Helldivers

A shockingly alive game considering its age and the sequel.
Vastly different from Helldivers 2, but better in some ways honestly.
If you like top-down satirical shooters, this is the game for you.

Hold my Liber-Tea again, and check this out. For whatever reason I played the games in reverse. It's just as awesome as the sequel but delivered in a top down shooter package.
One of my favorite parts is the local co-op so you can hell dive with your buddies while chilling in your home. Being a bit older and a different camera perspective the game runs way smoother this way. I'm not at all disappointed that I played them in the wrong order!

Beautiful game, Cant play Helldivers 2 cause my pc is ♥♥♥♥, but atleast im enjoying this

Highly recommended to check out HD1 for its high skill ceiling, and cohesive teamplay.
HD1 is an older game, but it has aged like fine wine in all honesty. Coming from HD2 during a buggy period and frustrating progress of the Galactic War. HD1 has given me everything I was wishing for from HD2.
- Encouraged team play with appropiate team work mechanics. (Enemy baiting, team get ups, healing, shared screen)
- Stable and meaningful gameplay loop. I rarely encounter bugs that prevent me from finishing the mission, galactic war actually matters with a chance of winning and losing.
- Fair but challenging difficulty. Everything has a counterplay, whereever through stratagems or skill.
Reverse Controls? Grit your teeth and learn the reverse controls like a boss.
Giant metal humanoid that can delete you in seconds? Can dodge, bait and lure them to miss entirely with skill.
Even has its own movement tech called Melee Dodging which gives greater control of your character. (Almost akin to Wave Dashing in that regard)
The game rewards you with what you put into it. And that alone makes mastering it feel very gratifying. o7

The first Helldivers is far and beyond my favourite game of all time. Something about how the theme, the weapons, the music, the world and the gameplay all come together to make the most memorable and beloved gaming experience i ever had. Steam can't account for the hundreds, maybe thousands of hours i put into this game on Playstation Vita, 3 and 4. I am deeply distraught that i own neither a PS5 or a PC powerful enough for Helldivers 2, but its success fills me with joy.

