By John Walker on November 18th, 2008 at 9:55 am.
Left 4 Dead has gone live. Anyone who pre-ordered and pre-loaded should find it’s ready to roll. Everyone else should be frantically downloading to catch up.
You can read all our coverage of the game by clicking here, and leap straight to our preview impressions here, here and here.
18/11/2008 at 09:58 theleif says:
And what a wonderful and intense game it is!
18/11/2008 at 09:59 Meat Circus says:
Why must Steam decrypt so slowly? WHY?
18/11/2008 at 10:00 pepper says:
I want this game very badly, it has the best COOP i have seen since swat 4!! hail valve!!
18/11/2008 at 10:01 Ian says:
I want it badly, but by getting it from Game (and thus, unfortunately, a few days laters) I can end up only paying £14 for it.
Plus, I like boxes.
18/11/2008 at 10:02 manintheshack says:
Question is, will I be able to snatch five minutes of play after decrypting it at lunch before I have to go back to work?
18/11/2008 at 10:07 Malagate says:
So it was unlocked at 8am GMT rather than 8pm as a bunch of people were moaning a few days ago?
…
I really, really, really wish I’d taken today off now…
18/11/2008 at 10:11 mister k says:
Brilliantly, my laptop decided to die on me on sunday…. sigh. At least it’s still under guarentee. I can play l4d when everyones really good, and then can shout at me for being a n00b. Yay.
18/11/2008 at 10:14 Masterdog says:
Want.
To go home and play!
18/11/2008 at 10:15 Optimaximal says:
I’m still waiting for my review key to arrive in my mailbox… Fingers crossed it arrives before Amazon start packing my pre-order.
18/11/2008 at 10:17 Mark-P says:
Have any other UKsians using mail-order had their copy ship yet? Play.com lists it as ‘in-stock’ but alas for me, my order is still idling.
I hear the mighty dollar calling, ready to punish my weak pounds for my impatience.
18/11/2008 at 10:20 SteevR says:
Left 4 Dead is truly a quality coop experience. I’m sure I’ll spend hours with friends trying to make it out. What I like most, however, is that it is playable on the lesser difficulties with the bots. When this is done, it satisfies an itch my old FPSing self usually has but rarely finds a new title to satisfy: Shoot everything that moves while searching for the door to the next level. Truly, Left 4 Dead like trying to play through Doom 1/2 without using anything bigger than your double barreled shotgun, but with way better setpiece battles and atmosphere.
———————————————————————–
I used to have trepidations about Steam. Not so much as an antipiracy measure (imho it is the most effective; an individual cannot claim that he owns a game when his friends can’t see it on his list), but as a method of e-commerce.
I bought AudioSurf, RSPoD: Ep1 and 2, and Left 4 Dead all at once. For less than $80. No (imho unconstitutional here in the US, only Congress can tax interstate commerce) sales tax.
Excepting those games which don’t seem to work well due to their own extra portion of DRM (I’ve heard CoD4 has issues occasionally), I can see no reason for my future PC game purchases to be boxed copies.
Unless of course someone were to pack in a proper ringbound manual with a complex sim/RPG/strategy title. Or a hybrid of the three, that would be cool (XCom please?). I think the last time I saw a proper ringbound manual was with Neverwinter Nights and it’s expansions.
If you’ve made it this far, you may have experienced my tendency to ramble on forever…
18/11/2008 at 10:20 Cunningbeef says:
Bought into the hype and bought it. Very disappointed.
18/11/2008 at 10:21 aldo_14 says:
So, is the demo locked now? I never had the free time this week to try a prolonged co-op session :(
18/11/2008 at 10:27 dishwasherlove says:
@ Cunningbeef: Disappointed? Just played through the first 2 campaigns on advanced difficulty and I have no regrets. Had to change to normal for the second extraction level though. Can’t waltz through like you could the demo.
18/11/2008 at 10:28 pepper says:
It appears to be so aldo, which i find a horrible move on valve’s side, so is the game browser, which seems to come directly from hell, since you never know what kind of game you are joining and how your PING will be. Its the reason im not buying this game, il let them fix the game browser first.
18/11/2008 at 10:30 Ian says:
@ Mark P: It’s in stock probably but the release date here is the 12st for retail. Steam gets it early.
(I think.)
18/11/2008 at 10:30 Seniath says:
Frankly, I’ll be too busy levelling my Death Knight over the next few days to play this just yet. JUDGE ME.
18/11/2008 at 10:32 Will says:
@ Cunningbeef: Playing alone? Playing with strangers? Don’t like sensational new FPS games? No wonder you are disappointed!
