Product Details
 | Left 4 Dead 2 |
| Price: | $19.99 |
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Average customer review:
Product Description
Left 4 Dead 2 is set at roughly the same time as the original - just after the outbreak that turned most of the population into various zombie mutants. Players assume the role of 4 new "Survivors," each with their own personality and new dialog. The game leads these "Survivors" through the southeastern region of the US - from Savannah, Georgia thru the bayou country, and climaxing in New Orleans' French Quarter.Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #1105 in Video Games
- Brand: Valve
- Model: 09878
- Released on: 2009-11-17
- ESRB Rating: Mature
- Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows XP
- Format: DVD-ROM
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 1.20 pounds
Features
- On day one, Left 4 Dead 2 features more co-operative campaigns, more campaigns and maps for the versus game modes than the original Left 4 Dead did, plus support for Survival Mode right out of the box.
- Left 4 Dead 2 features quality co-op action gaming from the makers of Half-life, Portal, Team Fortress and Counter-Strike.
- Updated “AI Director 2.0" technology expands players’ ability to customize level layout, world objects, weather, and lighting to reflect different times of day, creating fresh gameplay every time.
- Put a whole slew of melee weapons including axes, chainsaws, frying pans and baseball bats to use which allow you to get up close with the zombies.
- The game features four different survivors, a new storyline and new dialog.
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Product Description
Customer Reviews
You had me at pipe bomb...
When Left 4 Dead 2 was
announced about six months after the first game came out, a lot of
people were shocked for a few reasons. It's Valve and Valve is notorious
for taking their sweet time releasing quality games, was one reason.
And then there was the more important question. Was this a cash grab? Is
it merely an expansion pack masquerading as a fully priced game? And
now it's released and the answer to the above questions is evident: Left
4 Dead 2 had me at "improved pipe bomb."
But you're not here to
listen to me go on about how cool the pipe bomb is and how awesome the
changed effects of zombie bodies literally exploding through the air is.
At least I hope not. The fact is, after playing through Left 4 Dead 2,
the original game feels more like a blueprint. Everything that was in
L4D is in the sequel, but the sequel is a completely different beast. I
was surprised, when we played through the opening campaign "Dead Centre"
just how varied and improved the game was. You begin at the top of a
hotel, bringing to mind the small apartment complex that began the first
game. Except that this time, there's a whole lot more. You see, the
building is on fire, you can create backdrafts through doors, and the
entire event feels more context driven than...well, than the entire
first game.
Fire will cause impromptu passages, forcing you to
discover different ways through the crumbling building. This means
sometimes climbing out a window and balancing precariously on a ledge,
moving from window to window in your escape. The intensity is further
exasperated by the introduction of the special infected. Imagine playing
this in Versus as a Jockey, hopping onto one of the survivors and
moving them off the edges or being a Spitter and spitting the goo at
just the right moment. Moving through the hotel, the fire increases and
eventually, smoke will cloud your vision, creating an extremely
claustrophic even where zombies charge out of the dense, dark smoke or
other zombies, wearing hazmat suits, will simply rush, unharmed, through
the flames at you. This diversity continues as you race through the
chapters. In the first campaign alone, you will race through a burning
hotel, tear through a grocery store in search for cola to bring back to a
crazed, holed up hermit so he'll destroy a barricade and eventually
reach the climax where you have to locate gas cans (like in the new
mode) to gas up a car to escape.
The thing is, that's only the
tip of the iceberg. Later campaigns like "Dark Carnival" add a bit of
whimsy as you can play some of the carnival games (kudos to Valve for
bringing back the Half Life 2 gnome for an achievement), race up and
down a roller coaster as zombies chase endless after you, and eventually
reach the end which culminates in an inspired ending scenario that's
completely different (and a tad whimsical) than anything else in the
game. This diversity only continues through the later campaigns as well,
with "Hard Rain" being my absolute favorite. In "Hard Rain," as you
move through the maps, it starts raining harder and harder. It's by far
the most atmospheric and most interesting, since you eventually have to
backtrack through the zones, but this time they are flooded and the
weather adds a completely different challenge to the map. Additionally,
unlike the first game where the campaigns all felt a bit too similar,
resulting in my group relying on a couple campaigns we liked the most,
each campaign offers so many differences, that I find myself wanting to
replay them over and over. With five fully-developed campaigns, there's a
lot more content than in the original game. Also, if you're feeling
especially masochistic, try turning on the Realism mode which gets rid
of the glowy outlines around survivors and ammo, makes infected harder
to kill (headshots, please) and gets rid of the spawning closets...
