Left 4 Dead 2
Left 4 Dead 2
Does Left 4 Dead 2 give new ideas for zombie madness!
I don’t need to give you more information regarding the gameplay as you can probably find more information over the internet if you are interested enough. I like the savage mode as well as the new difficulty levels set for the new game – the “Normal” in Left 4 Dead 2 is kind of like “Advanced” in Left 4 Dead 1, and what seemed to be an easy task for L4D1′s finale missions in “Easy” does not turn out to be the same over at L4D2. While towns and suburbs in L4D1 seemed static and bland, like “You are the last 4 uninfected within a 500km radius”, L4D2 is “livier” with more vibrant colours, which is more appropiate given that some campaigns take place in day and light, while other campaigns like “Swamp Fever” get the dread and drone of whatever swamps are supposed to look like.
The new finales also give the concept of L4D teamwork, which used to be “stay in one room and blast the hell out of the door” into something most engaging, like collecting cans to fill up the escape vehicle (aka Salvage Mode) in Dead Center, or to run like hell in The Parish. These modes give more life and drama to the original L4D finales which, once you figured out how the best way to survive, becomes more of a waiting game than that of drama.
Realism mode seems to be a lot more.. realistic~ people do not have outlines around them which SERIOUSLY hardens the game up a couple of notches because your pals don’t know where you are if you wander off and get hunter-pounced. I predict a lot of deaths in that one mode. Maybe people in rescue closets do not have those outlines either? I have yet to find out.
Weapon count is also upped, with submachines ranging from homemade (I think Valve should make them jam occasionally like STALKER does, heh heh heh) to tactical, army-ish, special-mission-like. I like the variety, though it is pretty obvious that some guns are much better than the others, and near the end the choices for guns are pretty similiar (hint: more big-ass the better). Some weapons can easily replace each other, which i think is kind of a duplicate. My personal favourite is the camoflagued semi-automatic that shoots 3 bullets a trigger, and I can almost be certain I can have one of those end-game. Maybe a fraction of guns should be allowed for a game so that some guns do not appear in this play, while they appear in another play, when other guns are not spawned.
Melee weapons are awesome. Do they all deal the same amount of damage? Like the baseball bat and the machete? Suprisingly the chainsaw is not a favourite with my fellow L4D2 gamers, because “they can run out of gas”. Probably 100+ zombies later..? They are great in bomber bile madness, and does not have delay time after the initial startup. They seemed to have a lot of those in Swamp Fever though, I played one game where my other pals have chainsaws strapped to their backs. Me, I prefer the plain old machete. Simple and effective as heck.
More special infected, more weapons, more ways to take down those zombie drones. I like the new version of L4D2, but it seems to increase the minimum requirements for the game to play smoothly (I had freezes now and then which totally ruins the atmosphere), and I wonder if Valve will keep up its promise of maintaining support for L4D1, which seems less and less likely given the success of L4D2.
And Valve, do tell modders if they can “upgrade” custom map add-ons from L4D1 to L4D2!
