Left 4 Dead has gone gold. Hurrah! A short story, slightly lengthened by letting you know that those who have pre-ordered the game via Steam will be able to begin pre-loading it now, so it’ll be all but ready to go on the 18th November, from 8.01 am GMT (12.01 am EST).
Related Stories:
Even before the game is out the E-penis of ‘expert’ bragging already rears it’s ugly head…
The game is all about the long haul. It’s clear that it’s not just enough to get to the safehouse, it’s also about getting there in good shape. If you’re having to burn the med kit in there as soon as you arrive simply to stay alive, you’ve screwed yourself for the next chapter.
On Difficulty:
I consider myself an FPS Vet. Im playing online for about 10 years now and had my fair share of semi-pro play in the high-school days. On public servers im usually under the first 3 in the games i play, so id say im pretty decent. Now, everyone who tells you that expert is easy is either playing alone or just with one buddy which seems to make the Director tone down the difficulty immensely. Or they are exploting the flaws of the system (extreme rushing). If you play the game as intended youll have a very hard but very satisfying time with the expert mode. Considering that we only got to play 1.5 levels and that most parts of it are in tight places which makes the horde much easier to control id say its gonna be a hell of a challenge. Also the biggest enemy in this game are your teammates and not the zombies. Im playing the game with two friends of mine and normally one random or an NPC. After sinking about 15 hours into the game we established a set of tactics that really work well. But it needs just one mistake at the wrong time on expert and your dead.
We also got a ded Server running so if anyone wants to play a game with some blokes that are hardcore on the teamplay aspect of the game hit me up on steam: E.E. Kan3da.
P.S.: Also consider Versus. If youd play on expert with the boss infected being humans i cant imagine how we would even survive the first level.
@ Thiefsie
If downloading such a large bunch of files is an issue, you can try finding a friend locally who already has it.
- First, purchase L4D and let Steam allocate disk space.
- Once it’s downloading, for a few seconds, close Steam, make sure it’s COMPLETELY closed, then copy the l4d.gcf (or similarly named files) to the correct steam/steamapps directory.
- Start Steam again, it may/may not download some more to either update further or verify the file(s).
- Run the game, and it should all be hunky dory.
Technincally this is against the Steam subscriber agreement, but it’s a generally accepted method of skipping long downloads for gamers on a cap.
The other alternative is to use Steam’s game back up feature on the friends computer and then try installing the backup on your own machine. I don’t know if this is subject to problems when installing to a different account.
I’ve decided to get this in favour of WotLK. Mainly because it might actually be fun. Oh, and Auto-Shotguns are some of the best things in zombie apocalypses ever.
I fear that i might be spending way too much time playing the game when it comes out properly, because i’ve already pumped a good 10 hours into the demo since it came out, and i’ve had a pretty busy week.
Oh well, nothing is better than shooting the crapfel out of a zombie horde with some friends.
That’s an interesting question, actually. Never really thought about that. I don’t see why anyone who owns a game on Steam couldn’t just use someone elses back up files, you’d think the important part is that you paid for the license to play – otherwise you wouldn’t be able to buy the game in retail, wouldn’t you?
@Kan3da
I agree that the director seems to tone things down if you have some AI teammates.
Regarding tank difficulty on expert, I think it’s perfect. We take him down maybe 2/5 times we encounter him, and it’s very satisfying when we do manage to kill him. Fighting him in the parking garage with all the pillars is great.
Had another bash at the demo last night. All rather spiffing.
Friends signed off rather early so I ended up playing with some interweb randoms… At one stage I noticed we were spending a lot of time stalling and hanging around at certain points in the map.
‘Curse these cowards’ thought I ‘everyone knows that hanging about on expert mode is the quickest way to get killed’.
And then it dawned on me; my random interweb cohorts had actually all buggered off , leaving me with 3 AI teammates who were all waiting patiently for me to stop being so cowardly and lead on… Heh.
Heh. John T.’s speech is good. Too many people play it like any other FPS.
Zombie respawns and weapon/ammo/health drops are all controlled by the Director, folks. If you clear that side-room, they’ll just bust in through the window. No need to hunt for molotovs and health — the Director will put them where you can find them. Now move!
