This review contains spoilers, click expand to view.
TLDR: Pain Simulator 2019. Enjoyed by masochists and programmed by sadists.
LONG VERSION: I put over a 1000 hours into SOD1 and it's DLC addons, I enjoyed it immensely. SOD2 added much improved graphics, long overdue but questionable multiplayer functionality and completely gutted the storyline elements that actually added any depth to the original game... Short version, SOD2 was more of the same from a grinding perspective, with none of the reward for advancing story. When Heartland was released as a story-driven DLC, I felt that at last we were returning to story driven gaming as well as a nostalgic recreation of the maps from the original game.
Unfortunately, the game is just too punishing. What do I mean? Here's what I just experienced ***minor spoilers***
There's a mission you eventually do that makes doing plague hearts feel like a lol-fest.
I take in my two best people with nine "plague busters" each (a special bio weapon you have to use on these things to start being able to damage them at all). I have max stamina boosters, max heals, sniper cover, morale boost, health boost and max size bags that are filled with bullets, grenades and molotovs...
I throw my first plague buster... and it's on!
Every time you hurt this thing, it summons a minimum of one blood plague horde. Each additional time you hurt it, a minimum of another horde, one bloater, and one screamer. If the screamer gets a scream off, it spawns additional plague adds and bloaters. It's ridiculous, but expected, so I continue.
Adds are coming in from everywhere, I'm on deaths door as my plague sickness is so high that I can barely swing a weapon. I'm trying to hold everything at bay with head shots - I've almost finished round 1 of this fight (there are multiple rounds, and your progress does not save if you fail at all you must start from scratch) when two things happen - I run out of all molotovs and grenades on both characters and the last round of spawned adds appear: two screamers, a horde, two bloaters... and a juggernaut.
Which is when I say, "lol no, it's time for me to go."
I leg it to the nearest allied base on plague addled legs and get to the top of the building. But my AI partner keeps fighting, slowly dragging in a congo line of all the zeds I've left behind to where I'm trying to hide. I lay down covering fire from the roof so she can make it to me, this works and allows her to finally climb up to safety. We can recover now right?
No.
The adds follow her and walk into the building under us, using the building I was going to for safety as cover, including the screamers. To my horror, it seems that each time they scream they spawn new blood plague horde, one new bloater... and one new juggernaut.
I'm pinned on the roof. The entire space under me is just green enemy dots, to the point that the game no longer knows where to spawn them - which is when they start glitching through the roof that I was supposed to be safe on. Worse, my ai partner suddenly glitches through the floor and lands in the middle of this nightmare - which is when it becomes clear," either they'll all start glitching up here, or I'm next to glitch through the floor."
My car is out the front, I 'might' be able to make it. But the ladder is surrounded and the roof to the base I'm on is normal height plus half again. My life is low, I'm going to take fall damage - but if I don't bail my partner is definitely dead, I can't even understand how she's still alive in the mass of dots below me.
Time to bail.
I kamikaze from the roof... collapse, hear the zeds running for me. After the fall I've essentially got one hit box worth of health, if anything touches me - I'm dead.
I get in the car and try to burn rubber, praying my partner just runs out of the base into the car... which is when I hear her:
"No, no, no-"
The death gurgle screams tells me I am AGAIN a companion down as her body is torn to shreds, but there's nothing I could do... and here's the real punishment of Heartland. Companions are not procedural generated randoms that if you lose one, you can get another - there are set companions and once they're gone, that's it, you can't replace them.
Which is when I finally did the best thing I could for my mental health.
I'm out.… Expand
