Recent reviews by Krel zhe Partially Insane Medic

There aren't many games I'd be willing to sit through a queue to try and play. Helldivers 2 is, shockingly, one of them. It plays almost exactly like the first game, except you're in third person and can see everything happening in real time around you. Being able to control your hellpod coming in for reinforcement is also nice, because you can either land away from the action or use yourself as an artillery battery to knock out a bigger enemy.

Certain elements of the game are a little rough around the edges, such as quickplay matchmaking and the server capacities (the Devs expected 50k concurrent players tops - the current in-game count on steam is 389k, not even counting the console players who use the same servers). EDIT: As of April (2024), these server issues have since been resolved. All in a day's work for managed democracy.

To be honest though, I was able to overlook all of that purely due to the sheer love and care I can tell the devs have put into the game. It truly feels like a love letter to Helldivers 1, with improvements on all of the things it did well. The servers may have taken a minute to get up to capacity, but the wait has been well worth it.The monetization in this game is probably the best I've seen from a live service, where you can legitimately earn the 'premium' currency at a reasonable rate through in-game progression and specially marked cases on the different operations that shine as beacons from anywhere on the surface of the planet once you've landed. What I'm really looking forward to, though, is the introduction of vehicles for these big open maps. Oh, and maybe the Las-16 Sickle. - What's that? I'm getting reports from the ministry of truth, it appears.. Sweet mother liberty, they've finally brought back my baby! And mechanized walkers? Boy, if freedom ain't free, let our enemies pay the fee!


All in all, the game is a breath of fresh air from Darktide's inconsistent server stability and sometimes malicious 'Director' to borrow terminology from Left 4 Dead. The game feels like a mix of Deeprock Galactic and Starship Troopers, with maybe the smallest hint of the world's deadliest game of DDR. Just dance, dance your enemies into an early grave by way of nuclear atomization, courtesy of Democracy's finest Hellbomb.

SAS Zombie Asault 4 is an example of a Mobile game port done right. (Well, better than can be expected of MOST things coming out of that genre, if you catch my meaning..). The gameplay is fun, the controls are fairly intuitive, and you can even play it multiplayer! I guess a review needs to be more than a Tl;DR though, so here's some bulletpoints on what the game does good, and what it does bad.

• You can play the game WITHOUT having to buy anything with real money, and the game experience has not been artificially slowed down despite the presence of microtransactions (Take note EA, you may learn something after your BF2 fiasco)
  
  
• "Lootboxes", while present, do not require money to open, and can be found easily throughout the game simply by playing levels, with some showing up as random spawns on replayable missions, or dropping from the guaranteed bosses at the end of said levels. These lootboxes contain your gear, ranging from "crap that you sell for in-game currency" to "hey this is pretty good and i can upgrade it with in-game currency!". It should be noted that while you can buy this in-game currency, or lootboxes, it isn't necessary at all as you can easily hop into any mission and find those lootboxes, or the currency. There's even a level built into the game for this exact purpose, known as "survivors". It's a rescue mission where you save survivors, and for every survivor you save you get 200-600 in-game currency. Props to the devs for featuring a way to grind that ISN'T a painfully slow slog! (Again, EA take note..)
  Edit: It is with some sorrow that I must bring news that there are indeed lootboxes towards the end of the game which require "keys" to open.
  Second edit: These keys can apparently be obtained from a higher tier (other endgame chest) at a 5% chance to drop if playing on nightmare difficulty (or so I'm told). Take this as you will.
  
  
• As said above, all of your equipment can be found for free, and upgraded. There are 8 different types of guns, and varying tiers of armor. The Gun types are as follows: Assault rifle, Sniper rifle, SMG, Pistols (Pistols have infite ammo in most cases, unless they are elemental), Rocket Launchers, LMGs, Shotguns, and flamethrowers. As you use weapons and armor, you will gain a "Mastery" with them, increasing their overall effectiveness and giving unique benefits to those weapons. (Such as the assault rifle gaining an extra 10% damage against bosses, or the sniper rifle getting a chance to "Super crit" which does x10 damage). Ammo is also not very expensive in this game, save for the rocket launcher and sniper rifle, which are usually used as a backup to your primary for bigger targets.
  
