Rock, Paper, Shotgun

11/11/2008 at 18:21 Little Green Man says:

Yeah just mentioned this on Dead Air campaign post. 40% done!

11/11/2008 at 18:35 elefaire says:

Surely they’ll just disable the multi. They need some kind of demo so people can see if it runs.

11/11/2008 at 18:42 RiptoR says:

That 3200mb is probably the size of the local cache. Download will be a lot less normally.

11/11/2008 at 18:51 Leeks! says:

Man, shutting down the demo seems cruel. But what if my preorder doesn’t come in at EXACTLY the moment of release?!?! What will I do then!? I’ll be forced to play–God’s teeth!–one of the other six games I’ve bought in the past four weeks! Clearly, Valve are inhuman sadists.

11/11/2008 at 18:53 MeestaNob! says:

Downloading at 1mb/s. Vroooom.

This game has been built up in my expectations so much that if it’s anything short of life changing I might feel disappointed.

11/11/2008 at 19:14 Fumarole says:

Relax guys.

What, didn’t you hear? This is the internet.

11/11/2008 at 19:16 RC-1290'Dreadnought' says:

And remember, if your game crashes and you have a multicore cpu, enter mat_queue_mode 0 in the console. You can also try to update directX and your videocard driver.
Oh, don’t shoot your teammates and don’t run when under attack. Except if its a Tank.

11/11/2008 at 19:21 Sharkwald says:

Anyone having trouble downloading? I click the Install Demo link and the page refreshes in Steam’s browser but nothing begins installing…

11/11/2008 at 19:32 Grandstone says:

Just got done playing a quick round of single player on normal. This game is masterful, it looks great even on low settings, and I’m seriously contemplating blowing 45 bucks on it.

11/11/2008 at 19:43 Rei Onryou says:

As soon as you get the demo, head to RPS chatroom and join your comrades!

11/11/2008 at 20:58 mist says:

Meh I suck. :(

Tried playing single player Advanced.

First stage was piece of cake. Second stage went fine… until a Tank came along and killed my whole team. Retry–>> Tank came along JUST before I get an ammo refill… and with 10 bullets left in my machine gun. Again, whole team dead.

I suck.

11/11/2008 at 21:07 Katsumoto says:

Can’t connect to anyone’s games for some reason :(.

Looks nice in single player though!

11/11/2008 at 21:45 Smee says:

I want to explore the maps because of the level design, alternate routes and all the hidden goodies, but I’m too damn scared to go in the dark places.

Sigh.

11/11/2008 at 22:23 Calabi says:

I see what you, guys have been saying now. Its like they’ve made getting your arse kicked, fun.

I’ve just been playing with random people, and it was pretty good, most of time everyone did wonder off randomnly, and we ended up dying quite alot but we did manage to stick together and complete it a couple of times.

11/11/2008 at 22:48 Leeks! says:

Just played my first game on expert by accident. Man!

11/11/2008 at 22:49 RiptoR says:

Just had a go at SP and Coop. SP is kinda dumb, AI teammates only shoot at enemies that are a few feet from them and the don’t move around on their own.

Coop was nice except for lag, but that was probably the hosts fault :)

11/11/2008 at 23:17 Andy says:

I hate virgin media so much…. have already downloaded my 1.2gigs today so i won’t get more than 100k/s until tomorrow. Along with the recent free “upgrade” from 4mb/s to 10mb/s they stopped us actually being able to use the internet so THANKS FOR THAT VIRGIN!

I remember dreaming of 10mb/s, and now I wish I had 512k/s with no data limits.

11/11/2008 at 23:35 Dinger says:

It worked okay. First time it came up though, and they were all speaking German — well, that annoyed me more than anything. I mean, my steam settings say “English”. Precisely where I live, native German speakers are the minority. The only reason you’d decide to default to German is if you ignored the Windows settings, the Steam settings, the sociological data on the region I lived, and went with some cheap-ass IPLOC service that for similar reasons is probably the major reason why Belgium is going to split in two. I’d tell Valve™ to screw off, but they’d probably just run it through a German-to-English translation service and have no idea what I was saying.

