Recent reviews by Clove

THIS REVIEW HAS BEEN EDITED AFTER SONY REVERTED THE REQUIREMENT TO LINK A PLAYSTATION ACCOUNT IN ORDER TO PLAY. THIS IS NO LONGER NECESSARY. THIS REVIEW WAS PREVIOUSLY NEGATIVE.

Helldivers 2 is a fantastic game developed by Arrowhead Studios. I've enjoyed playing this game now for a few hundred hours and have had little to nitpick about beyond some bugs and somewhat questionable balancing patches. I now unfortunately do have something to be very critical about.

Helldivers 2 has now decided that linking your account with a Playstation Network account is NO LONGER AN OPTION as per this Steam news post located here. Up until this point, linking your Steam account to a PSN account has been optional. 

Refusing to link your Steam account with a PSN account will (as far as I currently know) render your game UNPLAYABLE until accounts have been linked. This is clearly not a necessary change since it has not been a necessity until May 6th, 2024 as they have decided. With this very unfortunate news, I simply cannot recommend this game to anyone until this forced change against it's players has been reverted.

THERE IS ANOTHER ISSUE
Helldivers 2 has been delisted on Steam in many countries that do not have access to Playstation services. This is now a bad thing because it was still for sale in these areas. As far as I know, these countries will no longer have access to Helldivers 2. Many of these players are fighting for game refunds while having accrued hundreds of hours of playtime in the 3 months the game was for sale and playable before this change. Hopefully with the removal of the PSN account requirement, these players will regain access to Helldivers 2 and it's store page. We will see what the future holds for this game.

-UnderMine is early access at the time of this review and I don't know if Steam will acknowledge that-

I've played UnderMine on and off to check up on how updates have been treating it. Needless to say that I've really enjoyed my experience with the game so far and I have not yet completed and gained everything that the game has to offer. I'm not the most adept at these types of games but I certainly find them to be fun. Early in my adventures I found the early floors to be quite challenging while I was getting used to the game mechanics. You'll be managing your stock of keys and bombs while collecting as much gold as possible. As you continue to progress, you will eventually be met with an untimely fate in the mines. Before you delve back into the dungeons, you'll find yourself at a sort of hub where you can purchase yourself upgrades with the gold that you've managed to accrue on your previous adventure. Slowly but surely you'll find yourself able to blast through the early floors to eventually face a boss at the end of each section of floors before continuing on to the next area with increased difficulty.

UnderMine is very fun and I would recommend it to anyone that enjoys roguelite games. It benefits from having a progression system much like Rogue Legacy but unfortunately UnderMine doesn't come without it's flaws. After you've gained a good amount of upgrades, the early floors will no longer be challenging and you'll be able to clear them without any issues at all. To remedy this, the game has a way for you to progress to the more difficult floors earlier in order for the player to skip past the now monotonous early floors. While I appreciate that mechanic, it also pains me to know that I won't be earning early floor items and gold that you'll desperately want once you've reached the floors that you're having more trouble with. Without earning early floor gold your runs may be pointless and you likely won't be earning enough gold to purchase yourself an upgrade from the hub. This may not be as much of an issue as I think that it is, but with the progress that I've made so far in my game it certainly is feeling like it will be a bigger problem the further I progress.

I'm really looking forward to future updates with UnderMine and hopefully there will be more changes to help alleviate the things that I feel are the biggest problems. Only time will tell.

I was very disappointed in my first ending. That being said, the experience for me was amazing. Absolutely a game that you MUST replay for more story and scenes.