversity, but as of currently if you're on the right tree it will cost 2 extra points on top of the automatic 1 to continue towards the other side. this is a bit of a feels-bad mechanic for the player as you don't want to waste points on these junctions where you can get more effective skills and passives.
A second point is that enemy re-balancing is fun and adds significant variety to the director's actions with different hordes, ambushes, and encounters in missions. Playing on mostly Damnation (the highest difficulty) there are significant differences from previous director actions, hordes will spawn with elites, specials, and sometimes a boss to throw the group into mayhem. However there are times when the director seems to be overly oppressive and doesn't give the group a much-needed break to ream and reposition, this is especially relevant on Heresy and above as many times when the group is low on resources when we just start the mission as it is a battle to exit the first area.

In total, the game is enjoyable and very much recommended as the loop is fun as are the classes, they provide depth replayability and good teamwork incentives.

Fun game, some DLC is necessary in order to have the 'full game experience' and some are not worth the money. But the game is an enjoyable arcade top down shooter that is easy to learn and hard to master. Personally I would recommend it when it and all the DLC are on sale in a bundle as the game is no longer updated.

Great DLC addition to an already great game. Adds a bunch of fun stuff, places, enemies, items, and some gamemodes. Overall another fantastic addition to the ROR series.

Fun mmo, tons to do amazing soundtrack, decent story, and extremely nice community. Would recommend!

Wow.

Still waiting for a second one to come out. This classic is amazing and deserves a sequel. I remember when it first released and went through about 2 name changes. The game is wonderful and mixed tower defense with some RPG customization elements to either be a heavy assault mech that focused on pure attack or engineer mechs which would build towers and be weaker hp and weapon wise, or all rounders which do everything but not as good as specialized selections.