Once I changed Steam’s language to French, however, L4D came up in English.
Really, guys, you just know how to make friends, don’t you?

Anyway, the game’s fun, and the demo’s worthwhile. Looking forward to playing more than two levels.

12/11/2008 at 00:42 Dizet Sma says:

Huzzah! All works now, with just a few glitchy sound issues, but that’s probably me.

Had a quick blast thru single player a few times then tried to run a co-op. We died. Badly.

I don’t think that I’d play a whole bunch of times and so paying full price would be a waste, but maybe if I could pick up a cheap copy, then you never know.

12/11/2008 at 01:05 Erik says:

From what little I got to try it seemed ok. I’ll try again when they’ve fixed the crashing. Played countless amount of hours on various games on this rig without problems, but of course one of the games I’m looking the most forward to has to be the one to break my streak.

12/11/2008 at 01:27 Grandstone says:

Sum0′s not kidding about how movie-like it is. I was just in a game in which we had limped our way to the subway tunnels. It had been tough going (we’d been knocked over far more than would have been ideal, always getting back up by the skin of our teeth), so as we approached the back of one of the trains, one of my teammates said, “We should be fine as long as a Tank doesn’t show up.”

I was on point. We crept into the rear of the subway car, all of us alert because we were all pretty close to death. We got to the end of the car; the music spiked; crashing down in front of the exit came the Tank. We bolted for the other side before it could clamber over the car and block off the way we’d come (it does that sometimes), laughing all the way because something so cliche and appropriate had just happened. It almost made you believe the Director could listen to your conversations. With one man left, we killed it, and it was a close thing besides that.

I don’t think we survived that round. It’s not hard to see why it doesn’t matter. Seeing a Tank surge through a little subway car is a sight to behold.

12/11/2008 at 01:55 Ben Abraham says:

My bandwith! My poor, poor bandwith! It weeps with regret… 2.2gb will take longer to download than there is time left in the demo. =(

12/11/2008 at 02:39 Heliocentric says:

just played it on an athlon xp 2400+ with a 7600 gs

lowest settings in everything, still looks okay, but when 40 zombies showed up at once it started getting patchy fps.

so a 3000+ might even allow you to turn a few things up :)

12/11/2008 at 03:18 hydra9 says:

This is amazing. Normally, I’m one of those weird freaks who only plays single-player… but wow, just played my first co-op in Left 4 Dead, and it was mind-blowing. So cinematic, tense, brilliant! The single-player mode seemed suddenly limp and pointless. I can see myself buying this one.

12/11/2008 at 03:44 Xyzzy says:

I startled the Witch, but only so I could try out my nifty new machine gun.

12/11/2008 at 04:39 TheDeadlyShoe says:

Re: versus mode… I’ve only played ghetto versus mode with cheats, but it’s pretty awesome! I think that will pan out as well as people think it will. Players are much bigger jerks than AI zombies, but you can also pin them down with suppressing fire and ambush them (they don’t react as fast as the AI).

12/11/2008 at 06:24 PJ says:

I actuall have better luck running and using melee when under attack by zombies. Especially during the swarms you have to stay mobile.

12/11/2008 at 07:44 teo says:

demo was alright
not really feeling the awesomeness that was promised
anything other than expert = pointless

12/11/2008 at 09:03 Emperor Fabulous says:

Finally installed last night on my Macbook Pro (2nd generation) Dual 2.4Ghz, 2GB with 8800M GT and boy, does it fly! Completed the available maps and have to say, I cannot wait for my retail box copy to turn up; kinda regretting not pre-ordering through Steam.

I absolutely love the ambiance, especially when a Boomer explodes on you! I was surprised at how long you can last in a fight, not sure how realistic that is but I have to say giving people unlimited pistol ammo is a good call.

12/11/2008 at 09:41 Owen says:

Heh, e-karma is fine Helio :) I accept all major e-karma cards.