And
that doesn't take into account the other features. Of course, there's
Versus and Survival Modes like in the original game, but L4D2 also
throws in Scavenge. Scavenge essentially is L4D2's version of a capture
the flag mode, with the myriad of gas cans being flags. The survivors
race around the map, fighting both the infected and the clock, trying to
get as many gas cans to start a generator as possible. Meanwhile, the
infected obviously try to stop them. What I love about Scavenge is that
it's not the time commitment that Versus is. It's a quick best of three
or five game that ratchets up the tension and can create some truly
inspired situations. My only complaint about this mode is that there's
only one per campaign right now. Ditto the Survival mode which doesn't
seem to have as many maps as in the original Left 4 Dead. Hopefully
Valve rectifies this with DLC.
After you get past the myriad of
modes and campaigns, there's still more tiny additions that made me
smile. Guns are now strewn across the level and you won't find
conveniently placed groups of weapons that contain everything. The guns
also have a lot more variety, with a few different options for each type
of weapon (I really enjoy the combat shotgun). The newly introduced
melee weapons are interesting. In lower difficulties, they are seemingly
overpowered; however, as you start to play on expert, I've found their
limitations to be too great. Still, a nice additional and some of them
are fantastic: taking down a witch with a chainsaw is perfection. The
two grenade types return as does vials of Boomer bile. This operates
under the same concept as the pipe bomb, except that the undead will
race to the impact point and try to destroy whatever's there...like a
Tank. Not that they will destroy a Tank, but they do provide some
assistance. Then there's the other miscellaneous items, like
defibrillators that will bring back dead party members.
And I
haven't even talked about the characters and story. I do miss the
original gang of archetypical characters; I miss Frank's acerbic
comments ("I hate vans...") and the camaraderie they had. But the new
gang is also better developed and their banter is fresh and entertaining
as they move through the campaigns, which, by the way, feel a lot more
connected and there's more story here. So here's the thing. Those who
didn't care for Left 4 Dead will probably not be swayed by L4D2 because
it offers more of what the first one did. It's not a radically different
game, it just feels...more complete. When I blasted through the first
game, I wanted more...I felt like I played through a blueprint of a
fantastic game. L4D2 delivers on that promise. It's not an expansion,
it's a great, new, longer and better game.
Very much recommended
for fans of the original.
Everything the
first l4d should've been.
This game is very violent,
very bloody and gory. But it's a game where you're killing zombies, what
do you expect?
That being said, what a game, what a game. It's
all I can say about this. To sum this up, this is an over the top,
intense, first person zombie shooter that's everything that the first
left 4 dead should have been.
First, the setting, stories,
characters, etc.
So this time around you're playing in a southern
area, around Louisiana, Mississippi, etc. which brings with it, it's
own character. There's a famous southern rock band, the midnight riders,
for instance and in one level, the ending fight scene takes place at a
concert of there's where you can battle against zombies amidst the
fireworks and light show that the stage provides. There's also a famous
race car driver, and one level you're busy gassing up his stock car (at a
car show) so you can drive it and get the heck out of there. But no,
you sadly wont be doing any driving. It's a great ending to see the car
bash through a bunch of zombies however.
You get the idea..
This
time around, you're not playing 4 separate sort of "movies". The
chapters are, at least somewhat, connected. Like when you drive out from
the ending of one chapter, the next chapter, the car has broken down,
and now you're on foot.
The characters, wow, what a change. Part
of me misses the old l4d characters, like bill, and zoe.. but these new
ones are so full of great humor and character it's quite a tossup.
There's
Nick, who doesn't really "belong" in the south. He's very more of a
serious, almost like a business man from the north. However, he's
actually just a gambler and a conman, oh wait, what's the difference?
I'm kidding! But seriously, he's always making jokes about the "south".
There's
Rochelle, who's a news reporter, she's kind of an in between character,
not too funny, not too serious imo.
Then there's Ellis and
Coach. Ellis is a mechanic, and coach is well, a coach. They're always
full of jokes and wisecracks and can really bring a laugh, or at least a
chuckle around every now and then.
Ok so enough about
that, lets get down to the nitty gritty.
This game is extremely
over the top and I mean that, whole heartily. But it fits well here and
provides a new layer to the l4d world. For instance, there's new melee
weapons, there's normal things like you would expect. Like an axe, a
sword, a baseball bat, a chainsaw... But there's also others like a
guitar, or a..... frying pan and I must say, there's something oddly
funny about smashing a zombie over the head with a frying pan and
hearing that comical clang afterwards. With all the melee weapons,
they're basically 1 hit kills to the normal zombies and will usually
involve some sort of dismemberment. Even if you're using a guitar, if
you hit a zombie at the head, it's gonna fly. However, you have to be
careful as it's extremely easy to damage friends nearby with these.
Speaking
about that, you can take a whole new world of hurt to the zombies.
There's a new system in place that allows you to... well, lets put it
this way.. if you shoot a zombie in the back, part of his back goes
missing. You can blow off a part of the zombies head, if you slice with
an axe or sword you can leave some nasty gashes in the torso. You can
literally blow a zombie to bits, like with the grenade launcher and
pipebomb. Sometimes after the explosion if you take the time to look
you'll see bits of arms, legs, some intestines, whatever. It's pretty
violent, pretty brutal, pretty fun. If this was happening in another
game, and you weren't killing zombies... There'd probably be a ton of
people freaking out. It'd be like an extremely violent game, even more
so than the soldier of fortune games... But since you're killing
zombies, it's actually quite fun.