18/11/2008 at 10:33 the affront says:
I’ve played versus for about 3 hours now and it’s fucking great. You RPS guys haven’t been kidding about your experiences at Valve, clearly.
Although there’s still no server browser accessible via the menu, which is really retarded (not that I use anything but the openserverbrowser command, but still….).
18/11/2008 at 10:36 Mark-P says:
Ian – I think it’s more a case of the UK ( and Europe? ) getting it a teensy bit late. Play.com usually ship 3 or so days before release, so fingers crossed for all of us who resisted Valve’s impatience tax that the various e-tailers ship today. I really want to play the game while everyone is still fresh and wide-eyed.
18/11/2008 at 10:39 Leo says:
Can’t wait to try a few campaign after work :)
18/11/2008 at 10:42 Aftershock says:
God dammit.
If only i had a credit card, then this would be mine.
Thanks to the Aussie dollar being shithouse right now, it’s cheaper to order online and have it shipped to me.
18/11/2008 at 10:47 Schmung says:
Am I alone in not loving this game to bits? I’ve run through the demo 7 or so times and it just hasn’t grabbed me or given me that wow factor in any way.
18/11/2008 at 10:49 Mr Pink says:
I’m a bit confused. Game and Amazon are showing release dates of 21/11, yet play are saying ready for dispatch? What’s going on there?
18/11/2008 at 10:53 Adam Hepton says:
Played through the demo and enjoyed it, but found myself not bothered about playing through it again, or indeed playing any more right now. Will wait till the price drops like a sack of shit before I grab it.
18/11/2008 at 11:06 dog says:
found it waiting on steam for me when i got to my computer this morning but found steam froze up on me…. so i decided to be a smart arse and uninstall and reinstall steam…
what i didn’t know (and steam didn’t tell me) is that when you uninstall it it also deletes all 22gigs of steamapps which i had…
got most of them backed up somewhere but obviously not the left 4 dead files…
so currently at 65% downloaded and can hardly wait for work to end ….
18/11/2008 at 11:07 GiGinge says:
i absolutely LOVED the demo but I’m waiting til friday to actually get a boxed version, i still dont 100% trust steam
18/11/2008 at 11:08 the affront says:
Schmung/Adam: If there are free weekends for L4D as there were for TF2, you guys should definitely check it out again. The versus mode is a LOT more fun than the coop (at least for me it is, anyway :P).
Also, the new maps are way more fun than the tiny, cramped demo ones.
18/11/2008 at 11:10 manintheshack says:
GiGinge: Was it seeing other players behind your back? I get kinda jealous too sometimes…
18/11/2008 at 11:27 Kadayi says:
@Cunningbeef
I suspect your comments say more about you than they do about the game tbh.
18/11/2008 at 11:27 cheeba says:
It’s worth reiterating that the full game is massively better than the demo, once the maps start really opening up. Which makes it all the more baffling that they cut the second demo map in half.
The unedited experience is frankly astounding, and would’ve made a much better impression on any demo players still on the fence about the whole thing. And it’s not like it was much more to give away, it’s still only a tiny chunk of the game. Do they not like money or something?
Anyway, this is ace.
18/11/2008 at 11:29 phuzz says:
I bought it cheapish (£25) form shopto.net, and they’re still showing as not being released for three days :(
Still, with the exchange rate it’d be £33ish on Steam, is it worth paying an extra tenner to play now (busy all week so won’t get much chance to play anyway) or cheaper at the weekend (when I’m still busy)?
18/11/2008 at 11:34 phuzz says:
(Oh yeah, is anyone buying the full Valve collection on Steam? $99 is a great price for all of Half-Life and HL2, let alone every other Valve game, let alone L4d)
18/11/2008 at 11:37 ChaosSmurf says:
FYI, unless you bought it on steam, you’ve got another 2 days to wait :) Possibly longer in the EU.
Also, yeah, the demo is pretty shit compared to the full game.
18/11/2008 at 11:45 Schmung says:
sadly no free weekends for me as my PC is simply not up to snuff and thus I have been playing on the 360.
Been talking to a mate about this as we’re both feeling a bit underwhelmed by it. I’ll paste his comment here because I pretty much agree wholeheartedly with it : It’s far too fast paced, I think. It should be a bit slower and you should really have to battle your way through areas, rather than just running and firing. The weapons have got no feel either.
I think that’s the problem I’ve got with it – it feels somewhat flimsy and insubstantial. The zombie movement, weight and animation is lovely, but because they’re so berserk and you run so quickly it changes the nature of the game.
18/11/2008 at 11:48 ChaosSmurf says:
@Schmung: what difficulty are you playing on? Anything above normal and you really can’t just run and gun. Certainly not in the full version, I guess it’s possible in the demo.
