Recent reviews by Schmit

̶I̶f̶ ̶I̶ ̶h̶a̶d̶ ̶p̶o̶s̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶r̶e̶v̶i̶e̶w̶ ̶e̶a̶r̶l̶i̶e̶r̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶y̶e̶a̶r̶,̶ ̶I̶ ̶w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶g̶i̶v̶e̶n̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶a̶n̶ ̶e̶a̶s̶y̶ ̶5̶/̶5̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶a̶ ̶g̶l̶o̶w̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶r̶e̶v̶i̶e̶w̶.̶

̶T̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶e̶a̶r̶l̶y̶ ̶2̶0̶2̶4̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶I̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶b̶e̶e̶n̶ ̶t̶o̶l̶d̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶n̶o̶ ̶u̶n̶c̶e̶r̶t̶a̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶e̶r̶m̶s̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶I̶ ̶M̶U̶S̶T̶ ̶m̶a̶k̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶P̶S̶N̶ ̶a̶c̶c̶o̶u̶n̶t̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶l̶i̶n̶k̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶i̶n̶-̶g̶a̶m̶e̶,̶ ̶o̶r̶ ̶I̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶o̶w̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶p̶l̶a̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶g̶a̶m̶e̶ ̶I̶ ̶p̶a̶i̶d̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶J̶u̶n̶e̶ ̶4̶t̶h̶,̶ ̶2̶0̶2̶4̶.̶ ̶W̶h̶e̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶A̶r̶r̶o̶w̶h̶e̶a̶d̶'̶s̶ ̶d̶e̶c̶i̶s̶i̶o̶n̶,̶ ̶S̶o̶n̶y̶'̶s̶ ̶D̶e̶c̶i̶s̶i̶o̶n̶,̶ ̶o̶r̶ ̶a̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶b̶i̶n̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶t̶w̶o̶;̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶'̶r̶u̶g̶'̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶a̶ ̶P̶S̶N̶ ̶a̶c̶c̶o̶u̶n̶t̶ ̶b̶e̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶o̶p̶t̶i̶o̶n̶a̶l̶ ̶t̶o̶r̶n̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶u̶n̶d̶e̶r̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶f̶e̶e̶t̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶a̶b̶s̶o̶l̶u̶t̶e̶l̶y̶ ̶u̶n̶a̶c̶c̶e̶p̶t̶a̶b̶l̶e̶.̶

Edit (5/8/24)

Congratulations Helldivers, you have defeated tyranny once again, you have caused a massive threat to liberty to back down. For now.

I can now say that I still don't recommend this game, it isn't a fault of the game itself, it's a wonderful title that deserves so much love. I have not genuinely enjoyed a game this much since Deep Rock Galactic. I'm leaving my review negative for a specific reason. PSN is still stated as a requirement on the Steam page; I don't trust that this is a mistake. Whoever decided that should stay the way it is, should probably fix it after a press release, unless they are thinking of doubling back.

I liek tank

GET THOSE AUSTRIAN DOGS OFF MY MOUNTAIN

I have never cared more for disembodied voices until now.

The inability to manage your crew and ship effectively is what makes this game not worth it. I don't play city/colony/management games much, but if you cannot see what you are supposed to be managing, then it is endlessly frustrating.

You can't track consumption/production of materials effectively. There are no graphs, or even a +/- day count for the materials at the top of the screen (this should be standard.) Instead you get a + or - in the last hour count, which is functionally useless, I ain't trying to make spreadsheets out of the game.

You can't set a priority order on construction projects. This means you can't dictate which things you want built first. Want the new water condensers built cause you can *feel* that you aren't keeping up? If the AI decided to build the shelf instead, get stuffed. I would care less if I could PAUSE projects, or if the priority orders worked better.

Priority orders do not work well. It seems that AI can be assigned multiple tasks, and if you set multiple priority orders it doesn't get spread around, not actually sure on this, but this plays into the next point.

You cannot set specific people to tasks, this is VERY annoying for things like your food production. I cannot be certain that I will have someone cooking meals at all times, or someone running the supplies to the kitchens to keep them stocked. in most cases I have ample ingredients, but the cooks seemingly do not exist, or are being used for other projects (not by my own desire)

I have had no less than six different fire incidents cripple the ship, even with six plus people using extinguishers it takes far to long for a fire to be quelled, and by the time it is quelled it's either because, 1: it was caught SUPER early and did not have time to spread. 2, it broke an airlock/went on for so long that the oxygen to feed it was depleted (I do like the o2 being necessary for a fire, props for that.)

Produce, and meals are separate items, this is an issue as you cannot track the production/consumption of meals, and meals can't be stored. See the above note on staffing specific tasks for reasons this is annoying.

I'm just gonna ignore the lag, and buffering issues. I can work around those, but they do play into overall negative experience.

The crew manifest is a glorified tinder profile list, it does not allow you to see crew status at a glance. This is terrible as I can't tell who is sick, who is hungry, who is injured, who is doing what, etc.

There is not an easy way to rotate flight crews, this is *very* annoying when you need to run many many sorties early on for important materials. I could forgive this if the manifest showed me more info at a glance, and it didn't buffer like early 2000s youtube.

Overall it's a very charming looking game, with massive core gameplay issues. I'm definitely missing some things I dislike, but I've had my fill. I'd much rather play Frostpunk as I can be certain that I will be able to discern from the menus WHAT is going on, WHO is doing what, and WHERE my resources are coming from/going. If these issues are resolved, I would be coming back to redo this review, but for now, "The inability to manage the ship is infuriating."

[Update September 4, 2023. New patch has made it so that my crew is not starving (yippie!), and the priority orders seem to be functioning better, but still not quite where *I* feel they could be for a smooth game-play experience. I did have one fire on the ship, it didn't cripple the ship, and was maintained to an 8x8 area of the ship with 7-8 crew on it. Vast improvement over losing my entire run from an engine room fire with 9+ people working on it. Overall a good step in the right direction, but not enough for me to cross out the issues listed above, except maybe the fires, but I would need to experience a couple more to make a decision. From here on my thoughts on updates will be in brackets and hopefully made a couple days after a patch is released.]

Just, make sure you bring EWAR. ALWAYS bring EWAR.

ROCK AND STONE

Basically, I like killing big animal with big weapon

I can only describe it as "easy mode DND" and I quite enjoy it.

bUGS