Well, it’s that time of year again. The time when all of those big-shot game developers KNOW that you are sitting on your fat butts looking for something fun to do, so of course all of the best games are released! Well we all know that Valve has an impressive track record with The Orange Box and the previous Left 4 Dead, so we should certainly expect nothing less than gold from their new zombie slasher-thrasher, but should you spend your hard earned money on this, or one of the many other new releases? Well I’d like to thank Valve for sending me an early copy of the game to review for all of you, so here are my thoughts on Left 4 Dead 2.
Taking it’s queues from the original, Left 4 Dead 2 puts you in the shoes of one of 4 brand new survivors of the zombie apocalypse. The story takes place shortly after the outbreak of the infection and has you travelling from Savannah, Georgia to New Orleans. Of course all hell is going to break loose and you are going to have to fight your ass off through thousands of zombies if you are to reach the end.
The story begins on top of the hotel that you see in the beginning of the introduction video. Coach, Ellis, Nick and Rochelle, each with widely different and hilarious personalities, try to escape the hotel after they realize that the rescue helicopters have abandoned them. Frankly, the story itself is nothing to brag about, but that’s not why we’re here anyway. We’re here to kill a crap load of zombies!
Playing through the entire campaign’s 23 different levels should only take you around 5 hours or so, but of course, Left 4 Dead 2 is designed around replayablility. The AI Director has been improved from the first title as it will now dynamically control the weather effects, world objects and the pathways as well as spawn hundreds of zombies, so you are sure to play a different game every time. There is a single player campaign, but that is no fun at all. The Left 4 Dead games shine in their multiplayer, and this iteration brings you several different game types.
Of course you have your multiplayer campaign that pits you against the director. Your standard versus gameplay pits the 4 survivors against 4 human played boss zombies in addition to the hundreds of director-controlled zombies. The Scavenge game type has 4 survivors searching for and returning gas cans to a generator while 4 human played boss zombies wreak hell on them. The Survival mode takes its queues from Gears of War pitting you against waves and waves of zombies to see how long you can last. And finally Realism mode puts 4 survivors in a very realistic campaign play-through that should only be attempted by the hard-core. The zombies are significantly harder to kill and you die much more quickly.
In addition to all of the weapons your are used to from the first game, Left 4 Dead 2 adds in laser sights, grenade launchers, adrenaline shots and defibrillators to revive dead allies, and the best part, a ton of melee weapons! That’s right, you can drop your pistol and pick up axes, ninja swords, beer bottles and even the unstoppable chainsaw. I’m not gonna lie, as soon as I got my hands on one of these melee weapons, I pretty much used it 100% of the time. You don’t ever have to reload and they one-shot multiple zombies each swing. Are they overpowered? Who cares, they are freaking fun as hell to play with!
On top of that, 3 new boss zombies were added to the mix including The Spitter who shoots a toxic acid that deals massive damage if you walk over it, The Charger who charges into the survivors dealing massive damage, and the Jockey who will jump on your back and steer you into danger.
Until you play the levels a few times, you are often not going to know where to go or what to do, and this certainly makes everything that much more hectic as swarms of zombies relentlessly strike at you while you try to escape. To prevent backing into a corner to easily kill of all of the zombies, Valve added alarms to several levels, that until deactivated, zombies will not stop swarming you.
Like the prequel, the graphics of Left 4 Dead 2 look pretty decent on the consoles but really shines on the PC. Luckily the framerate never suffers, even when a crap load of zombies are all over the screen, so you can’t ever blame your noobish deaths on that. You’ll fight your way through a variety of levels ranging from city streets, to a carnival filled with rides and zombie clowns, to a swamp are that leads to a plantation.
The soundtrack is very similar to the first game but every now and then you will be graced with some New Orleans inspired music which to me was pretty annoying, because I’m not really into that kind of stuff, but the voice acting is fantastic and all the interaction between the characters is hilarious.
Many hardcore Left 4 Dead players are boycotting this title claiming it was released too soon following the originals launch offering little more than new characters and new levels. I couldn’t disagree with these people more. 23 new levels spread over 5 campaigns, 3 new boss zombies, several new multiplayer game types, and a handful of new items and the awesome melee weapons. I’d say Left 4 Dead 2 has a ton to offer! With the influx of great multiplayer games being released this time of year, it really comes down to what type of games you like to play with your friends. If you like hectic fast-paced co-operative zombie killing gameplay, this is certainly a title you should check out.
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[...] Zombie games are all the rage it seems lately, but it’s not too often where you get to experience for yourself what it would be like to actually try to survive a Zombie Apocalypse beyond simply running and gunning. Enter Deep Silver and Techland’s latest Action Role Playing Survival Horror game, Dead Island, which throws you balls deep into some seriously scary shit! While there certainly is plenty of zombie face-melting, the game to me feels more like Fallout 3 than it does Left 4 Dead. [...]