Helldivers

Helldivers is a cooperative top-down shooter in which four soldiers of an elite corps try to spread so-called managed democracy across a hostile galaxy while trying not to shoot each other. The game rests on a simple principle: a mission lasts ten to twenty minutes, the team drops onto a planet's surface, completes objectives, and must make it to evacuation in time. The key mechanic is the stratagem, support called in by entering a short sequence of directional button presses, ranging from air strikes and defense turrets to a personal exoskeleton. Entering combinations under pressure, while an insect swarm or robotic units close in from every side, is the source of most of the tension as well as most of the comic disasters.

Crucially, friendly fire is always on. Every bullet, grenade, and orbital strike can kill a teammate, turning what would otherwise be straightforward action into an exercise in communication and discipline. Progress unfolds on a galactic map shared by all players across platforms, and a joint campaign against several factions gives individual missions meaning beyond a single sitting. On the Vita the game runs smoothly and clearly, and it makes use of cross-play with the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 versions, so a character in progress can be carried from the television to the palm of your hand. The smaller display makes reading dense combat situations a bit harder, but legible icon and effect stylization largely compensates.

The atmosphere is carried by exaggerated military pathos, propaganda one-liners, and orchestral music that openly pokes fun at the military blockbuster genre. Reviewers praised the cooperation above all and the idea behind the stratagems, while criticism targeted the repetitive mission structure. In hindsight, the game clearly foreshadowed the same brand's later enormous success in a different form, and on the Vita it remains one of the few big online action games that truly worked there. Today it plays best with a familiar group; solo it's an honest challenge, and with four players it's the best kind of chaos there is.