Just a tiny snippet of almost-news before bed. Valve have slipped out the information (via IGN) that joining Left 4 Dead 2’s arsenal of melee weapons is a cricket bat. The awfully British sports-stick will be yet another way to brutally smash zombies out of your path. Having previously played with both the axe and the frying pan, I can assure you that the melee combat is something pretty special. With the freshly regioned bodies of the Horde, taking aim before lashing out brings gruesome rewards. While no one’s seen the cricket racquet in action, it seems safe to assume that aiming at legs is going to produce something dreadful. As for faces – there’s a hint in the pic above. Click on it to see the full version available on IGN’s site, with a fat IGN logo on it to ruin your desktop. (In case you’re wondering about the lack of cricket puns here, Orlando Parfitt used them all up in IGN’s story, leaving a global drought for all other sites.) Read all our Left 4 Dead 2 coverage here.
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Allow me to be the latest to say
“We take Pete’s car, we drive over to mum’s, we go in, take care of Phillip – “I’m so sorry Phillip”. – then we grab mum, we go over to Liz’s place, hole up, have a nice cup of tea and wait for all this to blow over.”
Yes. YES. YEEEEEEEEEEEEES! “Yeeeaaaah boooiiii”!
Umm.. This is set in America, right? Is cricket even invented there yet?
No, Po0py, but plenty of folks here have seen Shaun of the Dead.
And that’s really the point.
Lovely!
I love that screen pic…a man wearing a cap with the England flag twatting a zombie in an Auzzie shirt…will this be reflected in the Ashes this week?…we can but hope
Really should have read the IGN report before pretty much saying the same pun :(
Also, let’s scream Howzat at a Hunter. I guess we can scrape something from the pun pool!
Deadjim: no, no it wont. If anything the Brits will be clubbing themselves to death.
This guy better be able to double jump.
Cricket bat YES.
He’s got red on him.
@Deadjim
“will this be reflected in the Ashes this week?”
What’s this ‘Ashes’ business? I keep seeing it mentioned but I have no idea what it is.
You could say you were left stumped, right?
@The_B: We have a winner, folks!
How’s that for a slice of Fried Gold?
@The_B: That one had me bowled over.
More melee weapons are welcome, but nothing beats humiliating your zombie friends by killing them with a medkit.
I’d like to see a can of coke in a sock as a melee weapon. Or a tin of beans, doesn’t have to be coke. Very effective improvised weapon in real life… if you have the time to make it.
First person to make a convincing Simon Pegg character skin for L4D2 will get a reasonably cheap Steam game gifted to him or her by me! :)
Even better, Shaun of the Dead skins for the whole team? Or evener bettererer, two different teams – one skins of Pegg’s group, the other of Jessica Stevenson’s!
The Ashes is the Superbowl of international Cricket (well… kinda). More on Wikipedia >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_ashes
PS. Australia is going to win and be covered in glory. Hahaha.
M.P. for president. Of Valve?
Anyway, this makes me very happy.
This makes me feel better about Valve doing a wrong’un by making this.
even if it didn’t have a cricket bat, I would buy it anyway probably ¬_¬
I wish, I’d sell out to MS and become filthy stinking rich :(
Thanks for the wiki article, squadman. This is why I love reading about international sports–creepy/incomprehensible terms followed by misunderstood definitions and weeping.
Fickle crowd.
Wow, a cricket bat gets a front page post on RPGs?
Why not turn it into premium DLC, available for only £4.59. Or better – L4D3 – Mission Commonwealth!
… sorry about the cynicsm, but Valve selling us frying pans as major game improvements just doesn’t fly for me… :(
Not quite sure if this is an all-out appeal to the Wisden-owners among us or not, but now is offically the time I make the declaration of my interest in this game.
Ok I know this is a silly point to make but its a pity there’ll be no ball in play. I’m fully aware I must be the third man to use this pun. (Yes there is no way I’m gonna let any cricket pun go bye unused)
Shit I think I’ve run out.
DUCKWORTH-LEWIS.
The United States does have an international one day cricket team so there are cricket bats over in the states so… oh who cares! Using cricket bats as melee weapons has been awesome ever since The Young Ones and using cricket bats as melee weapons against zombies has now been elevated to classic status by Shaun of the Dead so lets just give Valve some artist license ‘kay. It’s just awesome, is all!