12/11/2008 at 09:57 Lu-Tze says:

We got to the end of the demo on Expert and found a witch sitting crying outside the safe room door. “Don’t disturb the witch” becomes rather difficult at that point.

I lobbed a can of petrol at her, and my mate shot it midair, showering her in a rain of fire. This game rocks.

12/11/2008 at 10:14 AndyK says:

AARRRGH why did my logmein connection choose today to fail on me!! I’ll have to wait until I finish work to start the download now. Arse!

(I guess playing Fallout 3 while I wait isn’t exactly terrible..)

12/11/2008 at 10:28 Malagate says:

@Ian, the trick with boomers is to listen out carefully for them, so you can get prepared and not surprised when they show up, ideally shoot them from a little far away but if they’re already up in your face just push them. Pushing boomers knocks them back quite far actually, just as long as no-one else in the team is too quick on the trigger finger you should be able to kill it without a single vomit stain.

Also I’ve noticed after watching the movie after the demo a few too many times that it says there are 10 weaons. I’m just wondering if that’s including dual pistols as a seperate weapon as well as the explosives (molotov and pipebomb) and the minigun emplacements. If not, then what are the other weapons?

12/11/2008 at 10:40 Tei says:

Suggestions for newbies:

DON’T pick the shotgun.
DON’T rambo.
If you don’t have a clean shot, use mele. Use mele to kill a hunter over a friend, then kill the hunter.
Switch off the lights wen near a witch.
DON’T pick the shotgun.
Use the health packs wiselly. Health first the most damaged member.
Learn the re-spawn system, and use it to make your team finish the map.
SHOT the tank, and run to avoid getting killed by him. The tank will get you anywhere (if not stuck), so shot him.
Be vigilant for hunters.
Be vigilant for smokers.
Be villigant for boomers.
IF you are hit by a bommer, try to move to a corner, or something, where you can use mele to save your ass.
Protect the guy on the static machine guy.

12/11/2008 at 11:15 Paul Moloney says:

Hurray, the demo downloaded quickly enough in the end, so I got to play through two levels in co-op before the end. Good fun, but I think I need to play it on a more difficult setting; while it was fun and frenzied, I never felt in particular danger. I managed to survive a few situations where I was literally surrounded by zombies; rather than biting, they must have merely been nibbling hard on me. So I’ll up the ante next time.

P.

12/11/2008 at 11:23 Smee says:

@Tei – Why don’t you like the shotgun? I find it one-shots anything apart from a Tank or a Witch. Reloading during a Horde swarm is a bitch, sure, but that’s what your teammates are for.

I also seem to run out of ammo every single time I pick the Uzi, which is something I am not ok with.

12/11/2008 at 11:43 Dinger says:

Only spent a few hours on it (auf Englisch, thank God),

If puked upon, run to the other side of your group. If you’re lucky, they’ll think it’s just another zombie rush, and not realize it’s your fault.

You don’t need to point the shotgun directly at something to hit it. So blast the hunters off folks by aiming above them.
It probably helps if you establish firing arcs, like Bill (on point, keep low), Zoe — to the left of Bill, Francis to the right, Lewis to the rear.

Learn to us the melee attack, largely because it’s sweet.
A couple times I’ve been on maps where people run back to the safe room for more ammunition. And I wonder: is that wise? If this is an infinite-respawn game, shouldn’t one keep moving?

12/11/2008 at 11:54 Graham_S says:

@NeonWraith

I was confused for a while, but clicking the download demo link of the page in the store does not actually kick off the download. For me it just added it to the “Not installed” section of the “My Games” list. I then needed to right click the game in the “My Games” list and choose “Install Game”

I don’t know if that’s the same problem you are having.

12/11/2008 at 12:32 Malagate says:

@Tei, on expert the shotgun is a massive tker yes, but on easier settings the damage is still pretty low towards teammates. It’s certainly the weapon of choice if you’re leading the group and crouching, if anyone runs in front of you whilst you’re doing that then they’re not doing it right.