I'll admit it! I only heard of this game because of Helldivers 2 and the only reason why I got this game is because it seemed more likely to run on my potato than the second game. But hey! I ended up getting one of my most favorite top down shooter games! So score! Or, well, I don't think I've played any other top down shooter games and I definitely haven't played another game that contained 3 separate enemy factions that each contained 15 levels of difficulty, a couple varied enemy types, and a raid boss. I also haven't had any more fun shooting bugs, running over squids, or blowing up fleshy microwaves with other people. I can't say I made any friends or anything from this game but I do have to give credit to the players who play it as you can pretty reliably get people in your game (up to four) and you can almost always find at least one public game you can join. The community isn't large but it's far from dead I'd say. But if you don't know already, the game involves you going to different planets so that you can shoot enemies, complete objectives, extract, and bask in the glory of managed democracy. Honestly, I don't think another game has made me more patriotic than this one. That's a lot of things this game has given me that others haven't but I really am not exaggerating when I say that this game is just that good. It's got guns, a unique stratagem mechanic, enemies to shoot, vehicles to drive, you name it. I don't want to make this review too long but you could genuinely make a whole presentation on how to fight each faction that's at least over 20 minutes long. Buuut that doesn't mean the game is perfect. As much as I love giving Super Earth the praise it deserves I must expose at least some of the lies that have been spread around. And no, it has nothing to do with the voting or where all the tax payer money is going (I trust the ministry of truth to give me the right answers to those). It actually has to do with the repetition the game faces. Sure, there are plenty of enemies, plenty of worlds, plenty of guns, but once you kill your 3,000th scout bug or your 2,500th illuminate tripod, they get a little less exciting. Unfortunately, this really doesn't go well into how wars are carried out in the game. Basically, as soon as you get into the game you'll join the current war. This war could've started the day you joined or before that and it's your job to contribute as much as you can. This involves liberating planets when the Helldivers are on offense but it also involves defending planets that are under attack. (PARTICIPATE IN DEFENSES) The second part is important as if a defense is lost the whole sector the planets were in is lost and if, as a community, enough sectors are lost to a faction the enemy faction will start attacking Super Earth itself and if Super Earth is lost the war ends as a failure and a new war is started. This doesn't sound too bad on paper but it does have some problems. For one, no actual punishment is received when a war is lost but no meaningful benefit is gained when a war is won (except maybe a cosmetic and an achievement?). That means that particularly lazy Helldivers just quit or don't contribute as much as they could when a defense requires them to fight a faction they don't particularly like or, even worse, they may allow factions they like to get to Super Earth so that they can fight them more. This playstyle is absolutely treasonous and completely unacceptable but it is only further supported by how wars are won as it requires all 3 factions to die completely. Factions are also only defeated one at a time which means that if your favorite faction was defeated you will no longer be able to fight them until the war is over. So, if you enjoy shooting the vile, undemocratic squids with heavy machine guns like I do and they are defeated you will be benefitted by not doing anything to win the war as it will just mean you'll get to fight your favorite faction sooner. It's not particularly awful but it's certainly a little frustrating and I’m sure it’s made more than one person quit playing. The game also has friendly fire but I don't think I've ever been struck down intentionally and without good reason even after 100 hours of gameplay. Even if some Helldivers are more lazy than others I guess all of us still have freedom in our hearts and liber-tea in our guts. Also, if you're antisocial and would much rather spread freedom solo you can still do that by making your game private in the escape menu. The only problem with that is that the game doesn't have many solo quality of life features which means you'll still have to fight the same amount of difficult enemies that you would've fought with a full squad (or, at least, I think that’s the case as I don’t think one diver could realistically kill two different spawns of warlords, 3 tanks that spawn on the zone you’re trying to capture, and however many dogs from socialist hell that may be running at you with a single thunder barrage). Speaking of which... the enemies themselves. Yes, the game can be hard on higher difficulties. Yes, the factions often contain enemies that are either really lethal or hard to kill. Yes, some of these enemies do not die to normal attacks and instead need to be killed by specific anti-tank weapons that are often on long recharges and require full loadouts or paid DLC just to adequately cover the enemies that appear in a game. Yes, this means that retreating is more effective than actually interacting with enemies via the fun shooting combat. Yes, the shooting combat isn't very fun either as many enemies can alter your controls, down you quickly, or (as previously stated) be immune to over half of the game's combat options. Yes, this limits what's viable on certain maps, difficulties, and factions. Yes, this kinda sucks. Yes, Cyborgs suck and that's why most wars have been lost to them. Yes, and yell at me if I'm wrong, Illuminate are the most balanced faction. Yes, the Illuminate are the insta-killing laser squids that can reverse your game controls. Yes, that is not a good sign. But, most importantly, yes, this game is worth every cent as despite all those problems I have never played a game that has made me more passionate to get on just to get slapped by objective camping tanks with only democracy fueling every shot from my trident. If you can’t play the second game, definitely play this one.

Arrowhead accidentally created the most satisfying unintended dodge mechanic in all of gaming history (search melee dodging). This single mechanic lets experienced players dance across the battlefield in glorious fashion, dodging any and every unit at the edge of their blades. Very sad not to see this implemented as an actual feature in the sequel.
That, alongside some tactical know-how and ai pattern recognition and manipulation (all gained from experience) makes players out to be nigh unstoppable in Helldiver's ''seemingly'' unforgiving difficulty levels.
Players are under the unfortunate impression that they are reliant on the in-game stratagems and weapons in order to complete their missions when that could not be further from the truth. They are simply quality of life items to help manage whatever players struggle with during a mission, but missions are fully doable with nothing but a pistol if they can manage not dumping all their fire at the first enemy they see.
Which is why it's so saddening to see that the game incentivizes ''meta'' loadouts by not letting there be a weapon-lock option along with several modifiers for hosts to spice up their hosted lobbies with (which should have been perfectly doable considering it exists in the cheater-infested proving grounds that noone plays anyway. Still salty that they stripped swords away from us.)
Phenomenal game that should absolutely NOT be skipped over in light of the sequel's success.