A Fun Group Game

Saturday night I found myself at home with my youngest son along with my oldest daughter's husband. We probably should have been attending one of two family events happening that evening but rebelled and told our wives we didn't want to go. My youngest son suggested we find a video game that the three of us could play together. I had one that I had been wanting to play for a long time after playing it at work with some of my colleagues. The game is called Helldivers and is available for the PlayStation 4 console as well as the PS3, PS Vita, and the PC. We played it on the PS4.

We started up the game and immediately jumped into play without waiting for an update to load. That limited some functionality and so every time we completed a level, it wouldn't upload it to "Galactic Command." We didn't mind as we just wanted to spend a little time together killing time and bad guys.

The first time I played the game, it felt like being a part of the 1997 movie "Starship Troopers." You and up to 3 of your friends (if you have enough controllers) are sent to various planets with specific missions. As we just started the game, we had a number of really easy missions where we landed, cleaned out an area of bugs, robots, or cyborgs, and then got extracted. When we got that down, the missions got a bit more difficult and we had to do things like find some keys, get a black box, and then get extracted. For the most part, we kept the difficulty of missions to super easy while we got used to the top-down view of our players. As all 3 of us shared the same screen at the same time, we couldn't advance on the map unless we all moved in the same direction and stayed together. The moment one of us tried to go up while another tried to go down, scrolling stoped and we got stuck until we cooperated.

One problem that I experienced initially is that I kept losing track of which player was me. All of the characters have your name below them but I would get so caught up with one of the other players that I switched my attention to the wrong avatar and got scolded for not moving in the right direction. After about an hour of play, I figured it out and never lost track of my character again. It also took about that long for me to figure out the controls as I am more used to 1st-person views in the games I play.

I know I tell people to limit video game play to about an hour but we played for a couple and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. When my youngest son's wife returned from one of the family events for the evening, I suggested we might want to stop playing. My son pleaded that we do one more mission that would finish the planet and allow us to get some extra experience points. I gave in and it surprised him that he convinced me to play one more game so easily. Fortunately it was he who got in trouble with his wife and not me. We finished up the game and had an enjoyable evening.

Today I looked at what it would cost to buy the game today. You can get a basic version for $20 and that is well worth the price. The version I have is on disk and currently sells for $40 but we never got into any of the extra features that come with a higher purchase price. Helldivers is rated T for Teen by the ESRB because of cartoon violence with blood and gore combined with some mild language. I don't remember any language in the game other than the game's title.

My son, son-in-law, and I had a great time playing and I highly recommend it if you are looking for a family bonding activity with at least two other people. If you are by yourself, the missions are almost impossible and so you will want to partner with people online, which is also an option.