Similarly, never walk in front of the guy using the mounted minigun. The guys I was playing with last night must have been vision impaired and deaf, they would have otherwise surely heard the minigun warming up moments before they decided to step in front of the hot stream of lead. If you thought the shotgun was bad, at least I have learnt that the minigun knocks them down VERY fast. At least if I see someone using it I’ll always be behind them, saving their butt from zombie chewing.

12/11/2008 at 13:21 The Archetype says:

As of 24 hours ago I had Left 4 Dead filed away as a game that sounded like a lot of fun that I would never play because I frighten extremely easily when playing games on the PC (Doesn’t occur with consoles. Not sure why.)

Then I listened to the podcast and learned that Mike Patton had provided the sounds of the common zombies. I figured that I should at least get the demo and give the single player campaign a quick go to hear that, since I’m a huge Patton fan. (This is the same reason I checked out his album Adult Themes for Voice, which consisted entirely of things he recorded in hotel rooms on a 4-track while on tour, utilizing only his voice. It’s amazingly excellent and very odd, and I wanted to see what he would do for games.) Besides, maybe, just maybe, this would be a horror game that wouldn’t end up with me rapidly exiting while screaming “OH SHIT! OH SHIT!”.

Turns out the art style of Left 4 Dead is stylized enough that I’m left feeling very tense but never frightened out of my mind the way every other horror game does.

It also turns out that my laptop is incredibly sluggish just playing single player, to the point where the game is almost unplayable. Multiplayer would probably be a nightmare. I’m so depressed now.

12/11/2008 at 13:33 Mark-P says:

Great fun! Matchmaking is nice in principle, ropey in practice. I seem to need ‘mat_queue_0′ to prevent crashes ( Intel Q9450, Vista64, Radeon 4850HD )
I think I’m sold though, despite being broke.

12/11/2008 at 13:42 Chaz says:

Can’t say I’m that knocked out by this to be honest, and the demo has merely met my expectations, which is to say it’s an OK fun game but has short legs in the longevity stakes. All you do is spray endless waves of zombies with machine gun fire, and I can’t honestly see that keeping my interest beyond maybe 3-4 play throughs. Which ultimately means that the full game probably isn’t going to get my money. The co-op is fun, and the game does make you want to stick together and help each other out quite well, which is nice, but I think there are other games that provide better more in-depth co-op experiences than this. Good short term fun, but I don’t think the game’s worth all the hype its being given.

12/11/2008 at 13:44 x25killa says:

The day the internet went slow due to Left4Dead on 12/11/2008.

12/11/2008 at 13:59 NeonWraith says:

@ Graham_S – I just checked my Not Installed list, and, funnily enough…there it is, so thanks for helping me out :)

Seems like an odd way of doing it, still.

12/11/2008 at 14:07 MeestaNob! says:

OK, I’ve had a good bash about, and to be honest, whilst I enjoyed it, I don’t feel it’s quite worth a) the gushing praise it’s receiving, nor b) the price.

It’s good quick popcorn gaming, which is really what it’s trying to be, but I cant help but feel it’s missing that little something.

Random brain dump of ideas:
- With a moderately decent team, it’s not hard enough even on Expert, except for Tanks which can molest most teams easily out of the blue. It pays to be prepared for them, this is good thing, you should be tense occasionally, it’s tongue in cheek, but it’s not a family trip to Disneyland. Witches aren’t the horror everyone makes them out to be when introduced to 21 century munitions.
- The pistol(s) shouldn’t have unlimited ammo, at least not on harder difficulty levels. They’re quite powerful and it’s possible to run through with just dual pistols if you’re sensible. I’d like to see higher spec pistols that are spawned by the Director to reward good play (but with added challenges afterwards to compensate).
- I’ll get caned for this, but it’s not graphically impressive enough. Gameplay > Graphics everyday of the week, but a fast food gaming experience like this really should look a bit sharper. The art direction and effects a top rate, but some of the models could be a bit more detailed, and more environmental detail is desperately needed. Why Valve refuse to have a ‘insane’ graphics setting for those who can manage it I’ll never know. Their games look good, but it’s no Crysis visually.
-Healing (either self healing or assisted) looks absolutely terrible. Whilst the animation of the characters is typically excellent… why cant I see any bandaging or at least something? There’s blood and gore on the models, but healing makes no difference other than to the health gauge.