Also, to quote game informer,
"At one point an explosion propelled a zombie over m head with its
intestines trailing behind it like a party streamer." oh and if you
attack zombies with melee weapons blood splashes up on your screen, it's
a neat effect and doesn't really get in the way.
The melee
weapons takes place of your secondary weapon, so you can still keep your
primary firearm, whatever it may be. There's plenty of new ones this
time around as well.
The guns this time around are much more
real. It seems as though they took their time modeling and animating
these guns to their real life counterparts. There's an ak47, something
that resembles a scar, you've got a much more modernized semi-automatic
rifle equipped with sights for some nice sniping action, there's m16's,
there's shotguns, uzi's, tmp's, grenade launchers, etc. Whatever you
pick, you're probably going to like it. It just FEELS right, it feels
like a gun in the game, not a toy.
There's also "laser sights"
you can pick up that increase accuracy (I don't know why it would, but
oh well), there's also new rounds you can put into your favorite
firearm. You can use incendiary rounds, explosive rounds and they're a
blast. Literally. There's a limited amount, so when you get them you
only have like 40 or so in your primary weapon.
There's the new
uncommon common zombies. Like the zombies in hazmat suits, or zombies in
riot gear that are bulletproof unless you shoot them from the back.
They add a little more fun and break up the monotony. There's also, this
time around, 6 special infected (Not including the witch).
There's
the spitter (One of my favorites) that spits out a pile of acidic goo
that does quite a bit of damage. There's the charger that runs into the
survivors and will grab one of them and keep slamming him/her into the
ground until he, or the survivor dies. There's also revamped versions of
the special infected from the first l4d. There's the boomer, smoker,
hunter and tank. All of the special infected have a new look that fits
this game very well and I definitely prefer it to the original (Except
the hunter and tank they basically look the same). The sounds the
special infected make are also much improved. The boomer for instance
sounds much more gross and nasty and it's GREAT!
The campaign is
much better this time around, the levels are much more detailed and fun
although they're much more open and they aren't as linear. There's been a
few times on the first play through where I was scratching my head
trying to figure out where to go mainly because I ran past where I was
supposed to go when I was busy killing zombies and ended up slightly
lost.
But it's such a vast improvement, the environments are much
more fun as well. One level where you play in a fair type setting,
there's a roller-coaster that you send and it runs into zombies on the
track, and I believe it was Ellis who says "These zombies don't respect
lines" or something of the sort.
But there's still a lot carried
over from l4d, you still have the same matchmaking service, it still
looks like l4d, it's slightly improved especially with a lot of the
effects, like fire, explosions, etc. but it's not going to blow you
away.
However, there's new modes. There's the normal campaign and
versus but...
There's the realism setting, which removes any
glows and I haven't seen a real difficulty increase, even on expert. It
just seems more visual, but I could be wrong. I haven't played it much.
There's
the survival setting which basically pits you against wave after wave
of zombies.
There's the scavenge mode that has you do something
like hunting for fuel to keep something filled while fighting off a ton
of zombies. It can get quite intense or frustrating haha.
All
that said, I have had a few problems with this game, it's crashed a few
times. Although, it's odd. Usually when a game or anything crashes,
you'd get a popup, some sort of an error, at least it might help you in
figuring out what happened, whats wrong. But I never get anything, the
game just closes and that's it. It's happened in single and multiplayer
so I'm not sure what's going on and it's also happened to other people
so I know it's not just me.
There's also, of course, people.
People you play with on multiplayer, it doesn't matter who or what.
There's always going to be something, of course this isn't the games
fault. But it's something to be aware of, quite a bit of people I play
with, whether it's pubs or pugs, they're pretty decent. But there's
always that one game, with that "one" person that just completely ruins
everything. Like for instance, this guy "MorganFreeman911" would blame
EVERYTHING on me, even when it was HIS fault. Like if I was shooting at a
bunch of zombies and he'd run into straight into it, it was my fault.
If he ran into a witch and got killed, it was my fault. You get the
picture. It's people like that, that can really ruin a fun experience.
If you're playing with someone like that, it's usually best to just
leave, find a different game, and be on your merry way.
But all
in all it's a very fun game and HOPEFULLY they'll release some DLC later
on that'll add to the longevity of this game, because I do like this.
As
time goes on, I'll update this review if needed. I hope it was helpful!
A good game, but less spooky than L4D 1
The game is a blast to play,
but it doesn't creep me out like the original. Nothing seems scary. It's
more of an action game than a horror/shooter. It's a good action game,
but some of the magic is gone.
Please, Valve, bring back the
spooky.
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