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- Aug 2, 2008
- Messages
- 1,315
Do you remember Left 4 Dead, a game that came out a year ago?
Yes you do stop lying to me.
So, a sequel. Left 4 Dead 2 and Valve - probably one of the few companies in the world that knows how to make a sequel without ruining it completely and can get away with releasing the sequel 1 year after the first game was released.
Many have been against the game so far, mainly because they felt like the game is being rushed, it should be a DLC to the first one and because the first one needs moar DLC instead of a new game.
Some even went as far as to boycott the game because of one or more of those arguments. We all know how that ended up so lets not go there shall we.
The main question now that it has been released is - 'Is it really any good?'.
Well even the largest font size on this forum would not do this one single word justice so here it is being shouted by Jim Carrey;
Well, what's so great about it then?
Nearly everything. Valve took all the things we liked from the original Left 4 Dead and improved them and added many new things. One being a constistent storyline.
Valve has never been much into the the whole 'Hey let's spam useless cutscenes so people will know what is going on!'-type of gamedesign so the story is being told as you play through the game by character dialog.
You'll learn about the characters and what they are doing and how they got there by listening to them, if you have the time for that. Because you came for the zombies right? Not for the story.
Let me move on to the other improvement then. Zombies. The common infected aren't that much to talk about. They vomit, beat their heads on a wall, and when they smell a living human they put on rampagemode and come running for you like Coach for a chocolatebar.
In L4D2, uncommon infected have been added into the game to distinguish different campaigns from each other. For example, in the Dead Center campaign you will encounter Hazmat-suited zombies that are fireproof and there for molotovs etc will not work on them at all.
In Dark Carnival you have clown suited zombies that have squeaky shoes. Funny right? Well no because those squeaky shoes attract zombies and because of that the Clowns can lead a minihorde right into you. That's why they must be shot on sight, or if you want the achievement, punched on sight.
In the Hard Rain campaign you have construction workers who apparently are completely oblivious to pipebombs beeping and will come for you when the rest of the retardsquad go and beat up that exploding thingy.
In the Swamp Fever campaign you have zombies that hide in the mud, referred to as 'Mudmen' who blind your screen with mud with a Boomer-vomitlike effect by hitting you.
Last but not least you have the Parish campaign where there are bulletproof cops running around the town and are immune to bullets lest you shoot them in the back.
There are of course, new Special Infected. The Spitter is much like the Boomer with her attack, shooting toxic acid from her mouth that does insane damage to anyone standing in it and can also act as an effective way of blocking a critical path. If you run out of goo you can always die on their way, because then you will also release toxic acid.
The second addition to the Boss Infected cavalcade is the Charger, with an oversized arm acting as a shield to bullets and as the name indicates he charges toward a Survivor and grabs him/her and starts pounding him/her to the ground, dealing quite a lot of damage if allowed to carry on.
Lastly there is the Jockey, a small SI who's job it is to jump on top of a Survivor, taking nearly total control of his/her movements and dragging them towards danger while dealing small amounts of damage.
The campaigns are improved upon from the last game. There are a lot of things that can happen now and it no longer is purely run and gun. For example, in the near beginning of Dead Center you will be tasked with delivering Cola to a survivor who has set up camp in a saferoom but sadly forgot to bring Cola. In return he will grant you access to where ever the 4 Survivors want to go.
I've heard many complaints about moving Left 4 Dead 2 into broad daylight. It actually brings a lot more to the table, you can see the environments (beautifully designed btw) much better in broad daylight and not all parts of every campaign take place in daylight. There are of course the nightly sections. The effects on each campaign are absolutely stunning. The first time I saw a Molotov go off I stared at it for a good five minutes and in the Hard Rain campaign I couldn't help but feel awestruck when it started pouring down the rain. It changed the atmosphere so completely. I was actually thrilled and a little bit frightened because the rain was effectively blocking me from seeing in front of me for more than a few feet.
AI Director 2.0 is of course in charge of the weather effects, changing them as it sees fit as it is spawning infected hordes and Special Infected and changing the map layout every time you play through it to ensure you will not get bored so quickly.
I would recommend that you play the campaign with friends if possible, for the simple reason that the bots in this game are idiots. Rochelle is completely oblivious to medkits laying on the ground and will not pick them up and when you get pinned by a Special Infected their immediate priority is to kill the common infected instead of helping you out.
When Campaign gets boring you can also hop on to Versus game to try out the new Special Infected and to see how they changed the old ones. Nothing much to be mentioned about this, it's the same ol' same ol'.
For those of you new to this sort if thing, Versus pits you and 3 other players against 4 other players. 4 players take control of the Survivors, and the other four control the Special Infected and try to stop the Survivors from progressing through the chapters to the safehouse.
New in this game is the Scavenge-mode in which you gather fuel for a variety of things and the round ends either when you have scored full points by gathering up all the fuel or when you have all been wiped out by the Special Infected, which are once again controlled by other people essentially making this a much shorter version of Versus for those who do not have the time to play through a full Versus match.
Oh yeah, and the gore has also been improved but after a few "Whoa!"-moments when you see an infected running fall to the ground with his bowels hanging out, it runs out of charm but is a nice addition to the original L4D's gore.
Overall, I would recommend this game to both people new to this series and the fans of the first one. You surely won't be disappointed.
TL;DR Buy it.
