Recent reviews by A.R.M.

Played when it first released on Epic Games, moved my saves over to Steam. The game on Brutal is brutal and one can customize the game to be even harder in survival mode.

With Co-Op on the horizon this game is going to be a unique gem... where it's currently only in it's mixed-genre space. It is a truly a best in breed ARPG Art of Defense (AOD). If you're not familiar with AOD, think freeform base building, defending against waves, and resource collection... RTS's of yore had modded game modes in which the gameplay was that... of which there may be compstomp elements to destroy X, Y, or Z to make defense easier. The slew of biomes, enemies, and all gameplay elements give one great flexibility and diversity of choice as how to progress.

The major things that could make it better would be same map pipeline teleportation of resources and other QoL aspects like pipe/wall combinations, ideally autodetection when dragging a pipe over a wall or wall over a pipe rather than having to build it manually. Currently one has to leave gaps in walls to pipe resources through a wall or use highly inefficient compressors and decompressors.

One change they've introduced since early access is being unable to grow whatever resources you want regardless of biome, presuming sufficient scanned samples of the plant, while this was always intended and encourages one to make multiple bases for resource collection. Perhaps you liked the old way... to fix that one can run the following console command of which achievements will remain enabled (at least of 10/12/2024: cheat_disable_cultivator_biome_requirement 1

The only co-op should come with a big asterisk... having it listed as such is borderline false advertising and having no information on their store page regarding it past that it has it does nothing to manage expectations hence the negative review.

Played on Epic Games upon release and for awhile thereafter before the update with Bad Water.

I want to see this game succeed thus buying it on Steam, but the game was great until badwater... give us a way to purify/treat badwater and I'll change the review back to positive... capping it is a so-so solution Introducing new, negative features, without a way past rerouting contaminated water or capping it to address it feels bad especially when rerouting it results in slight splashing that makes beavers sick/debuffed... Either that, or allow for non-badwater maps with an alternate (maybe) old recipes for things that now require badwater... looking at dynamite.

Game still needs schedule work cycles for beavers and hours of operation for buildings/work-sites. I don't want a wood based powerplant running 24/7.

I know once Modding is in full force, if it can be reversed, I'll be searching for or modding in that old funtionality myself as whilst a challenge is nice, having nothing to do with badwater but divert it is like what humans do with nuclear waste, maybe that's what it is, but nuclear waste ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ simulator is not fun, especially when in reality there's ways to redunce "badwater concentrations" compared to this games current state.

This is a review from someone who isn't big on turned based games nor has ever played DND, but recognizes this is a quality as is familiar with DND's framework. I am giving the game a fair shake and will likely backload saves ad nauseam. Gameplay comes first over all else.

In Short: If you want a Turn Based Rougelite RPG with a focus on story, that depending on difficulty one can save scum, then this game is for you. If strategy in combat is more important to you, you may want to check out some other games.

This is lauded about how you have choice and many interacts allow you to talk to others with the other characters... but decisions the other characters "make" however guided by you still results in reputation changes with your player character Tav... or the messaging isn't clear. I tried to make a character that is dissatisfied with a choice perform that action and it forced to Tav doing it and decreased in satisfaction. A character that's happy with the choice it allowed but they didn't increase in satisfaction when they did it whilst the other character disapproved... This is a little jarring, I get someone dissatisfied with a choice wouldn't make it thus your forced to switch however jarring it is... but the fact that it doesn't always force your character and it's not kind enough to increase satisfaction when a character that'd be satisfied by an action makes that action... I feel thrust out of any potential immersion. This is in reference to the mirror guy in the Hag's lair in Act 1.

