The zombie apocalypse is back, and this time, the action has gone down south.
Like many of the “2’s” this holiday season, Valve has decided that “more is better,” and taken the same five campaign format as the previous iteration. Replay value comes from the AI director, who this time round takes control over paths that you take through a level as well as the flow of enemies and the regularity of first aid packs and ammo.
My only criticism of the director AI is the game’s steep difficulty slope. In the lower difficulty settings, the game can get far too generous to the point of making the levels drag. The amount of zombies is reduced, and the drama is lost due to a huge amount of health. However, go into the higher difficulties, and you soon start to realise how much of a bastard the director can be; creating excellent moments of desperation at the best of times, and making the game impossible at the worst. Fortunately, with very tight and responsive controls, such impossibilities are extremely minimal. Button placement is identical to last year; but hey! If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
The story remains the same urge to survive, only the draw this time round is much more varied locations, enemies and set pieces. You’ll find yourself shooting your way around theme parks, swamps and shopping malls; presenting a much wider diversity. The new enemies consist of a zombie who spits acid, one who controls your character and a weaker version of the tank. These are pretty much slightly modified copies of the original’s special infected to introduce variation. Something a little different would’ve been welcome.
The grandeur conclusions at the end of chapters have been diversified past the “press a button and survive” recipe of the previous iteration. Events like running fuel cans to and from a display car in a mall for escape presents a new overlay of protect-and-escort tactics on the traditional horde survival.
Valve’s source engine is starting to look a little rough and dated; but the new smaller details and artistic touches that make the game appreciable up close, and really good at times. The first thing you’ll notice is that the game is a much more gory affair than previously. Damage models on the zombies are much more visceral, rib cages are revealed with a shotgun, and the infected just look nastier now. Daylight is introduced into the mix in such a way that the in-game tension isn’t lost, and weather effects obstruct view and make some very atmospheric level design.
The sound design is as sharp as ever, thundering in at the right moments to immerse you into the apocalyptic atmosphere. The weapons sound meaty, and atonal piano melodies ramp up the tension accompanying distant high-pitched roars.
I’m not going to dwell on single-player, for this game’s soul focus is multi-player. For those dying to know, it’s just as shit as the first game. The AI is programmed to be more helpful; but this really doesn’t help in 99% of situations. A zombie horde attacks, and one of the characters chooses to heal you instead of shoot back the advancing enemies. They really just don’t help, so make sure you avoid this option like the plague.
To shift the focus onto the multiplayer, on the whole it betters the previous game; but it’s no revolution. All of the original’s modes are still intact, the only new addition is the Fuel run (described above) has been made into a standalone mode; which is kind of inferior to the original survival mode that has survived the sequel transition. One thing I can safely say is that left 4 dead 2 is one of best multiplayer co-op experiences of this generation.
New items like the defibrillator have been added to add a further layer of teamwork to optimise each player’s load-out. Melee weapons have been added, and if you’ve already seen videos of these in action then yes; it really is as fun to play as it looks! The screen is covered in blood as you rip through hordes of zombies with your chainsaw. Versus mode is intact and, because of the better-built levels, the feeling of hunting your prey as a zombie is amplified.
All this adds up to one hell of a multiplayer package. The best way to sum up this game is if the original Left 4 dead was the “28 days later” of videogames, this leans a lot closer to “Shaun of the Dead.” Some of the violence, dialogue and set pieces are a lot more tongue in cheek. The game just feels a lot more fun to play, even though no actual innovative changes have been made over the previous iteration.
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