18/11/2008 at 11:49 Martin says:
So, I presume the demo isn’t out yet for those of us that didn’t pre-order?
I can’t find it at least…
18/11/2008 at 11:51 ChaosSmurf says:
@Martin: It’s been out for … er … a week or something like that. You can’t access it anymore though, it was locked now that the game is out.
18/11/2008 at 11:55 Martin says:
@ChaosSmurf: So, now that I can buy the game there’s no (legal) way for me to find out if I like it?
Sounds odd.
18/11/2008 at 12:01 Mr Pink says:
Martin: pretty much- crazy if you ask me, but I expect they will do a free weekend at some point.
18/11/2008 at 12:02 Martin says:
To quote the internet: Fail!
Thanks for clearing it up though.
18/11/2008 at 12:02 Schmung says:
@ChaosSmurf : Apparently the demo is a lot easier than the full game, which would explain how we were able to able through on the hardest difficulty without too many problems.
18/11/2008 at 12:09 pepper says:
Really, running and gunning in the demo was a bad idea on export, some teammate once gave that a go, he got us all into trouble.
I still dont understand why they blocked the demo…
18/11/2008 at 12:26 Doctor Doc says:
But for how long? Despite what a lot of fanboys think, TF2 will outlive L4D by far. Its a single player game with teammates, random respawn and a few points where weapons, nades and ammo will spawn. Whatever, L4D, here I come!
18/11/2008 at 12:38 Ben Abraham says:
< is playing catch up. Curse you geographic remoteness and lack of speedy internet access, Australya.
18/11/2008 at 12:43 thefanciestofpants says:
Been playing all day. Brilliant Co-op. Brilliant Versus.
Expectations met.
Back to it!
18/11/2008 at 12:50 Monkfish says:
Being the cheapskate that I am, I’m waiting for my copy to drop through the letterbox.
It’s the first Valve game that I’ve been compelled to buy on disc since the original Half-Life (10th anniversary imminent, BTW) as it was a tenner cheaper than through Steam.
18/11/2008 at 13:08 hydra9 says:
So sad to wave goodbye to the demo last night. But so excited about getting the full version through the door (fingers crossed) this weekend!
Before L4D, I’d said bad things about Steam, and I never had any interest in playing games online. Now all that’s changed.
18/11/2008 at 13:29 Paul Moloney says:
Hopefully play.com is on the ball for pre-orders of this; my pre-order of Fallout 3 (Special Edition) only arrived today. Mail from Budapest (it appears to have been sent from there for some reason) is not quick.
P.
18/11/2008 at 13:35 cyrenic says:
Played the first campaign last night with a friend and two random guys. It was incredible fun. Only two of us made it out, I was not one of them, I got punched off the roof by the tank. Apparently shooting him with the machine gun makes him very mad at you.
I had a lot of fun with the demo, but the full game has far exceeded my expectations. If you have friends and like shooters, go get this!
18/11/2008 at 13:48 Billy says:
Yeah, right off the bat, I got into an expert campaign with my friend and a couple of his friends. I can’t see myself playing this game any other way now.
18/11/2008 at 14:03 Stromko says:
One thing that’s sorta bugged me, I remember quite clearly in that ad that ran after the demo, it said there were 11 new weapons. I’m not the only one who noticed this, I was discussing it with others and although it doesn’t seem like L4D needs more guns necessarily, we agreed that when it said ’11 new weapons’ it could mean nothing else.
There aren’t 11 weapons in the game, and no new ones. I’ve played most of all four campaigns including the ending levels, several in Versus mode as well, and there’s just the same assortment of 2 first-tier, 3 second tier, and 2 explosive weapons in every campaign.
Maybe they’re counting the Infected, but that’s only 8 new weapons total counting both the basic melee and the special attack.
18/11/2008 at 14:18 A-Scale says:
Minigun, stromko.
18/11/2008 at 14:31 Stromko says:
The total count being 10 wasn’t the misunderstanding, the misunderstanding was how the splash screen at the end of the demo said ’10 new weapons’. Seeing as you just completed 1 1/2 levels of the game and already saw all of those weapons, the word ‘new’ suggests that there’s 10 more weapons to play with.
There actually isn’t, to be clear. By ‘new weapons’ they mean ‘we’re not just using the guns from Half-Life 2, but instead, Left 4 Dead has 10 of its own weapons’.
I’m not too sore about it, like I said it doesn’t explicitly need more guns. A given player might swear to any given gun that’s in the game right now since they all fill different roles, and though I could see an UMP-45, a sawed-off shotgun, or dual TMPs SMGs adding a certain texture to the list it’s still a very good game without them.
