Recent reviews by Technophage

I'm a backer from Kickstarter and I have to say, the game is amazing. Everything I hoped it would be. I ate the first part of the campaign in 2 days (Cuz' one's gotta work, you know...) and loved the ideas displayed.
But to get a little bit more into detail:

Tower Defense ? Yes Please
The game is heavily focused on building stuff to defend, with lots of variations to building pieces that you have to master to get the better of and create buildings that are both practical and aesthetic. On average I'd say it makes most time sense to sacrifice aesthetics to a little bit more practicality, due to some subpar building pieces such as roofs and corner merlons and corner windows.

Buildin' Buildin' Buildin'
There are technically 6 different ressources (Oxygen, Wood, Stone, Minerals, Population and Army capacity). With most upgrades, buildings and units taking 3-4 of them for each, a strong ressource generation is important, and its placement oftentimes determines its efficiency, thus cementing even more the strategical placement of buildings. Added to that the fact that some of these builds incorporate building space ontop of them and the active pause and you'll soon spend hours considering this game a fascinating puzzle game in just its most basic basebuilding to arrange logistics to be efficient, which is a delight.

RSP (Real Strategic Placement)
Lastly, the 3rd pillar of this game is, of course, its units management. Once again maximizing on its strenght of placement. As such, units require next to no micro-management except placement, the only exception being the campaign's hero which can get active abilities, and the occasionnal switch of priority targeting depending on menaces.

Cataclism-oh no
The game is not devoid of issues obviously, but I find them relatively small compared to the title's quality. The ones that spring to mind is the imbalance of the economy, notably on Oxygen, which is arguably the cheapest but also most complicated ressource to gather efficiently, combined to the fact that Oxygen Costs become insanely high in late tiers of the game. The other would be the little rooster of units to produce (only 7 units) and enemies, as well as some imbalance (the Bursters are too numerous and tough to kill before some reach walls and deal viscious damage.

In any case, both as a strategy/tower defense enthusiast and videogame worker, an incredible game overall, thank you !

(Edit: Sony Backed down, as promised I'll change my review to positive as an incentive for not submitting to corporate greed.)

You know why I'm making this review. Sony requiring a linked account on steam just to capitalize on the game's success is unacceptable, even moreso considering the lack of cybersecurity in Sony, and the extent to which the Anti-cheat by default in Helldiver has access to my Computer's base functions, this just won't do. If and when the situation is resolved in a satisfactory manner, I'll change my review as positive.

(Working in the field myself, I know how important it is to modify a bad review to a positive one once your voice is heard.)

Cheers.

It's a really good game for people like me that love turtle strats and taking your time to build a perfect defense before going on the offensive.

It's a really great game, even though some phases feel like cheesing the enemy.

SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
The ending is kind of underwhelming. It's clearly written to give an easy connection to a second opus.

That's what an adaptation should be like : It feels just like a book.