Hey there everyone. It's time for a WRUP. It's been a busy morning for me so I'm a little late. But I'm here now and even though I don't have a lot of info to share this weekend it's only because I haven't been paying much attention. There, see. Nobody's fault really.
So yeah not a lot of info from me here, actually. I've been lacking in my "duties" if you will, of noticing a news headlines, reading about whatever and deciding whether to talk about it here.
Why? Because I've been a little busy this week, but also because HellDivers 2 is finally in a pretty solid and playable state so I've been completely lost in that. The first HellDivers is a great trip by itself. Overhead view with a moveable camera and a bunch of dicey environments with tons of enemies, friendly fire and hazards to dodge. The way it works is the same way the sequel works, but HellDivers 2 is third person, highly modernized and one helluva good time. Think, Starship Troopers meets Warhammer 40,000, bring three friends along to be shot like bullets into the atmosphere of a planet and complete objectives, collect scientific samples and accidentally kill each other with orbital strikes while on a mission timer. It's comedy and strategy rolled into one great looking title. Oh and very importantly - it's not pay to win. There is a premium currency but you can find it in the game as well as unlock it from the standard upgrade table just playing missions. Solid.
HellDivers 2 did launch a little bit rocky but that seems to be more about Sony and Arrowhead not anticipating more than 300,000 concurrent players pretty much right away. When the servers aren't full the experience is wholly seamless. No hint of lag, no crashing, smooth connections to friends etc etc. The problem is that there are so many players the servers are filling pretty early in the afternoon and logging in takes a while, acquisitions from player rewards are long to update and even at times won't update at all. This includes not receiving exp and credits and various rewards from mission completions, however this is only temporary. The rewards are given but you may not see them until the next time you log in. This happened to us yesterday but today everything we earned was there along a 50% bonus thanks to the devs recognizing the issue and hooking players up while they fix the problem. I will recommend that if you plan on playing in the evening, make it late evening or wait for a server population increase because it's a little frustrating. Otherwise it's an incredibly fun game and even better with your friends.
Here's a link to the latest patch notes on Steam if you would like to see them.
And that's going to be all from me this weekend. I have things to do so I need to roll. But, enjoy whatever it is you're playing. You deserve a break from the monotony of life and if you feel like a squad based extraction shooter fits that requirement, you can probably already guess I'd say pick up HellDivers 2.
What are we playing?
Greywolfe: regular service should resume shortly, but for right now: still having people here and that'll likely be the case for two more weeks or so. then, freedom! [but i'm also going to be cleaning my computer.] - so: i didn't feel up to lake. i've added guild of dungeoneering into it's place. it's pretty ok. it's game loop is a bit dumb though [and i wish it weren't.] - it's unlocks are also WAY too far apart and don't impact the game nearly enough. so it's a very 5/10 card game. great style, flat substance.
AJ: I just picked up (and will likely play) Tiger-Heli, another Toaplan arcade classic on GOG; and also Final Vendetta, a 2022 beat 'em up that was pretty heavily inspired by the legendary Capcom arcade title, Final Fight.
Scrooloose: Well, I've fallen in pretty hard with Helldivers 2 and have quite enjoyed spreading democracy and freedom across the galaxy. I also installed Dakar Desert Rally and despite reading mostly negative things about it, the game seems pretty fun for the short time I've played.