Pointless score based on small fraction of unfinished game: 7/10. I like it, but it absolutely wasn’t worth the hype as such. I’ll still buy it, but no way known I’m spending that kind of cash on a casual 20 minute blaster.

12/11/2008 at 14:18 Optimaximal says:

The problem with procedurally generated levels is that they end up looking shit and lacking in anything of note – take Hellgate’s procedurally generated dungeons and streets.

A truely great multiplayer game relies on a well designed and paced level that allows you to learn & exploit choke points and devise a strategy, with (in L4Ds case) the AI mixing things up to keep you on your toes.

Could you imagine how potentially awful a procedural generated TF2 level could be?

12/11/2008 at 14:33 Unrein says:

I don’t understand all the whine about low replayability… I’ve played the demo for 34.4 hours, and it’s only 1.5 levels of the full game! I reckon the expert difficulty will get more challenging with 5 levels and the finale. So far I feel the expert setting is perfect for me.

12/11/2008 at 14:38 man alive says:

also – solution for too easy: kill a couple of your AI companions at the start and don’t rescue them.

12/11/2008 at 16:27 Frans Coehoorn says:

Repeat after me please: I LOVE THIS GAME.

12/11/2008 at 17:16 ROWROW says:

I LOVE THIS GAME. The Director is a bastard tho.
Now, kill the lights.

12/11/2008 at 22:11 Conquests.of. says:

Agree entirely with MeestaNob!
Game’s got amazing cinematic feel, realism, scripts finesse.
I hate character models… the old ones had much more personality, Zoey looked sort of french, now she looks like a cheerleader.

Gameplay is too bland… too repetitive… too pointless… you need no tactics and you can’t form any with strangers, anyway, they won’t listen to you.

L4D is just as imagined it… messy but terribly boring shooting of zombies that run, fall and die in obectively beautiful ways. Nothing more. The director AI is a revolutionary concept, but useless interaction-wise.

An expected (but still hoped it’d be otherwise) disappointment.

13/11/2008 at 00:27 Lobster says:

Its a shame some people dont click with it, but then I guess thats true of any game, I personaly cant stop playing it with my friends, the challenge seems just right to us, and we have tremendous fun with it each time.

Its esspeacialy fun when one guy is left alive, and the other 3 get to sit back and laugh as he limps his way through the map, only to have a smoker drag him into a boomer.

Cant wait for the full release.

13/11/2008 at 00:37 Conquests.of. says:

*The demo doesn’t have Versus mode in, does it? We were feeling pretty confident too before Valve handed our arses to us in the first five minutes of a Versus match…*

Yes that’s what i craved for… challenge, because challenge leads to thinking and teamwork.

I guess that’s it, I tried twice in expert mode, We died, naturally, but I thought tactics weren’t needed anyway, just more shooting.

I’ll give it another chance, see if I can squeeze some teamwork…

Thanks.

13/11/2008 at 01:08 Corbeaubm says:

This game is everything that the addictive cooperative multiplayer game should be. It takes tactics, coordination, and practice. The levels are consistent enough to allow you to develop plans and strategies, while the director is enough of a complete bastard to make each play different (this is the aspect of the game that I’m most impressed by). It just plain works, with the possible exception of the Tank being disproportionally powerful (been with three different teams playing on Expert, and we have yet to get past a Tank).

Anyway, I played the demo for an evening and then pre-ordered it via Steam. Then spent the rest of the morning playing more of the demo. I feel sorry for my GPA…

13/11/2008 at 01:23 Andrew says:

We did get past that tank, though.

Well. I did. With 11 temporary health. And everyone else was dead. And the tank was still alive, we’d just lured it off the catwalk so at least one of us could get to the saferoom.