18/11/2008 at 14:40 solomun says:
Wow, they really did lock the demo, that’s bizarre. Anyone who wants to check that their system can run the game can still grab the demo from torrent sites. Steam-free versions are single-player only, but that’s enough to see if it works on your hardware.
18/11/2008 at 14:51 mandaya says:
honestly. it is beyond me why valve would lock the demo. this is so stupid it hurts. all the people who were already hyped and who got the demo two weeks ago either preordered or will buy anyway. what about those who will inevitably be interested by the torrent of 90+ reviews that are bound to come? sorry, guys, no demo for you: buy the damn thing.
I’m shocked that valve would be so stupid. locking people out of a 3,4 gig demo that’s been in use for 12 days … that’s sure to get eyebows raised. I guess I won’t be able to motivate my now angry casual-gamer-friends who were timidly enthusiastic about maybe buying the game after this fuck you from valve. a shame, really.
18/11/2008 at 15:00 Ian says:
“Apparently shooting him with the machine gun makes him very mad at you.”
In my office and had to stifle an out-loud chuckle at that. :D
18/11/2008 at 15:04 Paul Moloney says:
“honestly. it is beyond me why valve would lock the demo”
Simple; because they figure there are plenty of people out there who loved the demo but are cheap enough that would endlessly replay that rather than buy the game. So this pushs those people to buy the game.
Oh no, yet more Angry Internet Men. So, not offered a permanent online demo is a “fuck you” now. Honestly, are you people just in a permament state of anger about everything? Personally, I’m quite glad such emotionally unbalanced people are kept well away from coop-games.
P.
18/11/2008 at 15:05 ChaosSmurf says:
@Schmung: I assumed the only reason the demo was easier was because it was the first level and a half of the first campaign.
The 10 weapons thing annoyed me too. In fact, the tiny number of weapons annoys me in general.
Blocking the demo was a bit of a bad idea I guess. But they didn’t want people playing it instead of the game. Maybe they overestimated how good the demo was?
18/11/2008 at 15:08 Kieron Gillen says:
My guess?
1) Valve have always got by without a demo before. They figure they don’t need it.
2) They want all the servers to play the full game rather than splitting the effort.
KG
18/11/2008 at 15:19 the affront says:
Also who knows how moddable the demo is.. you could probably just run the retail maps on a demo server, I’d guess.
FYI: apparently only 2 campaigns work as versus as of now, WTF Valve?
18/11/2008 at 15:19 Ian says:
Valve should have made ONE level where there’s an armoury with fancy weapons, just to taunt the people for whom random automatic weapon tables in a train station aren’t enough.
18/11/2008 at 15:19 mandaya says:
@Paul Moloney: “So, not offered a permanent online demo is a “fuck you” now. ” yes it is, if the demo weighs in at a hefty 3.4 gig and is playable for 12 days. I would have no trouble whatsoever with valve kicking the demo in a month or so, but like this, it just makes no sense. the way I see it, valve just shooed away a lot of potential buyers. maybe they don’t need any more, as they’re rightfully the kings of the hill anyway, but it still leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
“So this pushes those people to buy the game. ” agreed – but three more weeks would have pushed a lot more people, no?
“Honestly, are you people just in a permament state of anger about everything? Personally, I’m quite glad such emotionally unbalanced people are kept well away from coop-games.” why, thank you very much for your thoughtful ad-hoc diagnosis of my mental balance. the people actually kept away from this game are, in my case, two friends who would’ve bought the game (the first they ever bought, and they’re well above 30 and quite settled, if that eases your fear of anger-manangement-issues) but feel more than a bit irritated by this.
kicking the demo: sure, I see the point. but kicking the demo the second the game is released? makes no sense. not economically, not in the sense of customer service.
I love Valve as much as anybody, but this sucks.
18/11/2008 at 15:19 Kadayi says:
As Kieron rightly guesses it’s probably all to do with Server allocation. The games going to be busy as hell over the next few days and it makes very little sense to set aside resources for people who aren’t paying to play. What’s worse for your company than people complaining about not being able to play the demo? People complaining about not being able to play the game I suspect.
18/11/2008 at 15:27 Malagate says:
I’d also plant a guess at server allocation, plus this is hardly unprecedented Valve behaviour (see TF2, The Ship). Paying customers should come first, although I don’t necessarily see a problem of unofficial demo servers being hosted by the public.
I can certainly imagine free Left 4 Dead weekends coming along (again see TF 2 and The Ship), especially if they start adding new content, which even speculating about such a thing at the moment might be a little too much for me to handle.
