only played this singleplayer so.. I'm sure things will be a bit different.
first impressions were things seem all kind of chunkified.. I don't know if its the console influence or what, but massive menu, some of the guns are pretty huge onscreen (the magnum made me laugh actually..) and the general level feel seems sort of blocky. Maybe it's always been like that and we can just see it now hehe
love the new weapons, enemies and pickups. They all seem really well thought through, the defibulator is a great idea.
really like the new sniper rifle, feels a bit more flexible than the hunting in terms of reacting to near-mid distance zombz
some zombies leave a trail of guts behind them. lol! The new infected models are nice, and the old have been revamped.. the ass crack on the spitter is freaking disgusting
They've clearly cut down the number of closed off small rooms. Might make the gameplay back closer to how I played l4d initially. Nowadays its all 'oh horde. into the nearest box room and shoot at the doorway'. So I think it was a good decision, but it's gonna take some getting used to.
all in all.. jury's out till I get some 4 player going, but I'm feeling positive..
edit:
only thing I think I miss from l4d is the glass smash 'ptchhh' of the molo. seems to just be a kinda 'fwoomf' now. But the new body hurling effect pipe makes up for it
Replies
the level seemed less linear which was nice, even though they fed you through the map it was nice to have a couple different objectives like turn off the siren, etc
One of the things that bothered me most about the first game is you never felt the urge to explore for some kick ass new item, it was always about taking the shortest, safest route, maybe grabbing pills or a new medkit. With all the new items and weapons hopefully we'll see at least a little more variety in how we try to win the game as surivivors.
The new infected honestly didn't add as much as i was hoping for. The charger i was hoping would be a little closer to the tank in toughness but he goes down rather easily. The jokey's reminiscent of the smoker and hunter in the single target stun catagory. The spitter plays just like the boomer, get in range and fire on a cluster of survivors, same old same old of super low health zombies who are one trick ponies. The tank is still really the only infected that plays truly unique from the others. But eh, that's just how left 4 dead is I guess. I really wish they'd jazz up the zombies a little bit and add more potent powerups for the survivors to search for to balance it out. But there i go being overly judgmental of a game that's only in demo form, haven't even played as the new zombies yet so take this with a grain of salt.
the only thing i felt was a little off is the tier 2 assault rifle holds 60 rounds, which easily takes out a whole horde without a reload.
-can't wait to get me some good ol version action!!@!@#!@#
I was just thinking, does it really make sense to give people who pre-ordered advance access to the demo. Isn't the whole point of a demo to attract customers who are on the fence about buying it or not?
I'm sure I will pick it up eventually anyhow. The logic behind "pre-order and get early access to the demo" fails me though.
Needs to be payday, dammit.
2nd segment. (right-click save as. 40MB mp4)
haven't tryed it yet
PS: "Exclusive" baseball bat, woo!
I'm really not a fan of the new music, either. Seems they're going away from the horror/mock-horror genre with it, and more into slapstick.
The new gore is great. Love seeing zombie intestines unravel!
I didn't get no baseball bat, either!
Female boomer, too!
I messed up with the boomer juice. I threw it at a wall to use it like a pipebomb, but apparently if you throw it at a zom/special, zombies go nuts and beat the shit out of it.
I LOVE the new music. Got a great southern feel to it. I like the twists on the old L4D music, for example the crescendo/horde intro bit is still the same, but played as a trumpet sound now.
Literally spent 10 minutes listening to the different tracks on the Jukebox in the corner shop.
Like how they've randomized the weapons a lot more. The AK47 and Desert Eagle are a blast to play with.
Theres some neat touches like the boomer bile and defibrillator. The gore is a lot better than in the original as well.
Having some performance issues though, my fps goes from 180fps to 20fps after a level change.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH7QCtuaXgI[/ame]
Ironically this makes me more inclined to go out and beat someone to death with a frypan.
They should find a workaround for that as its messin with the gameplay.
I also love the weapons. They FEEL powerful now. I don´t know. This feels more like a zombie survival game than the first one. Haven´t witnessed any bugs yet.
I've heard that buying a US version from Steam will circumvent the censorship, but there are some conflicts when playing with players who're using the local version.
Love the boomer bile. I used it on a charger (he was the only thing hit by it) and he got chased away by about 30 infected hehe.
Machete rules too.
melee is FUN too I love the non chapter cut safehouse too, and the gameplay for the alarm thing is pretty nice, quite excited to see what else they have in the campaigns
the magnum is GOOD !
It's Pretty the same, it feels like an expansion with different players and more kind of zombies, that's all. More of the same with some minor improvements, but what the heck!, it's a funny game.
My friends say: "we paid for an expansion", i think in the same way.
I miss zoey
That's good to hear, however they've sorted it out. Drove me crazy to be doing well on Expert until one of the scripted encounters (the room with the minigun turret in the Subway part of No Hope campaign always comes to mind), when the AI would flail around uselessly, or stand right in the middle of the room.
+ 1
Shafted!
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh0zw6hvqew[/ame]
Side note, anyone have the game freeze up intermittently on audio cues? I had it happen quite often. Granted, this on my older work system.
The change in lighting/time of day is ... interesting. It certainly makes it feel more fresh than the dark maps of L4D but I dunno how well that fits the game.
The improvements they've done to the visuals of the zombies are great, looks really sharp and clear now. Also the new characters look good, although the gambler's arm in firstperson is horrible.
Actually all the firstperson stuff looks a bit ... meh. The pistol and default shotgun have envmaps like crazy and look more like TF2 style weapons than L4D, totally doesn't fit the visuals IMO. The advanced weapons look better but they're still nothing special.
One thing I was really disappointed with were the voices - after the awesomeness of Louis, Francis, Bill and Zoey ... these new ones are really generic and boring. It's hard to distinguish the difference between the kid guy and the gambler, and the coach and other woman don't seem to say anything much interesting. The nice thing about the L4D voices was they were all really unique and had a lot of character, these new ones seem pretty bland and unenthusiastic by comparison.
Oh well, I'm sure versus will be a blast, L4D has been the game of choice for lunchtime play at work for the past 6 months, I'm sure L4D2 will get teh same treatment
Just didn't feel much out of this, even though I love the first. It feels like this one is made by a whole different team.
It is isn't it? The original was made by a group called turtle rock studios and was bought out or taken on by Valve wasn't it? and if I understand correctly valve made some minor adjustments and added polish and released. The original turtle rock version being even more dark/horror oriented with a more "realistic" style.
The way I look at L4D2 is pretty much Valve's take on the game, I get the feeling they wanted to do their own things with the franchise but didn't feel they could do it with the first so instead L4D2 came to pass. I remember a lot of the people I showed this to immediately said it looked like TF2 blended with L4D and looked a lot more corny and comical than the original game.
dunno how I'd feel paying the full amount, but with the 4 pack I paid 20 quid which is about the price of an expansion pack. So it's all fine by me
especially if the expansion has *more content than the original
Just played it for an hour with some friends. I'm really enjoying it, now..
Still have some greivances: