Console yourself: How the PS4 Spring Fever indies stack up

HellDivers

Starship Troopers has been represented by a few official gaming tie-ins in the past, but none have come anywhere near as close to capturing the gritty, gruesome feel of the film as HellDivers.

The HellDivers stand as humanity's last resistance against the triumvirate of bugs, robotic Illuminati and cyborgs. Their quest: to fight back the hordes and capture the resources that Super Earth (yes, Super Earth) needs to survive.

In practice HellDivers sends players out to any one of hundreds of planets, each with specific difficulty ratings. With the action viewed from above, you'll venture out to secure objectives with three buddies at your back in a much similar style to Bungie’s Destiny.

Its multiplayer is arguably more cohesive than Bungie's shooter, however. The focus here is the team, to the point where a squad must stick to the same portion of the landscape, rather than be able to move to all four corners of the map independently.

While the effect is claustrophobic – especially given that friendly fire is enabled – it means your comrades are never far from your side, making for some heroic last stands.

HellDivers‘ finest moment is its stratagems system, though, where players – via a series of D-pad commands – can call in air strikes, heavy weapons and reinforcements. These can turn the tide of battle and pull your squad through to the completion of a tough objective or the safety of your evac shuttle, by the skin of its teeth.

Deep, rewarding and now blessed with stable servers, HellDivers should be just the tonic for anyone looking for a Destiny alternative.

Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number

There were times when playing Hotline Miami 2 on the way to work that I wondered if any of my fellow passengers could see what I was up to. The game is so brutal in its self-styled violence that they’d have probably thought I was psychotic. No wonder I kept getting weird looks.

That's not to say it isn't entertaining, though. Like its predecessor you’re cast as a mysterious, masked figure who, seemingly teetering on the edge of madness, is called to various locales to unleash hell.

There are certain rules – doors knock bad guys down and glass windows can be shot through, for example. But on the whole you're given free reign to massacre anybody and everybody with gay abandon.

Before you know it you'll be bashing a poor sap's head against a concrete floor, before slicing another's throat and spilling a third's intestines all over the floor with a short-range shotgun blast. And all while the 1980s-style electro pulses hypnotically in the background and your points tally spirals ever upwards.

For my money though, Hotline Miami 2 doesn't quite reach the gameplay heights of its predecessor. At times you'll be forced to use certain tactics due to mission constraints, which can make proceedings feel frustratingly limited at times. The game is tough too, punishingly so at times.

You'll need a cast iron stomach and a tolerance for repetition to get the most out of Hotline Miami 2. But, if you possess both, you'll find a game that's rewarding, difficult and probably even verging on its own kind of grisly art.