You’d have thought with RPS’ extensive Left 4 Dead coverage, we’d have written all pallid, unattractive men could stand to hammer about zombies tearing flesh. And normally you’d be right. But you forgot about the most potent power-up. Money. Lots of Money. And if there’s one thing that RPS is good at, it’s selling our God-given-lack-of talent for a few tiny coins to spend on crisps. Hence Alec and I have bent to the will of our evil corporate paymasters and reviewed it for them. Now, who reviewed it for IGN and who reviewed it for Eurogamer? Guess, before clicking…
Ah, well, I wrote it for Eurogamer and Alec wrote it for IGN. Perhaps obviously, as IGN have never hired me to work for them ever. Man! Anyway, this is how he starts…
The title’s all wrong. Not just because some befuddled fool is bound to wonder how they missed Left 3 Dead – the film The Madness of King George III being retitled the Madness of King George for just that reason remains one of modern cinema’s finest facepalm moments. It’s also because 4’s ultimately the wrong number. It’s not a four-player game, not really. Yes, there’s an extensive four-player co-op campaign, which offers a good eight hours of slaying zombies in their thousands. And, incidentally, we really mean thousands – your kill count will comfortably hit five figures within a week or two of regular play.
And continues in a similar vein.
Meanwhile, I start like this…
My favourite moment in Left 4 Dead? I’m playing Versus mode, and we’ve reached the apex of the Blood Harvest campaign in a desperate farmhouse siege against overwhelming odds. I’m part of the overwhelming odds, playing the corpulent blob that is the Boomer. I wobble up to a window and look inside, to see Louis firing away desperately at the horde around him. I just watch, smiling, waiting for him to turn in my direction. Only when he does, when he realises that I’m standing there, do I spray him with my zombie-attracting vomit, prompting another wave of infected to crowd in and hammer him to death.
Actually, writing about Blood Harvest reminds me of something that may be even better.
And continue like that for a good 400 words before I even start explaining what the game’s like. Ah, I’ll never learn.
Probably a good time to say publicly that I didn’t write my Eurogamer strap-line. Mine was presumably too long. But frankly, since it’s an awesome “It’s braining men” I wish I did. All credit to whoever hammered it out, presumably Tom “Tom Bramwell” Bramwell.
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Am I missing something in the IGN review? 6 infected, 5 of them playable?
No Xander77, you’re missing something is this thread…
http://www.snopes.com/movies/films/george.asp
Apocryphal story is apocryphal.
(The UT weapons are supposed to be weak in their normal modes, all bar the minigun have a 1-hit-kill, hard to pull off special function of some kind. Deathmatch with overpowered weapons doesn’t require enough skill and is boring.)
Snopes is run by the lizard people so you can’t trust what it says.
The HL2 SMG is a pretty weak weapon, so that’ll probably be why it feels.. well, weak.
The HL2 shotgun is pretty much perfect, I feel (and I do enjoy the .44 Magnum and the Pulse Rifle immensely too – right nice bit of BLAM BLAM BLAM they’ve got going there..).
Oh god, where do I go to check that!?
WHO SNOPES THE SNOPES!??
BE ADVISED!
This game is good, but also mildly disappointing.
I must say, I also liked HL2->Ep1&2 *despite* the weapons and effect they have.
There’s not a single one there that feels “right”. The MP7 is clattery and weak, the pulse rifle sprays everywhere and I never could work out that is going on with its model with that roundy bit. I won’t go on, but I could.
I’m not one of those into gun pr0n, but Valve guns never feel remotely ‘real’ compared to something like CoD4.
L4D is the closest they’ve ever got. There’s still a disconnect between shot and effect (you could be generous and put it down to lag), but they feel meaty and dangerous, and the zombies ragdoll very well which backs up the force of impact.
Easy guesswork. My copy arrives tomorrow. :)
Oh man, the cornfield…
I was playing Campaign with Cyrenic and a couple of others last night and we got to our first cornfield. We weren’t doing too well, and a couple of bad swarms on entering the cornfield had caused us all to get separated and two people were down dead.
Us last 2 survivors made a mad dash out of the field, and the whole time I can hear a Boomer belching somewhere around us. A Boomer is the last thing we need (well one of 5 last things) so having got very lost I finally meet up with the other person and we spy the house and sprint out of the cornfield, me running backwards firing randomly hoping to hit the boomer.
That was intense.
I fear the cornfield.
That was me that sprinted out of the cornfield with you :D. Damn watering apparatus blocking our way.
Deformable corn for L4D sequel.
Also, anyone else feel the M16 could do with a buff? It fits into an uncomfortable niche where it’s not as good as the rifle at long range, and worse than the shotty at close range, and the ammo runs out way too soon.
I thought it was great in the demo, but I avoid it now.
Also, I saw the super generic announcement for the next Terminator film-game tie-in (”action packed gameplay and detailed environments.” ) my first thought was:
Terminator mod for L4D!
I’ve only played the first campaign on second hardest difficulty and anyone else find it a bit easy?
@AsubstanceD Yes, that’s why they have Advanced and Expert mode :)
@dartt He might mean Advanced. Second hardest could be the second to the hardest i.e. advanced
That is right. I meant advanced. Haha. I look forward to playing it on expert, I am loving this game. I hope to see some of you guys playing it online soon.
I will get more play-time out of this game than any other for years. I would pay double the sticker price.
Eleven out of ten.
There’s one major flaw with this game, and that is the respawn time for the infected is way too long. It needs to be taken down to at least 10 seconds. I mean in a shoot ‘em up game where you can die easily, you don’t realy want to have to wait half a minute for each respawn!
Dan, you’ve got it all wrong about the infected spawn times.
If it was any faster the survivors would never have a chance. The spawn time is ideal. It strikes a great balance of not overwhelming the survivors while keeping them under constant pressure. It is short enough that the infected cannot ignore the game, but not so short that suicide is rewarded.
It encourages smart gameplay on both sides.
this game to me is a 12 out of 10. Game of the year. Just wanted to say this. Bye