In Depth:

"Random" dice are a chore, subtract from the narrative. There should be a built-in choose your own adventure/dice-roll option.[\b]
I understood DND had dice, I did not internalize that meant one can fail the simplest of tasks with a hyper-proficient character. Having +9 on a dice throw to get a critical fail and backloading to get that 3 times in a row made me feel this games psuedorandom isn't so random and question if this is a good implementation of DND. DND has game masters, they can adjust difficulty on the fly and determine what failure and success literally looks like outside the rolls. Being point blank and critical failing/missing an attack with a melee weapon feels bad and unfun. I understand there can be failure a hyper-experienced uninjuried character attacking an unskilled weakling should not result in a miss... this coupled with the fact that opportunity attacks are only for enemies near you that are moving away rather than any enemy in your line of sight breaks immersion in the RPG. One could say imagine the enemy is moving during that turn based event of which my response would be I shouldn't have to.

Turn based games do not necessitate characters being oblivious to their world off turn.
If I have a ranged weapon drawn, your in range, and you're moving on your turn then I should be able to shoot you... not watch you walk up to me at smash me into oblivion. These systems can even account for difference in capabilities like movement speed and still support action and movement limits.
Valkyria Chronicles does this well where your character will opportunity attack anyone in their line of sight off-turn.
Transistor has a unique RTS pause play mechanic with a rewind button in case you want to undo the turn and improve upon it akin to what one would do when messing up a stanza in a song... don't restart the song, practice from before and through to the end of the section one messed up.
Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun similarly has a queue action pause/play mechanic. I find pause/play RTS/Turn-Based hybrids to be the best of immersion and tactics whilst accessibility is supported.

For all the systems implemented like the ability to throw stuff, I respect the game, but miss the capabilities of other RPG's that can have simultaneous actions of friend and foe that can offer more depth in combat than this game, then perhaps consider Tactical RPG's... albeit Transistor would be the best example of how to configure the combat.
Dragon Age, Tower of Time, Shadowand multitudes others do this. If we could get BG3's divergent storyline with a Tactical RPG then we'd have a true winner. Synergy effect's seem to have an overly high barrier to entry.

More thoughts to come as I play.

Game only supports 1 friend in lobby currently 9/15/2024.

Lots of reviews edits, it's been a rollercoaster. I surmise the community manager was ousted considering the timing it was likely to save face with Sony... too much smoke for there not to be fire... and they never gave us that cape which is an easy texture paint to a mesh... so insincere at leading the community on.

Helldivers is poorly optimized for intel CPU's that have efficiency cores. Skip this "paragraph" if you don't want the warranting information to the claim. If you have something like an i5-12450h, where there's 4P and 4E cores, you're going to be around 30FPS regardless of what discrete GPU you have (as long as you have one)... unless you disable the efficiency cores (and maybe core 0 as windows tends to favor that)... Helped a friend troubleshoot and that has a 2050 and his FPS in missions went up to 40-60FPS, benefiting from frame limiting at 50 for a more stable experiance... so roughtly a 20FPS increase when not allowing the game to run on efficiency cores... albeit still CPU bottlenecked. This is why AMD CPU's are better now of days for people on a budget seeking a laptop that can game... as that's a 4 core 8 thread intel computer CPU that had a recommended MSRP of $342 vs AMD 5625U for $297... both came out Q1 2022. I'll take what is effectively two (AMD) P cores over 4 (Intel) efficiency cores any day, even if overall threads is the same... which they are in this case (12)... Windows 10 and newer should not be running on a system with less than at least 6P cores in my opinion... at least if you are planning to play games... most applications are not written to account for efficiency cores, which is a self-warranting claim considering the how longer computers have been around and how many games were made before there was even guidance on how to account for efficiency cores in Intel CPU's. Back to the actual review rather than taking a dig at Intel for their "looks good on paper" decisions and this developer not sufficiently programming for it sufficiently... albeit I am sure most don't and many games say i7 of any generation or better... but Intel makes i7's with 2 P and 8E cores... which arguably can't run Windows nor even dare to play a game like Helldivers... it's almost like Intel wants to force dev's to say their games don't support intel CPU's... who'd have thunk an Intel i7-4790K from 2014 would be better than i7's released in 2022 for gaming... and how an i5 can be better than an i7... oh how i7's have fallen... and they want to charge more for us to get i9's that are really what i7's used to be with Performance cores but then a tax of far less useful and sometimes detrimental (as I outlined here) Efficiency cores... This dev is doing something similar where they are trying to convince us Helldivers is a better game than it's sequel.