18/11/2008 at 15:32 Paul Moloney says:
Where did Valve say they would have a permanent demo and then went back on their word? I mean, if you downloaded the demo and don’t buy it, you lose nothing anyway. If you downloaded the demo and buy it, you can just unlock the game without any more downloading.
It makes perfect financial sense, if you want to get to the top of the charts quickly, get people on the brink of buying to say “what the hell”, and – as Kieran says – keep people from hogging servers.
The vast majority of potential buyers, being aware of Valve and of the game, having not hid in a hole for the last year, will have played the demo or just bought the game outright.
Oh, well, I’m just glad their behaviour has gone from “angry” to “a bit irritated” in the course of 10 minutes. Hopefully after a nice cup of tea and a sit-down, they will merely be mildly piqued. Mildly Piqued Internet Men, I have no problem with.
P.
18/11/2008 at 15:33 Kieron Gillen says:
You know, if they’d just called it a Closed and Open Beta respectively, no-one would be complaining.
KG
18/11/2008 at 15:39 hydra9 says:
I can understand Valve turning off the multiplayer aspect of the demo, but I’m really surprised they locked the single-player as well. Single-player gives a good taste of the game, and lets people see how it runs on their systems… Surely that’s a good thing?
18/11/2008 at 15:45 RLacey says:
Counting down the days until my Amazon preorder arrives…
18/11/2008 at 15:47 Pags says:
I’m beginning to think that I should’ve shelled out for next day delivery… still would’ve been cheaper (albeit by a few pounds at best) and I wouldn’t have had to wait ’til the weekend to get my next fix. I played my last, rather unsatisfying run-through of the demo last night and I want to remind myself of why it’s so good.
18/11/2008 at 15:50 cyrenic says:
@hydra
Actually single player gives a bad taste of the game. It’s boring :P. It’d be like the Multiwinia demo.
18/11/2008 at 15:56 Conquests.of. says:
I’m one of the sparse let-downs. *wave
I really can’t see this game as serious co-operation, watched couple of videos of the new levels, watched players help each other in undoing boss attacks and reviving, and then again they mostly run about, shootering whatever they see, getting excited at the plot unfolding and cinematic situations while it’s still hot and new. Sure, with your buddies-team you can pretend there’s need for extremely co-ordinated tactics, but you’ll see [quote] “that was unnecessary” [end quote], and the game must be played 100% also with strangers, cause i’d hate playing with the same 3 persons, i’d feel in jail.
I WILL buy the game when prices are sort of halved.
Problem is it’s just a lot of messy but undeniably tasty orgasm-inducing shooting… i’m probably biased cause i don’t like FPS in the first place and this is very basic FPS in the end.
But talking about co-operation in a simple shooter like this is a tad ridiculous… you don’t need to co-op, just to play well and kill the baddies.
Before someone asks, played only in expert, beat the demo level possibly 15 times. I base my judgement on youtube new videos (like hospital roof battle)
18/11/2008 at 16:04 mrrobsa says:
I would say to anyone who was underwhelmed by Left4Dead that I was a little bit disappointed at first, but I reckon that’s because I wasn’t playing it right.
To really get a feel for this game you need to play with 3 other human teammates on a difficulty that’s challenging enough to make you work for your progress. For me and my housemates that was expert. Suddenly there’s tension, drama and a story to each playthrough which changes each time. Even if you fail multiple times, I find it a game that’s genuinely funny when you lose, as your best laid plans go tits up, and I sit there chuckling at my keyboard.
Ace.
18/11/2008 at 16:08 Dan Milburn says:
Kieron: You’re right in that if they’d called the demo an open beta I probably wouldn’t have bothered downloading it in the first place. As it is, I did but for various reasons was unable to get friends to do the same within the window, and yes, I do feel a bit pissed off about that. Either way, Valve don’t get my money until I can evaluate the game properly.
18/11/2008 at 16:08 manintheshack says:
I never expected such controversy to be found around the full release. Considering how, recently, we’ve been conditioned not to expect demos for most games I think Valve did rather well to produce one. I’m surprised anyone can actually be ‘angry’ regarding missing out on something they’re not entitled to. And besides, if they’re that angry about not getting to play it wouldn’t they just buy it (as is Valve’s marketing plan)?
18/11/2008 at 16:17 Conquests.of. says:
“Suddenly there’s tension, drama and a story to each playthrough which changes each time.”
*shakes his head frowningly
I’m sorry but that may be true the first couple of times you play.
