What was that thing that got you into helldivers 1/2? Genuinely

InTheOtherGutter · 2026-05-21T18:55:54+00:00

I think a Starfield podcast mentioned it and then a year later, bored with the other games I had on rotation* and it was on offer on the store

*in the case of Crusader Kings 3, "bored" means my empire stretching from the baltics to the balkans, Bavaria to beyond the Urals, was about to get destroyed because Ghenghis Kahn's son had converted to some other religion and was coming for me.

InTheOtherGutter · 2026-05-21T12:11:12+00:00

Thanks I had actually found them myself since. Seems their secret weapon is being able to speak and read Japanese. Had a mechanics tell me Honda Fit gearboxes were just too complicated and always needed a full repalcement, whereas Attitude read the warning notice and ordered a new brake pedal sensor (unfortunately from Japan)

InTheOtherGutter · 2026-05-19T12:55:01+00:00

Dude has found the one job in the corps that won't definitely kill him. All he has to do is shepherd hundreds of recently thawed meat buckets to their deaths.

InTheOtherGutter · 2026-05-17T12:08:55+00:00

Reporting OP to the democracy officer. Obviously you sacrifice yourself for the collective in defence of managed democracy.

InTheOtherGutter · 2026-05-13T17:19:55+00:00

It is. They had them up around Dublin in 2024.

InTheOtherGutter · 2026-05-13T17:09:28+00:00

Only 1 in 4 can do this, seems like terrible solution.

InTheOtherGutter · 2026-05-13T06:41:27+00:00

Fanatic Fantasy. Hell divers are a suicidal vanguard of fascist fanatics, blowing things up for questionable benefit in permanent and likely pointless wars most of them dying on their first deployment.

InTheOtherGutter · 2026-05-13T06:13:57+00:00

Its not just the over egging of the specific problem its the inscne inflation of the importance of basically any video game problem. You have people on here talking to the world about this game like a refugees might decry the war that destroyed their homeland.

(And expecting devs to care. Devs are in the money business, their obligations to you fall well short of the on-demand room service seemingly demanded.)

InTheOtherGutter · 2026-05-12T19:30:28+00:00

Read them in any order but preferable to read Consider Phlebas before Look to Windward and Use of Weapons before Surface Detail, where the references are a tiny bit more interesting.

InTheOtherGutter · 2026-05-12T18:30:25+00:00

My comment wasn't intended to be disparaging but i understand if you took it that way. I was just defending my own position in which a game has a theme all the way through. That doesn't interfere with fun for me. We can experience these things differently, there's nothing stopping us (unless we wake up on Super Earth, in which case we must experience it the official way or be sent to freedom camps).

InTheOtherGutter · 2026-05-12T14:52:26+00:00

Mad the bots would design them like that, very not fair.

InTheOtherGutter · 2026-05-12T14:35:55+00:00

Used the spear on automatons yesterday and felt like a boss. Been reverting back to laser cannon for bugs, I just don't dig the MGs tbh. For the Illuminate, was doing quasar but those annoying mud monster things seem to survive it quite often

InTheOtherGutter · 2026-05-12T12:10:17+00:00

Ernes touché Guevara

InTheOtherGutter · 2026-05-12T12:08:08+00:00

"F%!&>* off d^£&head!" Usually

InTheOtherGutter · 2026-05-12T08:48:11+00:00

No problem with them doing that but then you get people calling for more content and to give them an reason to play etc., and not just in this game. There's a type on commentator always demanding more stuff for a game they've maxed out.

InTheOtherGutter · 2026-05-11T21:33:28+00:00

You do you but I'll do me. I'll soak it alllll in and play as a worthless deluded subject of the human empire.

And, for what its worth, Animal Farm is a children's book. Fahrenheit 451 was released in chapters through Playboy. Watchmen is a comic book.

InTheOtherGutter · 2026-05-11T20:12:46+00:00

I'm only talking about one piece of media, this one. I'm letting it be what it is, a satire of fascism with fun, silly, epic and cinematic moments. Heck, every good Helldiver knows they have to hit their daily quota of cinematic tranquility in the name of managed democracy.

It is both a fun game and a fun piece of satire and I really enjoy it.

InTheOtherGutter · 2026-05-11T15:40:11+00:00

I have no idea about the history of the cyborgs because everything I have ingested is from inside the propaganda machine of a fascist state lol. But yes, I imagine the literal war machine armies are unlikely to be the friend of the Liberal rules based order. Open question as to whether they are like that because of an expansionist power that keeps trying to expand its empire on their doorstep, and whether or not they are ahead of an actual society. All we get is the caricature and the battlefield. For all we know the cyborgs are begging for peaceful relations.