  
• There are three classes, "Heavy", "Medic", and "Assault". Medic is best saved for multiplayer, but can level in singleplayer easy enough due to his innate ability to throw down medkits which heal quite a bit of health (Which I might add can be rare at times and desperately needed if you get careless). Assault has a knife, good for close quarters combat. And Heavy is meant kind of like a light machine gunner, capable of "Suppressing" the enemy (Read as: firing a lot of bullets down range which stop enemies in their tracks while standing still and "Tanking" so to speak).
  
  
• If you die in multiplayer you can revive for free over time unless the entire team dies. (In which case you either fork over a revive token which you only get 3 of and cost real money, or fail the mission. Make of this what you will, but if you play well you won't have to worry about failing a mission.)
  Edit: I obtained a few of these after receiving the rewards for one of the daily missions, so you CAN obtain them without spending money. So that's nice. (Daily missions should not to be confused with daily rewards, as daily missions are a separate thing with leaderboards that last for 24 hours each, and rewards are dished out based on how well you did. Top 75%, 50%, 25%, etc. whereas daily rewards are just "log in and play any mission then get a thing or set of things for being consistent)
  
  
• Even if you die, and fail a mission, you will keep half of the rewards you obtained (XP, Cash), so all is not lost.

• There are microtranscations, to "speed up" the game (As unnecessary as this, given that you do not need them and will level at a fairly normal pace as if it were a game that didn't have microtransactions.) If you have lootbox-itis or a gambling addiction, you will want to watch yourself. While lootboxes can be obtained for free rather quickly during normal play, I know that some people want to open box, after box, so be mindful of their presence so that you don't bankrupt yourself.
  
  
• Revive tokens cost real money, with no way to purchase them using in-game currency. (These shouldn't be confused with the free auto-revives you get from multiplayer, rather these are used if your entire team dies and you want to save the run from failure) Edit: Recently, after playing a daily, I was gifted 10 revive tokens. So there IS a way to obtain them through means other than spending money.
  
  
• Sometimes after a mission, if you did not obtain a lootbox, the game will advertise them to you. Again, gamblers beware.
  
  
• Now for non-microtransaction related cons, which I hope the developers will see, given that these bugs were likely a side effect of porting this game over to PC. Sometimes when being invited to a game, you will not receive the popup menu that asks you whether or not you would like to join. This can be circumvented by either using the match code provided to the host in their lobby to directly connect, or another invite can be sent and the menu will usually work on the second try. Still, it is an annoying bug that should be noted.
  
  
• The HUD will sometimes forget if you are using a keyboard, and display the controller buttons for your abilities. This can be a problem for new players who haven't yet worked out what all of the keybindings are.
  
  
• Speaking of keybindings, there is no way to rebind the buttons for your abilities. (For example, you can't change WASD to be up/down/left/right, and you can't make the grenade button go from F to G, etc)

All in all, I'd give this game a 7.5/10, given that it is genuinely a fun top down shooter that can keep you playing for hours on end if you're doing coop. I can forgive many of the "Cons" this game has due to the fact it is a mobile game that's been ported to PC. In fact, that earned it some leniance in my review given the genre's habit to be nothing but asset flips. Consider me pleasantly surprised to find a game ported from the mobile platform which is actually half-decently put together, let alone to also be an enjoyable experience to play.

Fallout: New Vegas is a fun game, with quite a few hours of content inside of it (I might even go as far as to say a few days, or even weeks if you're doing a full completion run) and a number of different endings, varying upon your playstyle. From the good guy who just wants to unite the world, to the bounty hunter searching for caps everywhere caps can be found, all the way to the evil mustache twirling villain who steals teddy bears from children. This game lets you do all of them, and probably even more. I got this game a couple of years back, and I still find myself coming back to it whenever I get bored and have nothing else to do.

Pros:

• Gunplay is fun, and there is a wide variation of potential weapons the player (And enemies) can use. From explosives, to snipers, to lasery plasma guns, to miniguns, to sledgehammers, to power fists, or even to the rocket powered "Super sledge". Trust me, you'll know it when you see it. Oh, this game also has mini nukes. Yes, you can fire MORE nukes into the already irradiated wasteland that was turned into one by nukes, that's a good idea I'm sure! If you feel like your aim is crap, you could always just push the V key and enter "V.A.T.S" (Vault-tec assisted targeting system) to change your aim from a matter of skill, to a matter of RNG deciding whether your attack hit or not. V.A.T.S also has some special abilities for some weapons, depending on how far you've upgraded your character's skill with them, and increases their damage if a shot hits. (Melee even gets doubled damage!)
  