Besides, this sort of willing, “receptive” sort of mood you’re describing doesn’t change the fact that inside the players’ mind there’s a simple instruction to follow, that’s to run around shooting, it can fool you in pretending that what you just did was teamwork, and you’re altruist helper and co-operator, when it’s nothing but aim and shoot. Is there even anything wrong with it? Can’t say.
18/11/2008 at 16:18 Heliocentric says:
Never be suprised because internet men are angry.
18/11/2008 at 16:38 Conquests.of. says:
Yeah, I agree, what’s with this demo hiss going on? If you wanna play the game bloody buy it. Why would you wanna play the demo NOW? Naturally by now you already played the demo, so you know if you buy or not… otherwise you can wait a couple of weeks for new trials.
18/11/2008 at 16:41 Chemo says:
Conquests.of. quotes:
“Played for 6 hours non-stop… tried everything.”
“I tried twice in expert mode, We died, naturally”
“I really wanna like this game, but I don’t find a challenge!”
“Before someone asks, played only in expert”
18/11/2008 at 16:43 Martin says:
I understand that Valve doesn’t want to host servers for demo purposes only and playing this in single player doesn’t seem very appealing but if there’d be a demo where I’d need to host my own server (the PC I’m playing from perhaps) and only allow LAN play then that’d be very good enough.
I will get it sooner or later but not now. A demo might have changed that.
@maintheschack: I always expect demos of a new game but that might be because I’m spoiled by the Xbox 360 experience.
18/11/2008 at 16:45 Martin says:
@conquest.of: No, I haven’t played the demo by now. Naturally.
Will there be new trials in a couple of weeks? Cool.
18/11/2008 at 16:59 Conquests.of. says:
Chemo:
Wth? That was a comment made during the demo days. Now ofc I played Expert mode to the pont I can say I basically only played expert. what’s the fricking crack?
18/11/2008 at 17:08 PaulMorel says:
This was the game that I wanted most this year. I thought that it would never come. Unfortunately, much like my most-longed-for game of 2007, Hellgate: London, it is kind of underwhelming.
Yes, the director concept SLIGHTLY varies the playing experience for each playthrough. But it’s not enough to make each playthrough feel like a new experience.
Overall, the game is good, but it definitely doesn’t live up to the (ridiculously high) expectations set by Valve’s last few releases.
18/11/2008 at 17:24 neko says:
Okay, I liked the demo. But how long is the full game? 20 levels? 10 hours? anyone know?
18/11/2008 at 17:26 Jim Rossignol says:
Four hours end to end. Which is kind of missing the point.
18/11/2008 at 17:31 neko says:
I only ask to make sure that co-op isnt boring. To few levels will make its repetitive, even with the switch up in weapons/zombies/etc. Thanks tho
18/11/2008 at 17:38 Gorgeras says:
Think of it more like Team Fortress 2, where a full map cycle is about two hours. Unfortunately it isn’t priced like TF2.
Anyone know exactly how much it costs in the UK on Steam? Need to know because I really want to play NOW, but don’t want to pay through the nose if I can just wait until friday and get it for £25-ish if I pop into my local GAME tomorrow and pre-order. Someone said £33, but I don’t think that includes the VAT.
18/11/2008 at 17:53 Lorc says:
£33 that’s certainly the right ballpark as I remember. The best UK price I found was amazon.co.uk – £22 after shipping. £20 if you go super-spendthrift “it arrives whenever it feels like arriving” delivery.
I’d normally like to give money straight to the developers without the retail cut, but I’m not going to pass up more than a tenner’s difference, especially when I can register my retail copy with steam anyway.
I wonder why there’s such a difference between Steam’s price and UK retail – normally it’s the other way around. I’m not cynical enough to believe that valve are charging a premium to get in on the action 3 days only. Maybe something to do with the recent “correction” of the USD/GBP exchange rate?
18/11/2008 at 17:57 Lorc says:
UK steam price breakdown:
Steam price: $49.99
Converted into GBP: £33.33
With VAT added: £39.16
Yikes. Assuming I’ve not made some schoolboy error, that’s a thirty pound disagreement with amazon.
18/11/2008 at 18:01 Lorc says:
A schoolboy error like putting the decimal point in the wrong place *grumble grumble*
/Actual/ UK price after VAT: £33.91
18/11/2008 at 18:07 Fumarole says:
Co-op is not needed? Then leave your buddies in the safe room and go through alone on expert mode. Simply playing well, as stated above, will not be sufficient for success.
18/11/2008 at 18:10 Conquests.of. says:
“PaulMorel: the director concept SLIGHTLY varies the playing experience for each playthrough. But it’s not enough to make each playthrough feel like a new experience.”
Entirely agreed. I don’t see why the game should be considered more than just “see thing, shoot thing”, co-operation gameplay is enormously over-rated, imo.
