originally posted in:Eurogamer
Tuesday nights (I know, Nightfall night) I get a couple of mates round and we play PS4. Bit of FIFA, some Minecraft. Looking forward to Borderlands Handsome Collection with its ability to do local 4-player split-screen in a few weeks...
But this week I got my hands on Helldivers and it's fuggin' *brilliant*. I don't know how it translates online with randoms or mates yet, but as a couch co-op experience it's superb - like running a Destiny Raid with your mates sat on the couch next to you. Because friendly-fire is permanently switched on, and the amount of highly lethal ordnance you have at your disposal is outrageous, *and* enemies come at you from all sides in near-constant waves, you have to really be aware of each other and work together to keep them off your back whilst achieving the mission objectives. There's so much shouting, swearing, stress and laughing at the stupid idiotic things you do in the heat of battle when you're getting swarmed from all sides. Plus getting crushed by your own weapon-drop that you've ordered through the Stratagems system never gets old.
Within two hours of starting we were all charging around the battlefield in strategem-dropped exo-suits blasting the cr@p out of things (and each other). It might be the only game where (several times) I've shot a mate in the back with a shottie, killed him outright, and he's actually laughed like it was the best thing to ever happen to him. Or where you can literally have a mate blow both himself and you up with an ill-judged grenade throw within seconds of starting your first ever game and be falling around laughing. Or where it's so ridiculously funny yet simultaneously stressful watching a mate running around like a headless chicken because you and the rest of your team have died and he's trying to find himself a few seconds of calm space to call down the Stratagem that revives all the dead players and saves the mission from a wipe.
I can't say I can recommend it (yet) for online play, or single player gaming, because I've not tried it, but if you ever play couch co-op, and you don't take your games *too* seriously when you do, I highly recommend picking it up. It won't replace your Destiny addiction. But it's lots of fun :)
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Edited by SpeckledJim: 3/15/2015 5:49:56 PMI've played a lot of this with randoms online. For the most part it works well, aside from a few matchmaking issues. People generally behave themselves despite the massive opportunities to grief they are presented with. Kind of restores your faith in humanity a little. Only a little mind.