Monday 14 December, 2009

Left 4 Dead has been largely described as the “demo” for Left 4 Dead 2. As an owner of both games, it is hard to say at the moment. L4D has a DLC campaign with supposedly more on the way plus tons of user created content, while L4D2 is still waiting for DLC, and user content is still almost nonexistent. That said, the new content of the sequel, from the new infected types, to the new items/pickups, new guns, and the addition of melee weapons really makes me wonder if I’ll ever play another game of versus on the original game.

Left 4 Dead 2 takes place during the same zombie apocalypse as its predecessor, but several hundred miles to the south and about two weeks later. As four new immune survivors, Coach, Rochelle, Ellis, and Nick, you must battle your way through hordes of infected very soon after a mostly failed military evacuation. You can use a wide variety of new weapons to do this, including the new addition of melee weapons. My Steam account stats tell me that my favorite melee weapon is the katana – and I must agree.

Versus mode is relatively similar to the original, with the two teams alternating between infected and survivors. The scoring, however, has changed to reflect the survivor progress throughout the levels. The best new feature of Left 4 Dead 2 is definitely the new types of special infected zombies. In addition to the old playable zombies (boomers, smokers, hunters) there are now three more (chargers, spitters, jockeys). This has greatly amplified the emergent complexity, especially in versus mode. Now there are some new strategies that can devastate the survivor team. For example, if the infected team spawns as a boomer, smoker, spitter, and hunter, or some other combinations, it is entirely possible to take out the survivor team in one wave. The way to do this would be to have boomer immediately try to boom all the survivors, drawing in a large horde of common infected. The hunter and smoker would then incapacitate two survivors while the others are distracted by the horde. Finally the spitter can spit a puddle of acid on the incapacitated survivors, racking up the damage.

The aesthetics of the game is probably the largest change from the original. While the original campaigns took place exclusively in nighttime, Left 4 Dead 2 campaigns take place throughout various times of day, with noticeable but natural feeling weather and time shifts throughout chapters. With the exception of the end of the hard rain chapter, most campaigns have a lot of daylight. Unfortunately the game has therefore lost some of its creepiness in exchange for a more panicked feeling. But now there is a great destructive body aspect of the game. Zombies can have limbs/their head shot or chopped off, which is really satisfying compared to older first person shooters where after sustaining tons of damage the enemies look entirely unharmed. Also, there is a ribcage revealing effect when you spray common infected with shotgun fire. This effect looks very similar to the destructive body effects of Wolverine, and in both games I wish my computer could play at a higher resolution so that I could better appreciate the flying flesh.

I've been holding off on getting L4D 2 because it seems like more of the same. Your opinion seems to be that the most exciting differences are in the vs. mode (which isn't one that I enjoy playing much), so it sounds like I should wait until there's more campaign DLC available. What do you think?

Actually I think it was totally worth buying, even though I own the first. The new additions include (these are in all modes):

-Lots of new guns, my favorite are the m79, ak, combat shotty, and combat rifle
-Tons of melee weapons: bat, crowbar, katana, machete, chainsaw, etc
-New throwable - the boomer bile jar
-New items for the medkit slot - defibrillator, incendiary ammo, explosive ammo, laser sights
-Adrenaline shot - takes up the pills slot

-Plus theres now some "uncommon infected", these are specific to a campaign, including clowns and mudmen.

The campaign/survival modes definitely feel more fully fledged than in L4D1. But versus is way better now that there are 3 new special infected. I guess the thing to remember is now theres a lot of daylight, and if you would rather have the creepy nighttime then L4D1 is still great. I think that the first DLC is supposed to be mostly nighttime so that would change things a bit.

Cool, thanks for your advice.