Beautiful stuff.

13/11/2008 at 02:41 Redd says:

Ahaha, this is great.

We were approaching the safe-room, sans black guy, when all hell broke loose. We knew we’d never get a chance to rescue him with such an onslaught as we were pretty badly mashed up, so we instinctively made a dash for the exit without him, firing over our shoulders as we went.

The veteran was first inside by a long chalk, and in the desperate, last second mayhem I shot and incapacitated Zoey (well, whoever was playing her), right outside the safe-room. She was instantly fell upon by the pack.

There was no way I was risking getting caught, so I pulled back the extra ten feet and shut the steel door behind me. The vet ran over to the door and fired a few shots, trying to shoot the infected through the slat, but even he wasn’t going to go out there. I just patched myself up and waited for the screams to stop. If only team chat fell quiet as fast. =P

I haven’t felt that much of a shithead in a computer game since I gave up playing MMOs.

Fantastic.

13/11/2008 at 02:55 Conquests.of. says:

@Redd.

I really fail to see how that’s anywhere near fun or interesting for the sake of videogaming.

13/11/2008 at 03:50 Saul says:

I guess I can see this not being everyone’s cup of tea, but it certainly is mine. As far as I’m concerned, this is the holy grail of gaming. I’ve been craving a decent co-op action game since Doom, and this delivers. The design is top-notch in every respect.

Best played with friends, of course, but I’ve had a lot of fun with randoms on the internet, too. I can’t wait to attempt a full 5-level campaign. We’ve got a LAN planned the weekend after release for just that purpose.

Can’t understand the complaints about the price. With 20 levels and the Director, there’s lot more hours of gameplay in this than in a typical single-player game. I will certainly put more hours into this than TF2, and probably more than the entire Orange Box combined.

13/11/2008 at 05:22 john t says:

been with three different teams playing on Expert, and we have yet to get past a Tank

I have, twice. It involves running backwards a lot and having an auto shotgun. It also helps if the first person he knocks down has a lot of health and takes a long time to die.

13/11/2008 at 10:37 Dude says:

I played yesterday with a friend and 2 bots, first time in normal it was a cake walk, no challenge. Then we tried on expert, made it to the underground badly hurt and went on to try 4 time to beat it without success.
I think you are mistaken Conquest.of, this game does require tactics from the players, one example:
We got pounded several time at the underground entrance because we were moving out in the open to quickly, thinking about it I think we should have set ourself up in a place (probably the escalator) where we can’t get assaulted from every direction. We were just doing as you depict it, moving forward and shooting, we failed.
Another great thing is the director, my god he played tricks on us, a smoker in the hole above the exit of the first safe zone, putting nice and shiny weapons at the underground entrance, which resulted in a hunter/boomer/horde spawn when we approached them…. We couldn’t reach them until the fight was finish.

13/11/2008 at 16:04 Gorgeras says:

I played the demo for the first time last night and repeated playing of the short maps available pretty much made everyone an expert on them; except for a hardcore few who really shouldn’t be even trusted with scissors.

Why do they stop? Why do they have to search every nook and cranny for zombies to shoot? KEEP MOVING! NO! DON’T GO IN THERE UNLESS YOU NEED TO! STOP!

The longer they spend in the same place, the more impatient the director gets. At this point, I know I can’t even coerce them into moving forward because if I run ahead I’m going to run into a boss and they’re too far away to help. I hope the full-game teaches them some keener survival instincts.

13/11/2008 at 16:27 Conquests.of. says:

@Dude:

I really wish you were right, this game is not WoW (which is incredible for an online game), it’s amazingly innovative, almost feels indie, and the new maps awaiting…

but what kind of tactics do you need? To me It feels like it’s just a problem of shooting fast, aiming well, doing lotta mess… and would you really try explaining a scheme and a formation to some german fellow or to those persons who don’t care what you say, they wanna rush in and shoot stuff?

13/11/2008 at 16:48 Catastrophe says:

@Conquests.of.
You stated you keep dying in Expert, but say you need more of a challenge?

