Just over a month ago, I mentioned that I was getting rid of Left 4 Dead. I hadn’t planned to buy Left 4 Dead 2, but every night I would see that everyone in my friends list was playing it, and I was tired of playing single player games.
Left 4 Dead 2 is so much better than Left 4 Dead was. They seem to have improved some of the code for things that frustrated me in the old game (e.g. unloading a clip of autoshotgun ammo at a Hunter and doing no damage). Plus, they added a whole bunch of new stuff:
There’s a much wider variety of weapons, including new melee weapons which are great for clearing out a horde of regular zombies that’s gotten right in your face.
There’s several new kinds of special zombies, like the Charger (which can grab a survivor, run him far away from his friends, and pound him into the ground repeatedly), the Jockey (which jumps on a survivor and lets you pull him into danger), and my favorite, the Spitter (who spits noxious acid onto the ground, forcing the survivors to run out of the corner they’re hiding in).
The panic events at the climax of each level are much more interesting. Instead of hiding in a corner and waiting for a timer to go off, you have to run a gauntlet to go turn off an alarm to make the zombies stop coming, or you have to run all over a mall to find gas cans to fill up a car, and so on.
If you’re short on time but want to play Versus, there’s a new Scavenge game mode where you and the other team take turns trying to fill up a generator with gas. Which ever team can get more gas in the tank before time runs out or the whole team dies, wins.
And the levels are amazing. The joy of the L4D comes from doing awesome stuff like running to a helicopter from a hospital roof top while being chased by the Tank (think The Incredible Hulk, but brown instead of green). The new game gives you more awesome per level. I was playing a campaign game with some friends, and we were trying to get to the top floor of the mall to turn off the alarm that was attracting zombies. One of my friends was further ahead of me, but he was eventually taken down by a horde of zombies who were stomping on his prone body. I come in behind him, whack the zombies with my baseball bat, turn off the alarm, and bring him back to life with a handy defibrillator. It felt like something you’d actually see in a movie.
I haven’t even mentioned the level where you start a rock concert to attract the attention of a passing helicopter. Or the zombie clowns who attract more zombies with their squeaky shoes. Or the Realism mode that turns off the highlighting on your friends and makes it communication MUCH more important. Or the incendiary bullets and laser sights.
In short, this game is everything that L4D should have been and more. I’m having a blast with it.