They lack the weapon augments/modifications the original Helldivers had on top of the difficulty variety, quests to unlock weapon specific modifications, and quests for weapons being tied to playing the game in a certain way or at a certain difficulty on different planets/biomes with different objectives... which encouraged changing up playstyles and experimenting rather than "balancing" all weapons to be the same or have gimmicks like how the nonsensical lazer cannon can shoot down the mech gunships. Introducing higher difficulties whilst nerfing weapons and balancing for what, difficulty 5(?) leaves a poor taste in my mouth on top of the remaining glitches/bugs (including the hellpod not killing what it lands on nor hurting what it passes through... the main gimmick of the game).

It feels like they are trying to make the game a running simulator at higher difficulties whilst discouraging weapon experimentation and nerfing any fun factors in a PvE game. I am not pro flame weapons, but the nerfs to it's damage against enemies when players die in nearly two seconds when on fire is quite unbalanced. They should be nerfing enemy damage to players if they're going to be nerfing our damage to enemies. Maybe we will all have to play it as a running simulator or full stealth/kite mode.... seems like work and a chore on top of the grind for samples being so daunting most I know have stopped playing citing that is a chore... and how each new tier costs even more.... and the nickle and dimeing for maybe 1 good weapon they'll just nerf into the ground the next time a pass comes out (if not sooner). It takes forever to farm supercredits... 30-100 games if one is looking for them on the whole map... so where's the incentive to play this money grab of a game? Nowhere, wait until they announce the servers are shutting down in a few months and they give away the ♥♥♥♥ for (next to) free and get your friends to play then. Until then perhaps steer clear or enjoy a game or two.


Original Review:

This game is solid but seems to have a different game design vision than the original Helldivers that is unclear if it is due to how games continue to get developed and content releases post-release outside of DLC's... or if it is a redesign from lessons learned... but it feels a shell of the original Helldivers depth, gameplay loop, and encouragement to try different weapons/stratagems/tactics.

The original Helldivers forced you to unlock better, "Unbalanced" gear via playing different and arguably higher difficulty missions depending on the unlocks. All stratagems had I believe up to 3 modifier iunlocks at a time... for instance there was a really strong, arguably OP energy shotgun that was in my opinion a must have for higher difficulty missions. Personally I think balancing and nerfing weapons in Helldivers 2 without introducing new stratagems, stratagem modifiers, and more difficulties (as the original Helldivers had), that it is too soon to make weapon nerfs. Everyone new the motorcycle & sidecar was pretty bad in Helldivers, but it was still fun and goofy to bring depending on the difficulty. The Dev's should let us self-police as the majority of players hate the Stalkers and most guns cannot handle the beefy mech's, especially the missile ones that ragdoll players. A 3D enviornment where it's 4 players and you don't have an early heads up about those attacking behind you warrants shield generator use... On Helldive vs. Mech's it was balanced.

The games new, people are figuring stuff out, most don't have all available weapons and stratagems unlociked... I'd argue balancing shouldn't be done until a good amount of the populous have all available weapons unlocked... or rather than encouraging players to try different weapons via nerfing the most used... consider bringing weapon modifiers back in and having to play certain missions+difficulties to unlock them as a tertiary unlock path (basically recovering the tech).

