Recent reviews by Winby

Helldivers2 is one of the few games I was interested in this year. It had a unique charm to it that made it stand out from many other live service games and made me want to improve and engage in the role playing aspect to an extent. I loved the feeling of being yet another cog in the gears of war while desperately fighting my way through swarms of enemies. I loved the feeling of taking down elites with stratagems and support weapons. I loved working my way toward better weapons and unlocking better gear. I appreciate Arrowhead for what they set out to do, but I feel that they've doubled back on so much that I find it difficult to trust their direction with this game. The game I fell in love with isn't the game we know today. It seems like every time I unlocked or gravitated toward a weapon, there was a Nerf the next day. A week into unlocking the breaker, it was Nerfed. I unlocked the Slugger only for it to receive a Nerf the next day. I was looking forward to using the Railgun only for that to get a Nerf the same day I unlocked it. The Eruport? Again a Nerf. Incendiary Breaker? Nerf. I admit I was taking offense with the last two as I spent premium currency (either saved up or bought) to use and enjoy those weapons. Weapon Balancing is one thing, but what Arrowhead was doing felt overbearing and in hindsight even they admitted to over correcting the weapons and having to give buffs back to the Slugger and Railgun. It's tells me ,as a player, that they don't understand why we use these weapons and what makes them enjoyable. It honestly makes me hesitant to unlock anything else. Which is why I would not recommend this game to newcomers. It doesn't feel good to get invested in a game that repeatedly lets down their players. I'd recommend saving yourself the trouble and play something else.

I boldly tried to play this on the Steam Deck and to it’s credit, it got to the Main Menu. Given the mixed performance on a wide variety of set ups, I thought maybe it would be playable on the Steam Deck (it’s my only gaming device). I was sorely mistaken. It crashed during the intro cutscene. I booted it up again and skipped the cutscene only to have it crash in the intro gameplay segment 2-3 minutes in. The Frame Rate averaged below 30 FPS on the lowest settings and looked like PS3 graphics. I could’ve forgiven all of the quality hiccups if only the game didn’t crash and take 10-15 minutes until I could play again. If you’re thinking about getting it for the Steam Deck, I’d say hold off.