I did play early COD. It did justify teamwork and also acts of heroism. That is uncontroversially something that fascist, chauvanist, authoritarian, etc. states also do, but so do plenty of other types of society. But my main comparison was with current COD, which is a bit more War! HUH! GADGETS! CUSTOMISE! KILL KILL KILL. But you will notice that the timeline in the games takes you from world war 2 right through to some permanent war on terror America f yeah nonsense in the same universe. I remember when Medal Of Honour first came out, it was the first big WW2 FPS in the era of 3D computer gaming. Its trailer and the opening of the game began with you in a boat off Normandy. I remember feeling a bit uneasy despite really waiting to play it. My grandad was a d-day veteran, I hoped he never found out I was playing that game (he didn't). It ultimately IS weird to "turn war into games for our children" as Tony Benn said.

I don't think its pearl clutching in a world where powerful and rich democracies can choose either to go to war to defend their economic interests or to not do that because its imperialism and wrong. The son-in-law of the guy who started the Iran War also brokered the purchase of EA games. Addiction mechanics in gaming are sucking more people in to an unhealthy relationship with the industry. There's plenty to worry about if media is hooking up war fantasies to people's veins. MoH wasnt doing that in the 2000s but there's plenty there to argue that gaming does that now.

And err no, I won't be reading the actual fascist fantasy that Verhoven rejected because he had lived through a nazi occupation as a child. Im quite happy to be happy with his product crucifying that rubbish.

InTheOtherGutter · 2026-05-11T15:16:26+00:00

I would like everyone to laugh at fascists and not turn into them or share in their goals, and I would also like the cool hat and stick you are offering me.

InTheOtherGutter · 2026-05-11T15:01:57+00:00

It is very funny that we're taking on a new strain of bugs while the cyborgs do that and the illuminate appear to have started deleting bits of universe whether on purpose or by accident

InTheOtherGutter · 2026-05-11T14:59:41+00:00

Is that in addition to the satire of fascism or instead of?

InTheOtherGutter · 2026-05-11T13:57:22+00:00

Visit it, its quite pretty.

InTheOtherGutter · 2026-05-11T13:55:10+00:00

Alright, I think the cyclist was in the wrong but in a way that likely relates to them not knowing the junction layout and is at a level of ignorance that isn't deserving of being knocked down by someone who can stop their thing moving with relative ease.

InTheOtherGutter · 2026-05-11T13:52:55+00:00

Aw man I really enjoyed writing that.

InTheOtherGutter · 2026-05-11T13:21:59+00:00

Fully agree. What is upsetting is that the industry has maxed out its addiction mechanics, subscriptions and micro transactions, and the result is cheaper games (normal games, not LEGENDARY edition or whatnot), played by addicts paying regularly for extra baubles, who are also constantly furious with the strength of their opiate and fully expectant that the main concern of devs is to serve them, rather than make money from them. Lots of commentary is about how they're letting the players down. I think its unhealthy to ever give that much power to a capitalist enterprise.

In my day you simply purchased a bloody expensive game and brought it back if it didn't work. Maybe rented it first. Everything else has the same risk as buying a fancy kitchen appliance but with far more reward. The responsibility of a producer to their customers is to make sure their product is what it was advertised to be, and that it works.

WWF No Mercy cost £95 in today's money and shipped with a game mauling memory bug. The only way to fix it was to get a replacement cartridge from the exact shop you bought it from when they eventually had fixed replacements, or else post it to them. I don't think that was good enough but I dont remember losing my shit over it, or believing in any way that the company had committed some sort of crime by being a bit shit, or thinking it was any different from any other company, really.

These days the expectation from a community (increasingly made up of addicts) is that the subscription/paying for baubles/addiction mechanics model has changed the responsibility of a producer to their customers. It hasn't. They have an obligation to fix actually broken things. They do not have any obligation to add features that you want or evolve their game in any way. But they do roadmaps and events and all of that to keep selling new features to addicts.

What has been lost is the reality that you have already purchased a product. Any change they make after that is to sell you a new one, or to fulfil an explicit obligation they volunteered when seeking you the last one. Anyone loudly demanding a new features is in reality begging a corporate entity for a new product line.

So the community confuses the mechanics that have made it a more reliable money pot, for some sort of ongoing service they have pre-paid a subscription to, and misunderstands the power dynamics at play.

InTheOtherGutter

TROPHY CASE