To "balance" gear via nerfs but to not nerf the amount of bile titans spawning from breaches... to "balance" but not nerf the endless tyraid of Stalkers that most primaries cannot deal with... and most importantly... to "balance" before fixing it so hellpods truly 1 hit KO anything, including Bile Titans... is simply a disappointment... Hellpods (even supply drops) guaranteed killing stuff on landing was rewarding for timing and revenge but this game has made it really hard to see where allies are at times (as to not land on them... give us some ghost outlines for allies when landing perhaps)... and has made it so plenty of things don't die... even tiny bugs, when you direct hit their thorax or land on a Hulk... there's almost no risk/reward trade-off to landing on any uninjured entity... especially as upon landing you can get stuck inside the entities and die a helpless death. One could argue the Mech's are OP if you can reload them... They are super-effective on Hell-Dives vs Bugs that lack mortars at least... vs anything with more notable projectiles... going to guess they suck... so do they get a situational enemy buff/nerf?

New:
Their quests are anti-smart-gameplay, especially for this latest event and having to play 12 of the event is mind numbing. Warrants a downvote forcing players to play 12 games of FFA in a predominately team based game.M This review was written at 4 matches, and now updated at 6... I want to uninstall the game and now very strongly recommend against it for dev's that try to force people away from team play to garbage FFA for 12 rounds. I am sure others share my opinion as at least 1/3rd of the players in the matches afk or leave... sometimes as nearly as much as half.

Old:
Simply the best fast paced FPS... the servers are now stable 12/8/22023 12:00 AM EST.

Sadly they removed the rabbit headgear... that'd borderline deserves a neutral rating.

I am not sure how the game performs above a populace of 10k... but we all know performance is a concern... albeit with the settings I'd throw at the original to get rid of their performance increasing blur I find the performance actually similar once one turns off the new eye candy... just they default to high quality across the board so of course people are going to have a bad time... albeit that does not explain the menu performance issues.

Stick with AMD or Nvidia on this one, Intel's DX12 emulation of DX11 even at power boost makes the game a stuttery mess... an Intel Arc A770 at max power with FSR 2 gets about the same FSP on max everything at 4k as a Nvidia 3060TI (with max power) at max everything with Quality DLSS in game being the focus in both cases (the Nividia loses the FSR fight)... the Arc actually pulls a bit ahead in games that run DX12 and does decently in most optimized DX11 games.... not sure why new games keep insisting on using DX11. Perhaps the Vulkan would run better per modders in the intel community even though this game does not support it... It's goofy that an ambitious simulation game opted for DX11 over DX12 or Vulkan that offer more flexability for CPU and thread utilization.

Performance aside... the games mechanics force one to build suburbia and grow a city rather than just building a supercity surrounded by nothing. The reason for this is very high low density desirability and they won't compromise even if zoning for medium or high density is available. This is a negative in my book but at least they make it realatively painless with the road improvements. One issue with road AI is one should always make a road 1 lane larger than they think it needs to be as the AI always has 1 lane jerk into another causing endless traffic jams. Take a 2 lane to 2 lane road on a corner at a traffic light with no turnoffs for a long strech for instance. In theory there shouldn't be an issue but in practice the outer lane would turn into the inner lane and it'd be 1 lane of traffic turning into 2 lanes rather than 2 to 2... traffic immediately resolved itself when I made it a 3 lane to 2 lane turn as only the outermost lane or rather if your destination lanes - source lanes is less than 1, you'll have dumb AI congestion unless your source lane is only 1 lane... that is congestion you'd never see in the real world as the real world 1 isn't supposed to change lanes last minute at an intersection and most drivers observe this.

A plus for this game is you can buy plots of land anywhere, they don't have to be adjacent tiles... but a negative is you cannot control funding per service buildings, just per service. So if your city needs to pay for all of water pump A's capacity but area B only needs half of it, you can't selectively slash budget thus its highly impractical to create a lot of small communities... especially since one cannot build sewer/water and less-so power lines across unowned plots of land... this significantly impacts creativity.

They eliminated toll roads but brought in parking meters everywhere as an option...