18/11/2008 at 18:12 Conquests.of. says:
“Co-op is not needed? Then leave your buddies in the safe room”
And that’s all the co-operation there is? open a door to resurrect the buddy? Wow, situation is more tragical than I thought.
18/11/2008 at 18:13 cyrenic says:
Don’t feed the troll.
18/11/2008 at 18:15 Fumarole says:
Yes, because that’s exactly what I said now, isn’t it? Sigh. You said co-op is not needed, and all you have to do is play well to succeed. That simply will not work in this game.
co-operation gameplay is enormously over-rated, imo.
This statement right here says everything we need to know about why you don’t like this game.
18/11/2008 at 18:30 Conquests.of. says:
@Fumarole: you really mean to tell me that reviving and resurrecting and killing a smoker behind your buddy is “co-operation”?
O’course i meant co-operation gameplay of L4D, not in general… I love co-op, but it has to be way more interesting than what it is in this game.
18/11/2008 at 18:33 Conquests.of. says:
cyrenic says: Don’t feed the troll.
Sure, sure, call someone a troll because he doesn’t like your game and you only wanna hear enthousiastic praises.
18/11/2008 at 18:50 Chris R says:
To those grumbling about being under-whelmed:
Play on Expert with a group of friends you know. Don’t play the single player by yourself, it’s not fun. This game is all about Co-op. It’s a frickin’ blast with real life buds.
Also just wait until modders start adding new maps to play through, like that TF2 Dustbowl map that someone converted. This game is going to be huge.
18/11/2008 at 19:03 Conquests.of. says:
My friends don’t play with pc. Shouldn’t I buy the game?
Is it my fault… or the game’s?
18/11/2008 at 19:18 Jim Rossignol says:
It’s the game’s fault! Stupid game, what was it thinking!
Conquests: you’ve said you don’t like the game. Okay, fine. Don’t buy it. No one wants to convince you to like it.
18/11/2008 at 19:52 Piratepete says:
decrypt faster damn you
*whips Pc into a lather*
18/11/2008 at 20:20 Mark-P says:
I get £39.38 as the current Steam price from my sums ($50 + VAT + conversion via xe.com/ucc ). Almost double Amazon’s cheapest. That’s just awful, and the recent slide in the pound is only half to blame.
On that note, everyone’s favourite Jersey tax-dodgers have had my copy listed as ‘packing’ for the past 6 hours. Come on lads. Get our ‘gifts’ on the plane.
I feel sorry for those who can’t love this game. I played the demo into the ground with loads of lovely random players and I’m looking forward to doing the same in the full game.
18/11/2008 at 20:39 Conquests.of. says:
Jim Rossignol:
And so much for an open discussion with who didn’t like the game.
Always a pleasure to discuss in the net.
18/11/2008 at 20:43 Nick says:
Its only 4 hours if you don’t have to restart at all ¬_¬
18/11/2008 at 20:44 Nick says:
And you aren’t discussing you are just going on and on and on, your point as been made – you don’t like it, fair enough.
18/11/2008 at 20:45 Frans Coehoorn says:
Why didn’t I pre-order the damn thing? :( ….
18/11/2008 at 20:51 Saflo says:
Side note:
According to Steam stats, there are almost as many people playing Football Manager 2009 as Left 4 Dead.
What?
18/11/2008 at 20:54 Nick says:
Well, thats pretty impressive as Footall Manager has a huge following.
18/11/2008 at 21:01 Guido says:
I did take the day off today. Played for 6 hours, and then Last Night on Earth (Zombie board game, 4 heroes against tons of zombies, where do we know that from?) arrived and I didn’t play L4D anymore for the rest of the day…
Until now, 10pm, and it’s time to jump into the zombie apocalypse onscreen again :P
18/11/2008 at 21:25 Conquests.of. says:
“Nick says:
And you aren’t discussing you are just going on and on and on, your point as been made – you don’t like it, fair enough.”
…and I heartily thank you for both telling me what im doing and telling me what I can and cannot do in a free space.
All hail the cyberREICH of terror.
18/11/2008 at 22:17 Chris R says:
Conquests:
Basing your opinion of the game on Youtube videos is hardly the way to go about it. Those videos were posted by people that wanted to be the first ones on Youtube with gameplay videos, so they could receive lots of hits to their video. They weren’t playing cooperatively at all, and were basically just screwing around.
Get the game, play it on Expert with a group of buddies (real life friends are best), and you’ll have a totally different experience. It’s one of the best coop games I’ve ever played.
18/11/2008 at 22:33 n3utr0n says:
“…and I heartily thank you for both telling me what im doing and telling me what I can and cannot do in a free space.
