Od Studios -- Left 4 Dead 2
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Left 4 Dead 2 -- by sector24, 2010-03-08 |
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Developer: Valve
ESRB Rating: Mature
Genre: First Person Shooter
Platform: PC, Xbox 360
Publisher: Valve
Release Date: 11/17/2009
What is Left 4 Dead 2?
Left 4 Dead is a four player cooperative first person shooter in which the majority of the human population has been infected with some sort of super-rabies virus and the few survivors immune to the virus must escape to safety. There are always four players, and the computer AI takes over any character not controlled by a human. Friendly fire cannot be turned off (although on 'easy' it doesn't deal any damage) and there are several ways for special infected to disable players, so teamwork is essential.
I'm not going to rehash the game's basics, you can read the review of the original Left 4 Dead to get an idea of why the series is so popular. What I can say is that all the things that made the game great are still here, but its shortcomings remain as well. I will try to cover the unique aspects of Left 4 Dead 2 and indicate if a particular portion of the game has received a major improvement or not.
What does this game do well?
The only complaint I had about the original that was addressed and improved upon is the lack of diversity in the game's equipment. The original game had 5 guns, 2 types of bombs, 2 types of health and some non-inventory items like fuel cans and propane tanks. The sequel has lots of weapons, and in addition to new guns there are a whole slew of melee weapons. You can also kit out your gun with laser sights and explosive or incendiary ammo. In addition to pain pills there is an adrenaline shot that temporarily boosts your HP by 25 and helps you avoid getting slowed down by the infected. In addition to the medkit there is a defibrillator that can revive a dead teammate. The best addition is undoubtedly the bile bomb which works like a pipe bomb in attracting the infected but lasts a lot longer and can be thrown at special infected. Nothing is more satisfying than hitting a tank with the bile bomb and kiting him while the infected drag him down.
The only downside of all the new items is that they don't necessarily fill a niche. All the melee weapons behave almost identically and are pretty much interchangeable except the chainsaw. Even with the guns, it's very had to tell the difference between the two submachine guns and the two types of shotguns. Having lots of items just to have them isn't quite as good as if they were all useful in their own way.
There are also new special infected. The spitter is similar to a boomer but instead of attracting the horde she spits some kind of green acid that deals damage. She also leaves an acid pool where she dies. The jockey jumps onto a survivor's head and leaves them unable to defend themselves while at the same time controlling the player's character and moving him away from the other survivors. There is also a charger who unsurprisingly charges at the players in a straight line, knocking them all out of the way and grabbing one survivor and pounding them into the pavement until they are killed. The spitter and the jockey have good synergy because you can walk the player into the acid, but the charger just feels cheap like the smoker. A lot of the time your character is paralyzed way before the charger actually makes contact with you, either due to loose collision detection or just the lag.
New game modes include scavenger mode in which the survivors have to collect gas cans and fill up a generator for as long as possible while the infected try to kill them, and realism mode in which you are realistically frail, can't see the heavy outlines of the characters through walls, and in general die a whole lot more. This is on top of the fact that Left 4 Dead 2 is significantly harder than the original.
What could this game have done better?
What makes the game harder? Well a couple of things. First, the levels are not as well designed as in the original. There are far fewer tight quarters areas, and a lot more wide open positions. You know what they call wide open areas in survival horror games? Rape rooms. And guess what happens to the player when you can be attacked from every angle... (hint, it's not free lollipops)
Another feature that makes the game harder is the inclusion of endless horde events. Basically these are situations where you have to create a whole lot of noise to progress with the story, but instead of the horde events ending after a certain point these events never end until you shut off the sound of the noise or get to the safe room. On easy they are a ton of fun. On expert with realism mode on they are just plain ridiculous.
Overall, the game has cast off the survival horror moniker in favor of a "rock'em sock'em zombies" atmosphere. Most of the campaigns take place during daylight, and the gameplay heavily favors speed over strategy. In most cases the best thing you can do is whip out a frying pan and start cracking heads rather than covering your angles and tactically moving forward in a deliberate way. The music is similar to the original but is much more "twangy" to try to match the southern atmosphere which is for the most part annoying. Also, the game can "misplay" horde event music when there is none, or spawn a horde event without playing any music.
Another atmosphere killer is the characters themselves. Coach and Ellis are reasonably well developed, but Nick and Rochelle are not. Rochelle in particular is so bland in her dialogue that I'm not sure you could call her a character at all. It's a big step down from the original Left 4 Dead crew who were pretty well developed and emulated by lots of other games like Borderlands.
Should I buy this game?
If you've never played Left 4 Dead then this is a natural must buy game, but if you shelled out your hard earned cash for the original a year just a short year ago then you will feel like this game is nothing more than an expansion pack. You're basically paying $60 for melee weapons and the ability to do what the original game should have been able to do from day one; play all the maps in multiplayer. I feel like the first Left 4 Dead is in many ways a better game, and I wouldn't recommend the sequel for people who are sitting on the fence about it until you can get it at a discount.
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