Left 4 Dead 2 impression thread.

[J T]

The demo for Left 4 Dead 2 just came out today for the general public (not just the pre-order people).



I've only played a few minutes, then had to get some work done. The intro movie was really cool. The game is pretty cool so far. It sort of felt like just more Left4Dead, but I did encounter a few of the new creatures and weapons and am excited to get more into the game. I'll post more later when I've had some more time to form an opinion.

I am wondering what you all think of it though?

[peglegs]

I just quit playing on my 360. I like the new weapons that i have found so far. i do want a laser sight and explosive ammo that they hint at in the loading screen. as far as playing it online i havent really done that much since it just seems to lag something fierce. plus some douche bag tried to kill me but i'm fine now since i had an auto shotgun and he just had the normal pistol.

[neilencio]

how's the sysreqs? does it run more or less like the first one or do i need an upgrade?

[RCBH928]

I always told my friends to buy this game to play together, but we do not play online we play co-op or against each other(NOT online). They keep saying this is supposed to be played with each person at his home and on XBL, is this true?

[J T]

how's the sysreqs? does it run more or less like the first one or do i need an upgrade?

I'm actually running it at a higher resolution than I was able to run the first one. The game looks great. I use a laptop with the following specs:

Notebook: HP Pavilion DV-5
CPU: AMD Turion(tm) X2 Ultra Dual-Core Mobile ZM-80
CPU Speed: 2.09 GHz processor
OS: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Edition, 64-bit (Build Service Pack 16001)
Video Card: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3450
DirectX: ver 10

[J T]

Ok, so I played through the demo campaign twice now. If you haven't played the demo yet, you should. It's a really good demo-- you get to see a good sample of the new weapons, new characters, and new infected. The demo is just the right length too. You feel like you have a taste of what the game is like and, most importantly, you're left wanting more. I always feel bad for companies when they release a demo and you feel like you don't want to buy the game, not because it's a bad game, but just because you got enough from the demo.

I do think this is better than the first Left4Dead, but only slightly. Here are some of the things they improved in the sequel.

1. More open spaces with infected coming from all directions. It helps if you can all stand back-to-back in an open space and cover North-East-West-South locations. That means more need for good communication between players. Surprisingly, some of the infected feel easier (on normal difficulty) than they did in the first Left 4 Dead; however, there are also more of them and it is easier to get ambushed by them so the game still feels challenging.

2. More paths to follow to safe-house checkpoints. The first L4D tended to funnel you through hallways and pathways. The sequel has a lot more open space and more paths to get to the safehouse location. This means you really have to make sure you and your teammates are going in the same direction because it's easier to get split up with the alternate routes.

3. No sitting still to stop the horde. In the first Left4Dead, when you needed to survive the onslaught of the horde after an alarm, you could just hide your gang in a closet, stand in place, and keep killing an endless stream of zombies that would come running into your stream of bullets until the alarm ended. That got boring fast and the game lost its tension in those moments. In the Parish campaign of Left4Dead 2, when you trip an alarm and alert the horde, you then have to work your way through a maze of chain-link fences to get to a tower where you can turn the alarm off. The horde will continue to mob you as long as the alarm is on. You will be overwhelmed by them if you don't move your group forward and get to the alarm off switch. Also, if you don't stick together, you're likely to get pinned and killed. This made the horde onslaught much more intense.

4. More special infected. There are still the special infected from before (Tank, Witch, Hunter, Smoker, Boomer), but now there are some new ones that change up the mix. There is the evil clown faced "Jockey" that jumps on your head and rides you away from your group. There is the strong armed "Charger" that will ram you and pin you against a wall, then slam you repeatedly until a friend comes to help you out. The "Spitter", which is an ugly, saggy-titted female boomer that spits bile that harms you, instead of attracting the horde.

5. The South. I'm not sure why I like this so much, but it just feels really unique for a game to take place in the South part of the US. Some of the characters speak with a slight Southern drawl to their voice and they just feel a bit more real. The Parish campaign in the demo is set in what appears to be New Orleans. There's an inside joke where you hear a jazzy trumpet play the Tank's theme song, but no tank appears. Kind of puts you on edge until you realize it was just Valve messing with you. There is other crazy free jazz music/bebop in the soundtrack, which really adds to the frantic feel of the horde onslaughts. I'm a jazz fan, so I loved this. Don't worry if you don't like jazz though, there's still plenty of high-octane electronic music and eerie silence when appropriate.

6. Melee Weapons There is now a frying pan, a night stick, a machete, and an electric guitar that you can use when you run out of ammo. Oh, yeah, you'll probably run out of ammo in this one and be without a gun. The machete kicks ass. You just slice right through them and heads and arms fall right off. Which brings me to my last point:

7. More violence. Perhaps this is a little bit morbid, but I really enjoy the splatterfest that is left4dead 2. There's more blood, more dismemberment, and the sick part of my head likes that.


If you like Left4Dead, then I think you'll dig the sequel. It's still very much the same game, but the new things they have added really do improve the gameplay and make the overall game feel more intense and more badass.

[jfe2]

6. Melee Weapons There is now a frying pan, a night stick, a machete, and an electric guitar that you can use when you run out of ammo. Oh, yeah, you'll probably run out of ammo in this one and be without a gun. The machete kicks ass. You just slice right through them and heads and arms fall right off. Which brings me to my last point:

7. More violence. Perhaps this is a little bit morbid, but I really enjoy the splatterfest that is left4dead 2. There's more blood, more dismemberment, and the sick part of my head likes that.

I just played through the demo on the 360 and picked up the machete, and it is awesome! There is something so cool about being hacking through an endless horde of zombies while on your way to rescuing a fallen teammate. It just feels epic!

You actually hack off pieces of zombies... Like not just decapitation, but you actually cut pieces of their heads off.

It's reminiscent of an episode of "Deadliest Warrior", where they pit a Viking against a Samurai, and the Samurai uses the naginata to lop off the top of a dummy's skull.

It's at about 19:30 of this episode. http://www.spike.com/full-episode/vikin ... urai/31558

[Niode]

Am I the only one that hates the music in this demo? It seems like they've just made the entire game a massive cheese-fest. Muted trumpets for the horde music? Really? It just removes the tense atmosphere the original had, the melee weapons are a joke apart from the machete. Since you drop your side-arm when you pick one up but then drop your melee weapon when you're incapped, where do you get your 9mm from again?

Plus the machete is so much more useful compared to the 9mm, why the fuck do you drop the melee and use your 9mm when incapped? Erm logic flaw much?

I hope this game has something up it's sleeve come launch otherwise I am not gonna be happy.

[Erik_Twice]

^Man, the Machete must be the most powerful weapon in the game, haven't you played TF2? And I bet you don't need piss for this one to work.

[J T]

There's a cool Easter Egg in the demo. If you go into the diner you will find a juke box. You can get it to play different songs including the Portal Ending song and some hilarious new song about zombies.