I enjoyed L4D but I’m a bit saddened at the idea of L4D2 already coming out, almost exactly a year after the first one, when it seems like they barely gave us L4D in its entirety, holding out on the last two VS chapters until the last “update” and giving us “tons of new levels” which were just the same levels on Survivor Mode.
I’m intrigued by the new melee weapons but they’ll need more than just that and a different environment to get me to buy the game at another $50.
You’re absolutely right. I guess I can’t complain. I more than got my monies worth from L4D. In fact, looking at my statistics, I’ve played L4D a disturbingly large amount.
That said, there really isn’t much content in the game. It’s the quality of the friends list that determine how enjoyable L4D is. If I were stuck to playing pub games, I’d be pissed off about the sequel.
That’s a very good point. I have some friends from Unreal Tournament who came along to l4d with me. Even that alone wouldn’t have really been worth it. We play often, but not nearly often enough for my addiction. When I saw the thread here about it and joined the SDMB group on Steam, that really pushed me over the edge. It meant that I could find a game pretty much any night of the week between my UT friends, my co-workers, and the people here.
The list really helped. That said, I also met some great new players just in pubs too. If you play through co-op you’re working with them for about an hour, and that’s enough to decide that someone is worth marking on your friends list.
Either way, a crappy friends list, or inability to socialize would make the game have a lot less replay value.
I disagree. Also, other developers beta-test.
I kinda find it fun that people are realizing that multiplayer can be a better platform for a game than single player mode can.
Can be. But, I caveat that with the nature of the game and it’s playing population. For example, more competitive games tend to bring out the worst in the player population. L4D is good because the nature of the game is to work together with the survivors. Even in versus you have to work with the other infected as a team.
No matter what, single players games will always hold a different type of attraction for me. Sometimes I just like being anti-social, plugging in my music and being alone inside my own little gaming world for a few hours. Multi-player is great, but it’s not always what I’m looking for.
Certainly. Some folks might like a game, but aren’t very good at it, so they might feel overwhelmed. Some people also might not care and want to play for fun. Either way, and even extreme and in-between cases, all have a place online and are having big fun doing so. I’m a big proponent in playing with groups of people you know, for going in alone can be a pain in the ass.
Here is some high quality direct-feed gameplay videos from the PC version. The game looks pretty good and not as cartoony as the low quality videos had me believe.
A versus strategy that immediately comes to mind is for one player, after taking the incendiary ammo, to switch to pistols. When the tank appears, the player switches to incendiary ammo and shoots the tank on fire. Easy as apple pie.
the incendiary ammo is questionable to me. It may be ok for co-op, but for versus, it’s going to present some serious effort to overcome, no matter how limited it’s supply is. Only counter to it I’ve heard is the zombies in hazmat suits can’t be ignited. That’s something, but I can’t imagine it’s a big enough counter to offset the benefits of having said ammo.
Also, maybe it’s just me, but I’m not a huge fan of the silenced UZI. Seriously, how many silencers are there laying around out there just in case there is a zombie uprising? Just seems out of place to me. Seems like they changed it just to change it. The only potential benefit the the silencer would be if they made zombies attracted to gunfire instead of just alarms and sirens.
The silencer is just a design choice, it has no real function in the game. The gun in question is a MAC-10 and the silencer was apparently a selling point when it came out.
Really? To me, the gameplay looked identical, the graphics marginally improved (player models and animations don’t seem to have been upgraded?) but most disappointingly, a complete lack of atmosphere. Jaunting down daylit streets mowing down thin herds of mindless people does not a survival horror apocalypse make. I tend to be quick to judge though, so we’ll see - maybe the darker interior settings gave it a little more fear. The incendiary ammo was retarded and I’m not sold on the reskinned uzi - er, MAC10.
Valve has always been fantastic at odd, subtle, unease-inducing creepiness. L4D captured this perfectly with the vague piano crescendos, the fake-you-out swarm music, the occasional zombie simply leaning against the wall oblivious or vomiting in agony. Even Portal made you squirm a little more each level.
Eh. Disappointing, really.
Here’s a wacky idea, and since I’m not a massive FPS player like a lot of folks, maybe someone can explain it to me…
I, as a human being, can run. Sure I choose not to a lot of the time, but that’s laziness.
Anyways, I can run. I can walk. Forward. Want to see me walk backwards? I can do it. Want to see me walk very quickly backwards? I can do that too. Want to watch me run backwards? I might manage it for a bit, but I’ll probably end up on my ass. Want me to run backwards under attack and firing 10 shotgun rounds in a few seconds? I’m sure I’ll be on my ass even faster.
So, regarding this and every other FPS game I’ve ever seen…why can’t they just make the FPS where you can WALK backwards and not run? Doesn’t that make a hell of a lot of sense?
(this rant inspired by full-health tanks not being able to catch people backpedaling while firing an M-16 full-auto)
-Joe
Don’t push the thumbstick back as far.
I play on the PC so I don’t use the thumbstick.
Either way, you totally missed my point. The ability of the human players to backpedal as quickly as they can move forward is stupid and it has a huge negative effect on the game. I would like to know the reason that the games implement things like this in that way.
-Joe
I agree that it would be more interesting if you had to make a decision between turning around and running forward quickly or backing away slowly. Running back full speed while unloading an autoshotty is very gamey.
The Mac-10 is also a terrible gun, both in and of itself, and also as a design decision.
The gun itself can discharge it’s entire (32 round .380/.45ACP) magazine in about 1.5 seconds at full auto. It’s wildly uncontrollable during full auto. It had very short range - even short bursts were only accurate up to maybe 25 metres. It had insufficient stopping power, it was heavy (2.8 kg empty, aproximately the same as a fully fledged MP5) and the parts were among the least durable in production. It’s a gun fitted to a very, very specialized niche - task force urban combat where low levels of penetration and relative silence were important. As a battlefield mainstay, it would be utter shite.
If the game reflects reality, it’ll only be decent for point-blank rush denial, but with the low penetration and the high rate of fire, you’re probably just going to fill the front ranks and then run out.
They can, but gameplay is better this was because it discourages the survivors from camping and slowing things down. Survivor runs are too long as it is on some maps and 5 maps is too many, especially with finales.
They need to get down from one hour matches to 15 - 25 minutes.
Balance. Also, if you’ve average, then almost 50% of people could conceivably run backwards faster and in a more adept manner than you could.
Being able to run backwards at full speed helps reduce camping? I don’t see how that follows at all.
Balance? What balance is that? How does it balance anything?
It doesn’t matter if I’m the worst in the world at it, someone running backwards at full speed is going to trip and fall over something in a zombie-infested post-apocalypse wasteland. How good I, personally, am at it has absolutely nothing to do with anything.
-Joe
If you can’t kite a tank, you’d need to camp some area that’d let you kill it.
If a Tank could easily overcome you, the Tank would be overpowered.