I do not claim responsibility if people buy this game based on my review, fire it up and forget to eat and pass out.
Yes you do stop lying to me.
So, a sequel. Left 4 Dead 2 and Valve - probably one of the few companies in the world that knows how to make a sequel without ruining it completely and can get away with releasing the sequel 1 year after the first game was released.
Many have been against the game so far, mainly because they felt like the game is being rushed, it should be a DLC to the first one and because the first one needs moar DLC instead of a new game.
Some even went as far as to boycott the game because of one or more of those arguments. We all know how that ended up so lets not go there shall we.
The main question now that it has been released is - 'Is it really any good?'.
Well even the largest font size on this forum would not do this one single word justice so here it is being shouted by Jim Carrey;
Well, what's so great about it then?
Nearly everything. Valve took all the things we liked from the original Left 4 Dead and improved them and added many new things. One being a constistent storyline.
Valve has never been much into the the whole 'Hey let's spam useless cutscenes so people will know what is going on!'-type of gamedesign so the story is being told as you play through the game by character dialog.
You'll learn about the characters and what they are doing and how they got there by listening to them, if you have the time for that. Because you came for the zombies right? Not for the story.
Let me move on to the other improvement then. Zombies. The common infected aren't that much to talk about. They vomit, beat their heads on a wall, and when they smell a living human they put on rampagemode and come running for you like Coach for a chocolatebar.
In L4D2, uncommon infected have been added into the game to distinguish different campaigns from each other. For example, in the Dead Center campaign you will encounter Hazmat-suited zombies that are fireproof and there for molotovs etc will not work on them at all.
In Dark Carnival you have clown suited zombies that have squeaky shoes. Funny right? Well no because those squeaky shoes attract zombies and because of that the Clowns can lead a minihorde right into you. That's why they must be shot on sight, or if you want the achievement, punched on sight.
In the Hard Rain campaign you have construction workers who apparently are completely oblivious to pipebombs beeping and will come for you when the rest of the retardsquad go and beat up that exploding thingy.
In the Swamp Fever campaign you have zombies that hide in the mud, referred to as 'Mudmen' who blind your screen with mud with a Boomer-vomitlike effect by hitting you.
Last but not least you have the Parish campaign where there are bulletproof cops running around the town and are immune to bullets lest you shoot them in the back.
There are of course, new Special Infected. The Spitter is much like the Boomer with her attack, shooting toxic acid from her mouth that does insane damage to anyone standing in it and can also act as an effective way of blocking a critical path. If you run out of goo you can always die on their way, because then you will also release toxic acid.
The second addition to the Boss Infected cavalcade is the Charger, with an oversized arm acting as a shield to bullets and as the name indicates he charges toward a Survivor and grabs him/her and starts pounding him/her to the ground, dealing quite a lot of damage if allowed to carry on.
Lastly there is the Jockey, a small SI who's job it is to jump on top of a Survivor, taking nearly total control of his/her movements and dragging them towards danger while dealing small amounts of damage.
The campaigns are improved upon from the last game. There are a lot of things that can happen now and it no longer is purely run and gun. For example, in the near beginning of Dead Center you will be tasked with delivering Cola to a survivor who has set up camp in a saferoom but sadly forgot to bring Cola. In return he will grant you access to where ever the 4 Survivors want to go.
I've heard many complaints about moving Left 4 Dead 2 into broad daylight. It actually brings a lot more to the table, you can see the environments (beautifully designed btw) much better in broad daylight and not all parts of every campaign take place in daylight. There are of course the nightly sections. The effects on each campaign are absolutely stunning. The first time I saw a Molotov go off I stared at it for a good five minutes and in the Hard Rain campaign I couldn't help but feel awestruck when it started pouring down the rain. It changed the atmosphere so completely. I was actually thrilled and a little bit frightened because the rain was effectively blocking me from seeing in front of me for more than a few feet.
AI Director 2.0 is of course in charge of the weather effects, changing them as it sees fit as it is spawning infected hordes and Special Infected and changing the map layout every time you play through it to ensure you will not get bored so quickly.
I would recommend that you play the campaign with friends if possible, for the simple reason that the bots in this game are idiots. Rochelle is completely oblivious to medkits laying on the ground and will not pick them up and when you get pinned by a Special Infected their immediate priority is to kill the common infected instead of helping you out.
When Campaign gets boring you can also hop on to Versus game to try out the new Special Infected and to see how they changed the old ones. Nothing much to be mentioned about this, it's the same ol' same ol'.
For those of you new to this sort if thing, Versus pits you and 3 other players against 4 other players. 4 players take control of the Survivors, and the other four control the Special Infected and try to stop the Survivors from progressing through the chapters to the safehouse.
New in this game is the Scavenge-mode in which you gather fuel for a variety of things and the round ends either when you have scored full points by gathering up all the fuel or when you have all been wiped out by the Special Infected, which are once again controlled by other people essentially making this a much shorter version of Versus for those who do not have the time to play through a full Versus match.
Oh yeah, and the gore has also been improved but after a few "Whoa!"-moments when you see an infected running fall to the ground with his bowels hanging out, it runs out of charm but is a nice addition to the original L4D's gore.
Overall, I would recommend this game to both people new to this series and the fans of the first one. You surely won't be disappointed.
TL;DR Buy it.
I do not claim responsibility if people buy this game based on my review, fire it up and forget to eat and pass out.
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