All hail the cyberREICH of terror.”
You’ve got as much a right to bitch as they do to tell you to shut the hell up ;)
18/11/2008 at 23:14 Boots says:
I asked for this one for Christmas.. it’s going to be difficult to wait!
http://achievements.b-pops.com/Waited+Till+Christmas/100/
19/11/2008 at 01:14 Stromko says:
Boots: Wonder if you’ll get it just in time for an extra-special seasonal content release. They could call it Dead Friday or All Saints Dead or Dead Dead Dead (For Christmas) to continue the theme. The whole point of it could be summed up in three words:
Mall Santa Tank. (Throws presents to incapacitate survivors)
Perfume Department Witch. (Oh god she’s got a ranged attack!)
Christmas Elf Hunter. (Get this munchkin off me!)
Smoker in an unfashionable sweater! (Yeah I ran out of ideas fast)
19/11/2008 at 01:43 Conquests.of. says:
Ok I’ll just ask a serious constructive question, without any trace of bias (and trolling)
Part of me understands this is an FPS and mainly one is supposed to shoot anything that moves, with joy, pathos, skill and good animations
But another part of me can’t help but notice the scantiness of real interaction… in the best of cases, and i mean the best, the players conceive attack and defense schemes and formations, retreats, run routes with waypoints from A to B, to regroup, split in 2 groups, scatter, all this exciting stuff that naturally requires extreme co-operation and co-ordination.
The question is, is it really necessary? Isn’t enough to simply aim and shoot efficiently instead, fast and not forget to cover and support team-mates and eventually reviving them?
And in this case, isn’t the co-op factor a little over-rated in this game?
Plus, aren’t you all pushing this “play with real-life friends” feat way too much? Pretty much any game is ludicrous fun when you play with your chums. Even fricking mIRC, for god sake.
19/11/2008 at 02:55 shon says:
Does anyone have a favorite campaign yet? I enjoyed the crap out of Death Toll. That church fight was awesome.
19/11/2008 at 02:59 hydra9 says:
Conquests:
It does seem that the game may be lacking the level of coordination you desire.
But you’re right: It is ludicrous fun.
19/11/2008 at 05:11 john t says:
I say we start a collection to buy conquest a game that he’ll actually enjoy so he’ll find something else to do.
19/11/2008 at 11:02 manintheshack says:
Played the first three campaigns through last night with a bunch of strangers, no one with voice chat. By the end of play we were working constructively as a team, devising strategies and getting on extraordinarily well. Haven’t made Steam friends previously in any online game, but the numbers go up with L4D every time I play.
And playing through as much of the game as I did last night, to say that cooperative play doesn’t come into it and it’s all about the shooting is nuts. It is all about shooting cooperatively. The amount you have to replay if you all fuck up is much greater in the full game than in the demo, so you need to get your act together. The scripted horde trigger moments are a perfect example of this. You need to take different roles, using your weapons effectively and, if it all goes to shit, you need to adapt those roles on the fly. Teamwork is paramount to survival, especially in the last section of each campaign.
Brilliant, brilliant game. Especially when it all goes tits up despite rigorous planning. Taking the macho stance last night was my failing, being the first point of contact for a triggered horde, perched on a pile of luggage. ‘I’ll stay here and shotty from the front’ I said. The instant the switch was activated a stream of vomit fell upon me and then the horde. But I was saved by our man up high, snipering from safety. Gawd bless cooperative play.
19/11/2008 at 11:16 Kieron Gillen says:
Gauntlet was awesome, Conquest.of. If you don’t like Gauntlet, you can’t come around my house and eat my birthday cake.
KG
19/11/2008 at 14:36 Paul Moloney says:
My play.com L4D order has had a status of “packing” since yesterday. Jesus, lads, how long does it take you to put a DVD case into a padded envelope? Hurry up there.
P.
19/11/2008 at 14:44 Larington says:
My first visit to a quickmatch server was ok but server was clearly struggling when a horde pounced, until I got booted because one of the owners decided to jump in. Thanks for that.
Second attempt I ended up in a server where hordes were piling on insanely and then whilst me and another were incapacitated one of the two still standing decided that now the wave were gone he’d just wipe us both out. So I guess that presumably someone has struck upon the idea of forced TK respawn in order to prevent wasted health packs.
The last server went link dead 20 seconds into play.
Maybe I should go back to single player.
19/11/2008 at 14:51 Conquests.of. says:
KK, guys, if you really think there’s actual tactical and deep co-op in the shooting, I take cognizance of it.
And I’ll buy the game soon.
Cheers.