@ M.P.
http://www.l4dmods.com/index.php?option=com_joomloads&view=package&Itemid=2&packageId=191
Not mine, but hey.
It’s a wind-up, right?
I mean, the ’screenshot’ is clearly a mix of in-game graphics and concept art (look at the Australia jersey and cricket helmet). Besides, a cricket bat doesn’t fit at all with the southern USA setting.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see a cricket bat in L4D2. I just think that this particular article is a spoof.
@Noghri: Hah, it’s terrible but it could be far worse.
Now they just need one (mini?) finale to make L4D2 the greatest game ever…
The Winchester.
Valve’s Chet Faliszek says that “I once joked that we could put $20 in a box and charge $10 for it, and someone’s going to complain.”
I think I’m with David on this one, that screenshot must a joke from somebody, right? IGN seem like the most likely culprit.
this pictures depicts the only way anyone english could ever beat an australian with a cricket bat* i.e. if the australian was a zombie and was lacking the faculties required for this greatest of all sports
*2005 doesn’t count, smarty-pants
@sheeple
And that kind of comment is the reason my opinion of Valve is rapidly deteriorating. They really need some new PR people, their handling of this mess has done nothing but exacerbate the problem.
John you know the Aussies>Poms in cricket, that picture is lies and slander
Valve: We are adding 4 new maps. Reskinning the models and adding melee weapon. And all this for mere 50$ !
Fans: Yay! I have bought unsupported , mini game L4D.
And I am surely going to buy L4D2 , cause i am sucker !
Ugh no edit button, I’m sick and tired of people getting so worked up over all of this. These are the guys who made: HL, HL2, portal, tf2, cs etc, all amazing games, and they bring out a sequel to a game to quickly and everyone is up in arms? Go bash someone that deserves it, EA is a good start.
+1 for Ashes-related humour.
>>Valve’s Chet Faliszek says that “I once joked that we could put $20 in a box and charge $10 for it, and someone’s going to complain.”<<
This was slimy comment , insulting to gamers that are very people buying your game , and once praised Valve.
I really dont know what happened to them. What a slip.
@Lobotomist:
It’s still a true comment.
You simple can’t please everyone and if you try, you’ll just end up screwing things up more (see the TF2 item drop update).
I guess people just aren’t use to valve releasing games this fast, since L4D sequal is being released faster than say a Half life 2 episode.
Thing is, Chet’s right.
I mean, Orange Box was ten bucks a few weeks back. That’s a party in the streets level deal, and one game (with unannounced price) coming out as a larger sequel leads to riot worthy anger?
I mean, L4D2 for 50 bucks would be… unfortunate, but c’mon. Wait for the price at least before being too up in arms.
@Bret
Umm, the price IS $50:
http://www.amazon.com/Left4Dead-2-Pc/dp/B002BRYXRQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1243962764&sr=8-1
If this were a $20 (or even $30) expansion pack I doubt you’d see any significant bitching.
Vinraith, your link isn’t loading for me.
Wait, NM, it worked on a second try. Shit… I’m still holding out hope for a discounted version on Steam for L4D owners (after all, if you don’t own L4D then it makes perfect sense to pay $50 for L4D2), but we’ll see. At the end of the day if it turns out to be a ripoff my friends and I can always move on to other games. We already kinda have, really.
Hahaha.
England won’t take back the ashes. Keep dreaming fellas, it’ll be a fair while yet.
@invisiblejesus
It’s just a link to the amazon.com store page for L4D2. All you’d have to do is go to Amazon and search for the game. The pre-order price is $47.99, indicated as a $2 discount from the MSRP of $49.99.
@invisiblejesus
Ah, worked after all, nm then. I still think the whole thing would have made more sense as an expansion. Integrated servers, integrated content, backwards compatibility with L4D mods, all of these would be givens under those circumstances. The price would be easier to swallow, and there’d be no sense that L4D was being replaced. I genuinely can’t fathom what they were thinking marketing this as a full priced complete sequel…
Ah, the sound of willow on face. I called this when l4d came out.