The Until-launch Demo’s up for non-preorder users, apparently. Re-start Steam to get it if you can’t see it.
And remember: Don’t Startle The Witch.
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The Witching 168 Hours: Left 4 Dead Demo
Posted by Kieron Gillen on November 11th, 2008 at 6:08 pm.
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MeestaNob – fully agree with all of your points (except you can actually see bandages in the healing animation), but the full game’s still clearly got enough to it for a worth-the-money 15-20 hours, and if those hours involve a LAN party they’ll be great. Don’t expect to play this past xmas (new maps aside), but short and sweet is OK.
also – solution for too easy: kill a couple of your AI companions at the start and don’t rescue them.
Yeah, I think we should judge difficulty only after playing the full game.
Unless you have of course, in which case I’ll shut up.
Repeat after me please: I LOVE THIS GAME.
“I LOVE THIS GAME” :)
It rocks hard when you get a bunch of players who are all ‘into it’. Unfortunately a lot of folks seem to play it like Doom – run ahead mindlessly and shoot.
The demo convinced me to order off Play pretty quickly, I can’t wait for the rest of the levels now. It’ll be interesting to see how long it takes to get old, and what Valve add after release. For the hours of fun gained, I’d happily pay a little for extras like the TF2 post-release content.
I’ve got no problems with the graphics. They look great and the game runs silky smooth maxed out. I love the way the normal zombies move as well.
I LOVE THIS GAME. The Director is a bastard tho.
Now, kill the lights.
I ran into a safe room this morning and a Hunter was waiting inside. I was terrified and then thrilled at the idea of this being a possible occurrence. Has anyone else had that happen?
Here’s another handy hint:
ALWAYS PLAY ON EXPERT. It’s not insanely difficult.
@Heliocentric:
Your processor is pretty much the same as mine, so if it runs on yours I’m pleased.
Anyway, that’s really the only bit where I’m deficient. Gots me a gig of RAM, and a 512MB graphics card; so hopefully those might compensate a teeny bit.
*waits to have hopes cruelly smooshed*
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.
@Solario:
You’re right that Expert isn’t insanely difficult, but it depends on your team. I played with a gang of fellow newbies and we got roasted in the subway. I don’t think we even saw the minigun. I played with another team and after much frustration we finally got to the second safe room. Supposedly, it only gets harder from there, and that’s not even the entire second level (unless I’ve misread something).
My advice is simply not to play on Normal. It’s way too easy. Hopefully Valve will see fit to add higher difficulty levels for the truly hardcore.
@Conquests.of.
Did you play on expert with at least 3 people?
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…
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.
*Did you play on expert with at least 3 people?*
Played for 6 hours non-stop… tried everything.
*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.
At first I didn’t like the game that much, but it’s growing on me. (Actually, i played it last night, didn’t like it that much, but now im sitting here at work itching to play again)
I think the game is a bit highly priced. I’m sure I hot TF2 for half the price of L4D, and I don’t see myself playing L4D as much
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…
On the advice of the people who had been playing it since the pre-order I’ve only ever been on Expert and I’ve only ever been on with 3 friends, communicating constantly. As such, it is absolutely fresh and hilarious every time. Its full of adrenaline-rush jumpy scares, as opposed to real, creeping dread, but I think that’s just fast zombie syndrome.
Based purely on my own personal experience, I think the AI Director is brilliant. Just now, after a fairly straight-forward playthrough, (by which I mean, there was a completely unavoidable witch squatting in the subway carriage) when we were all limping home on the companionway to the last Safe House, it plopped a tank directly in front of us.
I could just imagine a smug guy looking not unlike a thinner Kevin Smith, leaning back in his chair, sipping his Pepsi Max and chuckling.
The Director is an utter bastard, it wants to kill me, and I love it.
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.
Dying is fun.
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.
Ok I gave the game another eager chance (with in mind the imperative of co-ordinating tactics and junk), and I’m really sorry but I still find L4D too dull and too confusing to lend itself to some serious teamwork.
@Redd.
I really fail to see how that’s anywhere near fun or interesting for the sake of videogaming.
In the latest RPS podcast, Erik Wolpaw jokes about how whenever something goes wrong in real life, Valve devs will blame the Director. He is a complete and utter bastard and makes me fear the day of sentient machines.
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.
If you’re finding yourself not enjoying the demo and you’re playing on easy or normal, please try it on advanced or expert. It’s an entirely different game.
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.
Had a go at the demo last night.
Rather splendid indeed, finally a game that really captures the the essence of the great zombie apocalypse movies.
The randomness introduced by the Director seems to work very well, with folks on the server I played on constantly stalling and egging each other on to take the lead… Only to have the Director get fed up with our faffing and unleash a shambling horde from behind.
Definitely worth a look.
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.
The Director reminds me of an easily bored tabletop RPG Gamemaster. He really hates it any time the party stops his wonderful game to discuss their next move so he throws another horde at them.
When I see a Tank now I like to think the Director is throwing a tantrum.
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.
I dunno if anybody has read any Roald Dahl short stories but the Director makes me think of “The Great Automatic Grammatizator”. It’s based around the idea of a machine that writes books and the operator just pushes buttons and levers and pedals to add or inject certain elements such as a plot twist or passion.
I imagine the Director using this, having set the type of book to “Zombie Apocalypse” and when it feels the pace is sagging (i.e. you’ve slowed down) it jams a foot on the “More Zombies” pedal, jabs a finger at the “Boss Zombie” button a few times and is happy again for a few minutes.
@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?
I really wanna like this game, but I don’t find a challenge! Help me find it :)
Conquests: you sound like you need tougher games – go play something else!
Well, first if the guy run off and shoot stuff is probably going to die very quickly, just tell him to stay together.
Sure they will be people that will keep doing that but I think it won’t be the majority.
As you say it is not wow, I think its better because it force coop play which even in wow is missing….
As far as shooting fast and doing a lot of mess, yeah in the demo the map are so short you can afford to do those kind of thing. The excellent preview with video of Blood Harvest at left4dead411 shows that when maps are bigger it is another story. Those guys did play quite well together and still didn’t manage to finish the campaign on expert, go over there and check the footage.
I think this demo is design to give a taste of what left4dead is, it fast and arcade kind of shooting, I think in that respect it is already a very good game…. I don’t think that tactic are really necessary against the director, I guess in versus their will tactical play from both part.
As Jim said, versus is another beast and they were surprised by the combination of attack the valve guys put on them…
@Conquests.of.
You stated you keep dying in Expert, but say you need more of a challenge?
“It’s just a flesh wound!”
P.
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.
L4D is one game I wish had an equivalent of DigiMask. Yes, obviously there would be the practicality of having your gender/race somehow match your character, but it would be fun seeing yourself in the ultimate zombie movie.
P.
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.
I find it fascinating that everyone agrees the Director is a He.
KG
@Kieron:
Jonfitt did call the Director GLaDOS in a previous comment thread, so not everyone ;).
@Keiron:
Directors usually are male, most of the really good ones anyway.
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…
Calabi: I don’t think it’s that. I think he just seems like a bloke to me.
KG
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.
I find it fascinating that people keep personifying the director. I can only see a script making semi-random spawns at semi-random spawnpoints. A programmer’s curse?
It’s still awesome though and it makes HL2, and all other rail shooters, look painfully linear.
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.