Video Game Review: Helldivers 2

One of the fondest memories I have is playing video games on Thursday evenings with my brothers and dad. This is when online gaming started taking off and so you didn't have to be in the same room or even the same house. We would log onto our PlayStation 2 consoles and play SOCOM 2 with each other. I have missed the online game playing and so I thought I would start something similar with my own 2 sons. I have one that lives across town and another that lives across the country. Once again we have designated Thursday evenings as our night to play and our game of choice is Helldivers 2.

I started playing the original Helldivers when I still worked at Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) and enjoyed the top-down shooter platform. It didn't feel natural though and took awhile to get used to. The latest version of the game is a 3rd-Person shooter very similar to SOCOM 2. It feels like so many other shooter games that it should be easy for everyone to play.

While I am no longer at SIE, I still work for Sony and have access to discounted versions of the game. I purchased 3 copies so I would have one for myself and my 2 sons. Retail price for the game is $39.99 and well worth it if you are looking for a fun online playing experience.

The game is very similar to the movie Starship Troopers from 1997 where you are part of an elite team of soldiers sent to eradicate either bugs or robots from planets throughout the area. There is a lot of propaganda shown throughout the game relating to how you are spreading freedom throughout the galaxy and it adds a level of humor to the game play.

One difference between Helldivers 2 and SOCOM 2 is that you are always on the same side as the people you play with. The bugs or robots are controlled by the game. That means that the only competition you have with your teammates is to see who has the most kills or other similar statistics. This makes for a much more friendly environment.

The game is limited to squads of 4 and so it will not accommodate larger groups. You can play as a single person, but that can be really tough as you often need others to help unlock storage garages or align communication dishes. Fortunately the game won't keep you solo too long as other players may decide to join your mission and help out. This allows you to see how others play the game and learn from their technique.

My son who lives in Ohio will be gone this evening (Thursday) and so we played Tuesday this week. After an hour or so of running around and squashing man-eating bugs, he sent his brother and me a text saying how much fun he had. I agree, we did have a great time.

Helldivers 2 has an ESRB rating of M for mature due to intense violence and blood and gore. As you can hear other players playing, you will often hear strong language as well. The original version had a rating of T and the new one does deserve that M rating. The game is somewhat limited to the PlayStation 4 and 5 consoles but is also available on the PC. Naturally I play on the PS5.

Go Ask Alexa

My wife and I hosted our grandkids for a couple of days this week. We love having them over and had a great time. One day I found myself in the kitchen working on cleaning things up and could hear my soon-to-be 7-year-old grandson carrying on a delightful conversation with my Amazon Echo Show. While I generally ask the device a single question at a time, Alexa would respond only to have my grandson ask another question.

This opened my eyes to the beauty of artificial intelligence (AI) and how to keep from getting frustrated at the millions of questions young kids seem to always ask. You know the kids. The ones always asking why? While I don't mind playing that game for a bit, the kids always win with more questions than I feel like answering. With Alexa, you can have the kid ask away and the device never gets tired nor bored.

I also learned how to answer some questions based on Alexa's response. My grandson would ask two or three questions without waiting for a response. In those cases, the device would often respond with, "I'm sorry, I don't know the answer to that question." As responsible adults it is difficult to admit ignorance but talking with an overly inquisitive kid is the perfect time to practice that response.

The day after I listened to my grandson having his lengthy conversation with Alexa, my wife and I took the grandkids hiking up at Silver Lake near Brighton Ski Area. The kids loved it and kept running off ahead. I didn't want them to get too far away and so I called them back. I told them that they should remain close as there could be bears in the area. Without blinking, my grandson challenged that statement by asking, "Aren't bears nocturnal?" Perhaps the kid might be learning too much.

Experience Matters

Several years ago my wife and I wanted to bring our sailboat from the Antelope Island Marina to the South Shore Marina on the Great Salt Lake. We knew a storm would be blowing in the next day and wanted to get the task done before it came. We staged a car at the southern marina and then drove to the northern one. We loaded up the boat with ourselves and some winter-weather gear because of the month, February. Then we rigged a few safety devices to help protect us just in case something surprised us. Adding a preventer to the mainsail help ensure we wouldn't break the boat in a sudden wind shift.

The first 15 minutes of the trip went well and the wind filled in nicely. While sometimes you have to use the boat motor on such trips, it looked like we would be able to sail the whole way. At about minute 16, the weather changed dramatically, the storm arrived 15 hours early, and we found ourselves in 60 knots (about 66 miles per hour) of wind pushing us in the direction we wanted to go. Unfortunately our sailboat is not built to handle such wind and things got crazy. We ended up dropping both sails and still scooted along at a blistering 16 knots. That doesn't sound very fast but is 3 times the speed we normally sail.

One would think we had our excitement and once the wind died down all would be well. The wind did die down but then a snowstorm rolled in. I had planned to navigate visually but when the snow started falling, we couldn't see more than a few feet in front of the bow. The large smokestack from the smelter at the south-end of the lake that we aim for quickly disappeared. I had never bothered to install a compass in the cockpit and so I couldn't use that to help me. Ultimately I used the direction of the waves to guide me for the next several hours.

Eventually I could see a vertical line of blinking lights in the distance and hoped it to be the smokestack from the smelter as I knew it had aviation lights to warn low-flying planes. When the depth-finder on the boat went from 20 feet of water to 8 in about 2 feet, I knew I was off course and had to decide between turning hard to the left or hard to the right. I guessed and went right. The guess paid off and we quickly saw the breakwater for the South Shore Marina. We had blindly made it within a couple hundred yards of our final destination. As we continued I could see the expected lights on the smokestack and realized I had been heading towards a radio tower I had never noticed before.

We got into the marina at the south-end of the lake and quickly tied up the boat. I think my wife even kissed the dock once safely off the vessel. We both felt glad to be unharmed and relieved not to have to file an insurance claim for running the boat aground.

The moral of the story is that there is no substitute for experience. Sometimes we think we know something, like navigation but it isn't until we are tested that we know for sure. Since that day, I now know there are two tall objects at the south end of the Great Salt Lake with flashing lights. More importantly I know that the radio tower has brighter lights but the smokestack has 2 lights per row instead of just one. These are things you don't pay attention to on a sunny day. After all, why would you?