13/11/2008 at 17:21 hydra9 says:

I feel like I know the two demo maps so well now – It’s almost as if they’re the whole game. Then I look at screenshots and see our heroes running around in the great outdoors, in the misty morning air and it seems almost inexplicable that there’s more – a whole 18 maps more. It’s like being told that this year Father Christmas is going to be giving me five times as many presents, and he’s real and it’s hard to believe but I’m a little delirious thinking about it.

13/11/2008 at 17:49 Fumarole says:

I really fail to see how that’s anywhere near fun or interesting for the sake of videogaming.

You are quite the curious gamer. I related to that story instantly. Try playing with people you know, as opposed to strangers. The experience is totally different.

13/11/2008 at 19:05 Lobster says:

I reckon L4D has acctully shipped in Korea as an RTS game under a different name and thousands of starcraft fans over there play this crazy game where the goal is to spawn zombies to grief these odd human characters trying to cross the maps, the funny thing about is is they can only play when a server is free, even though its singleplayer…

13/11/2008 at 19:36 Gorgeras says:

I’m going with the Director being a male based on the assumption that most Korean Starcraft players are male.

And because this thread is insufficiently mysoginistic; if the Director were female the zombies would be running away, scared by the loud gun noises. Then the whole point of the game would be to find some common ground with the Infected and learn to live together.

Bloody whooly-minded liberal nonsense like that.

13/11/2008 at 19:56 Ixtab says:

There’s something in the way that it spawns the zombies and such that makes the director a He for me, I couldn’t tell you what it is but it’s one of those gender traits you subconsciously pick up on.

Of course it could just be me being chauvanist and assuming that it must be male.

Or the fact that I was already predisposed to think it male by all the previewers (such as yourselves) calling it He. Which is probably why most people see it as a He, it’s all your fault.

13/11/2008 at 22:24 The Unshaven says:

I think the game is brilliant, well-polished, and high quality. However, my *experience* of the game has had quite a high-amplitude of quality, mainly because many of the people I’ve played with have been Utter Fraggles.

a) Don’t heal yourself for your whopping 8% damage when a team-mate is only surviving on 20% painpills.
b) LEAVE THE WITCH ALONE. SERIOUSLY. HAVE YOU BEEN EATING RETARD-SANDWICHES AGAIN?
c) Stay with the group.
d) COMMUNICATE.

Unfortunately some connection problems have sometimes meant I’ve been playing with two AI and one other person, and that other person keeps changing.

I’ve had no problem connecting though, it’s staying connected together that’s the key.

The difference on Expert and Advanced is massive, and great fun. I also think that Versus mode will be a great change of pace, as the Specialist zombies being other people will change the dynamic hugely, along with giving you a chance to mix things up yourself as one of the walking dead.

Each time I play the game, the quality astounds me and I get more reasons to buy the preorder. I *also* get more reasons to hold off until I can sit down and play it with friends. It’s bizarre.

And the corroding value of the NZ dollar means that the concrete savings of buying the preorder at 10% off versus sourcing locally is getting less and less relevant over time.

13/11/2008 at 23:37 hydra9 says:

It’s really weird when people drop out and get replaced by bots. I didn’t realise what was happening for a while. I was low on health and politely asked one of my healthy companions to take the lead. When they refused I started thinking, “What’s wrong with you? Do you hate me? Do you want me to die? Or have you just lost all hope?”

15/11/2008 at 02:53 Conquests.of. says:

The game has its undeniable good aspects, tho honestly, It’s all on what we CAN’T see. The versus mode and the new maps. The first one especially will be a major cause of longevity for gamers.

Problem is gameplay is a little too plain for me… L4D turned out just how i feared it would… just zombie shooting survival. But problem is still another, that goes beyong my tastes and expectations: success or failure tend to be SLIGHTLY randomized… the factors that “decide” those outcomes are pretty volatile… they rely too much on random chance other than real merit.

I think It’s the only real problem with the game. Everything else is absolutely fantastic.