I grew up watching westerns with my grandfather and war movies with my father. My fate was a little more sealed every time I sat next to him to watch movies on television. No one was surprised when my gift lists began to include VHS tapes and DVDs of “war movies,” as I called them at the time, and others starring 80s and 90s action heroes.
Imagine my joy when I discovered “war and shooting video games”. It was a door that, unlike other genres, has not been closed since then. The campaigns of Call of Duty, Battlefield, Wolfenstein, Metro, Ghost Recon, Metal Gear… The list is not short, you already know it.
I have very special memories of Battlefield 1 and V. Their campaigns moved me a lot and the movie scenes of their multiplayer modes are still present in my wildest dreams. Playing Assault, Operations and The Front was a joy: shooting from a trench while bombs fell and you can hear the roar of tanks is (for me) the zenith of war in video games.
The Vietnam War in Helldivers 2
Now, a little more than half a decade after Battlefield V, another video game has made me feel the emotion of what I call “war chaos”: shots, explosions, many enemies, freneticism… Helldivers 2 has transported me to that setting once more with his Automaton front. I’m freaking out like a kid again.
My first 10 hours of play were on the Terminid front, planets invaded by an alien species of insects. Their strength lies in their numbers, so it goes without saying that it is important to use machine guns and anything that our destroyer shoots from orbit to destroy as many as possible in a single blow. My happiness knows no limits every time I blow up an entire group.
It was another player through matchmaking who decided to change the Terminated front for the Automaton after three successful games. They were three top-level players whose helldiver training had to be similar to the American Navy Seals or the British SAS, so I didn’t let them escape.
The ship launched our capsules to Malevelon Creek, a jungle planet under Automaton control. I assumed the role of clumsy recruit and let my teammates lead the way. My first contact with the Automata was in a shootout with a patrol. I learned my first lesson: these enemies shoot back.
It didn’t take us too long to find the first Automaton base. They are robot factories instead of bug nests, although they are destroyed in the same way: grenades through the little holes or a good cucumber with an Orbital Attack. My companions opt for brute force and several orbital attacks fall (bombs, gatling, cluster…) and I decide to add my orbital gas attack to the explosive cocktail.
There is not a living soul left at the base and the ground is a potato field. Then I learned the second lesson from the Automata: they bring reinforcements with ships, something the bugs don’t do. I remembered (from the trailers) that it is possible to shoot them down with an anti-tank… a shame I didn’t have one. My companions took care of all the reinforcements in one fell swoop.
The next Automata base was the beginning of the real Vietnam in Helldivers 2: My companions launched orbital fire attacks, fighter sweeps and bombarded the area with an automatic mortar that launches charges continuously for a while. I didn’t know until I died from an explosion while trying to storm the base. Third lesson: don’t run towards the explosions.
I swear I have never seen so many explosions and gunshots in a video game as in that game of Helldivers 2. I decided the wisest idea was to crouch behind a rock, shoot at anything with red lights, and pray that no explosions hit me. There are no words to describe the pyrotechnic display of this game and I keep wondering how it is possible that not a single frame drops.
There are 20 minutes left until the mission ends. All objectives were accomplished and enemies were literally everywhere. And then I enjoyed the best scene of the game: one teammate was left behind while two others were already calling for extraction. I turned to try to cover his retreat and saw a huge jungle expanse, adorned by rivers, fog, and the red pattern of enemy projectiles.
My companion was receiving fire from all sides and was struggling to hold his position in a base that was destroyed by us before we left. He didn’t understand how it was possible that he was still alive, although he couldn’t do anything either. My equipment consisted of a shotgun and a flamethrower, my stratagems were on cooldown and going down was suicide.
I opted to open the chat and type “C3, GOO”, in case he hadn’t realized I was fighting alone. And it must have been that way because in the blink of an eye he was close to my position. Enemy machine gun fire was now heading my way, so I fired a few shotgun blasts at the enemies (with no hope of a single lead coming) and ran towards the extraction point, while C3 covered my retreat with his machine gun.
We both managed to reach the extraction perimeter, where the other two companions had set up a formidable defense: mounted and automatic turrets, resupply, and an impenetrable wall of fire and explosions. I deployed my sentry turret, healed my companions, and fired off a few shots with my shotgun.
It didn’t take us long to hold on until the extraction ship arrived and the latter finished repelling the closest enemies with its cannons. I stuck my knee in front of the door and pointed to the rear of my companions as they went up. Once everyone was safe, I joined them to get out of what was the closest thing to the Vietnam War in a video game. All the games on that damn planet are epic!
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