I think the difficulty is fine and my friends and I beat it all the time. If you want to bump up the difficulty upscale the console command that spawns 30 zombies in the rushes to something higher. Problem solved.
One thing that does concern me about the game is that for me half of the pleasure of the demo has been when playing with competent people but who hadn’t played it before. There’re very human traits that shine through when you’re not sure where you’re going, somebody stepping a little too far from the group as they try to check something out and all that stuff.
Once everybody’s done all the levels a dozen times and know the nooks and crannies will it become just another co-op shooter? I’d like to think that this is what the Director is for, to catch you off guard and keep things fresh. But even then, eventually you’ll have your attacks for each boss and what to do during the wave-attacks by zombies that the element of surprise will be gone.
What makes and breaks the demo for me is how people react in the game when they’re not well drilled and each scenario the Director tosses your way sparks improvisation.
Hopefully I’m just over-thinking it.
Yeah. Tank fights are great. Imagine him played by a human though who moves on to the next player after downing one player and maybe even another human boss infected as a boomer puking one of the survivors when things get really hectic fighting the tank. controlling the tank, fighting of the horde and then even have a hunter entering the fray.
Also upping the diff by increasing the horde wouldnt change much in my opinion. If you have the horde under control it doesnt matter if there are 30 or 100 coming. But having the horde coming in the open and then having a smoker or hunter in the middle of it. Thats when things go bad.
i laughed hartily when in a PUG, a dude ran off on his lonesome got pwnd by a hunter called us gays and quit.
want a tough game, play with mental peeps you dont know or trust for an added layer of tension.
I’m so torn between getting this on the 360 or the PC. On one hand, the 360 will have Live support and very little, if any, lag as a result of processor capability, graphics card, etc. On the other hand, I firmly believe that FPS games play better on the PC and I just like playing with WASD and my mouse much better but I’m worried that I won’t have that player base to tap when I want to play Co-Op. WHAT TO DO??!! Plus, I’m not running a KILLER machine right now. I mean, it’s an XPS laptop that was amazing in May of ‘07, but no amazing anymore. Maybe just good. Kinda really good. Sorta.
@ Dude
The first footage of Death Toll was released yesterday: http://www.g4tv.com/trailers/videos/34879/Left_4_Dead_Mission_2_DirectFeed_Gameplay_Footage_X360.html
@GenuineEntropy:
Hehe. I had a similar situation the other night, when I suddenly realized I was playing with three AI guys, and probably had been for the last couple of attempts. The original 3 humans and I had been getting completely destroyed and they’d obviously got fed up and left. I thought they’d just become cowardly and despondent but no, they were robots. Quite creepy, actually.
I have noticed that this game is reasonably moron proof. They don’t really know what to do with themselves and generally have a hard time griefing others and if they do try it on their own they can’t really take it very far. Hopefully Valve’s anti-dick system will eleviate the rest of them.
@Devildog: Lots of friendly folk on the RPS Steam community chatwebs thingmajig.
@the RPSchappies – which is why I specified expert on the demo as not being too tough, I (and Mike) fully expect it to be much more of a challenge further along that campaign, let alone in the other ones. No macho-nes here, just our experience of playing it with our various forum friends, the only time we get in trouble is usually when a tank shows up – and this is with plenty of dicking around.
A few pro tips:
1. When using the pipebomb to draw a mob away from a puked-on survivor, don’t lob it AT the survivor.
2. Cars with red blinking lights, when shot, set off an alarm and attract a horde of zombies. So don’t shoot it if your team is half dead…. unless you are far enough away that the mob will bypass you.
3. Zombie mobs can, and will attack from the area you just cleared. take note of this and be sure to check your sectors.
4. Avoid throwing molotovs into your only path of escape. That’s when the horde will come from the opposite direction.
The game is very easy when you rush, so of course it will be different when the game forces you into staying in the same place for a while like a stand-off would.
When human players can control the Infected bosses though, I’m sure they will come up with devious ways to counter the rush strategy.
nice game i loveit
how i install left 4 death??
Can u shot web?