Overall the game is interesting for a bit but quickly falters in the same ways Cities Skylines still does without all the freedom of expression options Cities Skylines 1 offers. The mods in Cities Skylines 1 resolves a lot of issues in Cities Skylines 2. I still recommend this game but until the modding community takes off one may want to abstain. On it's own without comparison to a game with years of modding and refinement I'd recommend it but it does have some bugs or lack of features, including with refusing to get rid of some traffic lights at times or lacking a no U-turn, explicit yield, or non-all-way-stop signs despite having no left, right, and straight signs... It feels like there are a lot of features that might have been gutted or overlooked as I find it hard to believe no U-turn would be overlooked when they implement the rest.

Had a whole write-up going into detail about pain points and sadly lost it as I bumped a back button on steam lol... regardless, I'd vote neutral review if I could and it was going to be a positive review until I finished writing it and realized I have to change it to negative despite on paper this game being strong in most area's I am interested in and even has co-op.

Ultimately, if the idea of a turn based Skyrim with additional strategy and divergent storyline with party management and turn based combat on a locked grid, this game is for you if you don't plan on playing a rouge/scoundrel and want the option of pickpocketing any/every NPC in the game more than once per NPC for the entire game. I have found no mods and only a serious of various separate asks for a mod that removes such a restriction with no apparent mods that make such an allowance on the Steam Workshop.


Babbling text follows:

The dev's did a great job from all I can see, just no matter how many times I try 100% turn based combat games I come out unable to play them as they are not my cup of tea and never were. Transistor, Valkyrie Cronicals, Realtime gameplay with Tactical Pause and Camera (like Dragon Age Origins/Inquisition, those all have varying takes on "turn based" where one has more fine grain control over character movement and actions than a grid based turn based RPG.

Inventory management being a chore when nearly everything can be picked up but 1 needs a mod rather than a console command to increase inventory size is a major demerit in my book as I play games for fun, not guess/store items one thinks will be of use later and sell everything else for a pittance (or simply don't and miss out on some storyline if only you had X in your inventory at the time of talking with Y)... Give me an infinite bag of holding option out the gate with a quality inventory sort/management system and ability to mark/categorize items.

Another major demerit the game gets is its limit of each character in the game only once. This broke immersion for me and was the straw that broke the camels back for my willingness to explore the game further... all I read is about the game being applauded for choice, depth, and immersion... but if you pull off a pickpocket were you were never spotted and that counts against your limit.... Why.... now extrapolate that to why if you are disguised to look like another when you pickpocket and you cannot pickpocket again when you look like someone else... as that's what I've read after being befuddled by the pickpocket limit text... immersion broken for someone whom normally plays rouge/scoundrel classes as I never want to miss out on sweet swag locked away behind doors/chests... then I went on to read from various sources one cannot even assassinate someone from the shadows whom no-one else see's without starting combat in the area... even if that is not true with the chores noted and pacing of early game on top of the pickpocket immersion breaking limit I find myself hard recommending against playing as a rouge and the games media/advertising itself never lead me to believe a rouge is an underpowered pointless character if you want to play in such a fashion, so this is entirely on the Studio for mismanaging expectations as no other AAA game imposes such limits on a rouge.

They may have included the pickpocket limit for balancing so people don't have even worse inventory management? All NPC's noticed after a fashion they've been robbed so the limit is absurd in my opinion as NPC's after the heat dies down still find you suspicious and want to search you if they catch you sneaking at some point in time thereafter. Also if character X steals, you avoid the line of sight for your entire party from those you stole from, then give those items to character Y, the NPC's will still charge after character Y instead of character X... which also breaks immersion.

Haven't played much Borderlands since some of the original. The series has come a long way. The whimsy and zany nature of this game is more more speed or simply a fresh take compared to Borderlands 3, that this game got me to try some of. Borderlands 3 is solid, but post-apocalyptic universes, even in looter shooters, are a dime a dozen compared to what this game offers.

The major difference aside from theme that this game offers over Borderlands 3 is that grenades are replaced with spells and abilities that have cooldowns as the limiting use factor. It feels like a fantasy looter shooter with whimsy and powerful spells that feels more at place in this game than the Borderlands setting where gunplay/combat can get zany but it doesn't quite fit the theme as well as it does this offshoot.