  
• Stealth mechanic that actually works. You can sneak around, and if you are "detected", the enemy will first move to your position. This is shown to the player by a glowing red "[ C A U T I O N]" symbol. If the enemy cannot find the player, they will become hidden again. If the enemy does find the player, a glowing red [ D A N G E R] symbol will replace the caution symbol, and begin flashing. If the player manages to hide again, the danger sign will stop flashing, and eventually return to caution. Kills made in stealth will not affect your reputation with a faction, except under specific circumstances (Such as for a quest, or with some really important characters where people would KNOW who did it, even if you were hidden due to word spreading). Albeit, this can create some comedic moments where you murder an entire facility, and their leader just looks at you and says "Have you finished that job yet"?, not seeming to realize his entire group has been destroyed and that their dead bodies are right in front of him.
  
  
• Plenty of options for every playstyle. From talking your way out of almost every situation you come across, becoming the saviour and ambassador to the wasteland, To going in and becoming the grim reaper of the mojave, leaving a trail of ghost towns and dead bodies in your wake. (Yes, you can even make an idiot who speaks in "Dur hur" at low intelligence, with speech at maximum so that they manage to convince people about their knowledge on a subject. Such as "Bomb go boom, me know how work.") Or if you feel less evil, but not entirely virtuous, you could always just do a normal playthrough where you pick your desired weapons,
  
  
• Many hours of gameplay that have the skyrim effect of "Oh I'll just play for a few minutes" *five hours later, still playing the game*. There are a good number of factions that the player can join (and sometimes even change), ranging from "Democratic Bureacracy who promises the world but can't deliver it due to being undermanned in the region", "Power armor dudes which want to hoard the tech for themselves, and then locked themselves away in a bunker because they lost a battle", "Anarchistic doctors", "Guy who predicted the nukes and became immortal", and finally "Not-romans who crucify or enslave anyone who refuses to join them". Of course that is just a comical nutshell, as they are much more detailed than that, and each have very philosophical reasons for existing. Each has it's own view of good, and of bad. It's up to the player to decide who has the RIGHT view, however their decision will have a far reaching impact, affecting far more than just themselves in this cruel wasteland. Even the Not-romans may be sympathized with if you heard their reasoning. Who knows, maybe you'd even view them as the hero that the wasteland doesn't deserve, but that it needs? It's much better if you play it for yourself, because I lack the eloquence or the words to properly describe it.

Cons:

• Crashes. This game LOVES to crash. I would highly reccommend dropping a save of some sort every so often, or even if you plan on going through loading zones, just to be safe. Nothing is wrse than losing 30 minutes of progress because you forgot to save. Thankfully the game does have auto saves, so you won't usually lose that much progress.

If you like Diablo, and you like first person shooters, you're probably going to like this game.

If you intend to get this game as some high-end zombie defense simulator.. You're in for dissapointment. But if you expect a $2 indie game... This is a decent game. Nothing AMAZING in the ways of graphics, But also not horrible. Gameplay is decent and I've yet to run into any game-breaking glitches.

The only qualm I have with this game, Is the aiming and hitboxes. After you get used to them however, It's a nice little game to get away from the high-end stuff. Oh, And It's Co-op so if you want to play with friends that is possible too.

I must say, I have had ALOT of fun playing this game, and still find myself returning to it.

The game does a decent job at keeping you from being at a disadvantage if you don't buy the DLC (Most of it is just reskins anyway)

My only qualms are the asking price,Which is easily enough fixed by waiting for it to go on sale... The fact that it plays advertisements at you begging you to buy said DLC.

This is a small price to pay for the gameplay it offers.

Do I reccomend this game? Yes. All in all, I'd give the game itself a 6.5: Were it not for the advertisements between games BEGGING me to pay for your rather expensive (7 DOLLARS FOR A SINGLE CHARACTER MODEL?!) DLC, This'd be an 8. Seriously though, Enough with the advertisements. If I wanted that I'd go to a pinion server in TF2.

Terraria is a 2D game about Mining, Getting armor, Getting weapons, Creating better armor and weapons, Building houses for In-game NPCs who will sell you stuff or give you adivce, All the way to fighting the Eye of Cthulhu or Destroyer of Worlds. 'Nuff said.

Castle Crashers is a Singleplayer/Coop in which you fight any baddie who stands in your way with your friends, Then beat each other to death to decide who gets the princesses' kiss. What more is to be said?

It's a game about running in guns blazing, Shooting zombies and staying alive. What more can be said?