By Jim Rossignol on July 26th, 2009 at 5:28 pm.
The GameTrailers Flame-ringed Eye of Record-on was in attendance at San Diegeo Comic Con, and it happened to capture the soul of Valve’s Chet Faliszek, while also hoovering up tonnes of Left 4 Dead 2 in-game footage, which you can see below. Faliszek does the talky, while there’s also a load of shooty. And it rather reminds me why we love this game so much: violence, violence, quips and violence. The Charger is in there too. Beautiful stuff. I think you’re going to want to take a look…
its painful to watch how badly the survivors play on these videos
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Which video has the AK in it?
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@Sitting Duck
Honestly it make the game look terrible when terrible people play it.
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Don’t forget the Stay Out video!
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/sdcc-09-left-4-dead/53362
Shows the Ferry panic event in more detail. :D
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Overall the game looks great, but the characters seem really annoying. Even on the short videos I felt like the game needs a sound mod.
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I wasn’t a fan of the design of the four new survivors, these videos also didn’t make me a fan of their voice-acting.
The original survivors were better at exhibiting emotion in their voices when in danger.
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To be fair it is the xbox version, aiming leaves much to be desired I’m sure.
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“…you meet with the swamp people…”
gee… does he mean dyrads or wild elves…
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Also, I nearly punched my monitor after reading some the comments under the videos.
DURR HURR IT’S THE SAME ENGINE THUS IT’S THE SAME GAME. BOYCOTT. These people are like the Ron Paul fanatics from the American elections last year, there were very few them but they some how managed to be the most vocal online.
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Aargh this is looking better and better every time I see it.
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@LQB: You realize, the first post whining about boycotters came quicker than any of the boycotter themselves? Talking about screen-punching…
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Man, Source is really starting to show its age in some places.
Also not sold on the new survivor looks or voices, and some of the weapons just seem a bit silly and over the top. (come on, a grenade launcher? Why not the nuke catapult from Fallout 3 while we’re at it?)
I’m sure the game will be fun, but some of the changes really seem pointless and/or go against what really characterized L4D.
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Durr hurr it is not the same engine thus same game boycott durr hurr. Early stupid adopters bought a halfarsed game and they are releasing the better better version with more bells and whistles.
Seriously before taking sides in an internets wars at least check what people are fighting/crying/bossing/against it because being against people being against some thing is moar mature. According to that logic Quake I/II owners should have sued when HL was released. Or better yet HL2, Ep.1-2, TF2, Portal, L4D should have been given free of charge for CS:S owners because they are all the same engine and CS:S used it first…
Or the crapzirillion of Unreal Games…
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Enough L4D coverage already!
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What were they thinking with those character designs?
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‘Axe me a question. Go on I dare you.’
That line sold the game once and for all to me. Its tacky and silly, but looks so very fun. The new characters look interesting in my opinion, it will be good to see how they actually play in game and then how they compare to the original 4. But fresh new characters is a welcome change I say. The original 4 are great fun, but whats wrong with shaking things up a bit with new faces?
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So much want! Looks great :)
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Shameless plug. Boycott this
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Hmmm? What’s wrong with the characters? I like them. :o Especially Rochelle. Awesome replacement for Zoey tbh, we could’ve been given someone a lot worse.
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Jalf, are you kidding? L4D needs more fun/silly weapons.
The shotgun with flame ammo reminded me of playing NOLF2, dear god shooting commies with an AK loaded with phosphorus ammo was fun.
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The third video seems to be the same 30 seconds of footage from the end of the second.
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“(come on, a grenade launcher? Why not the nuke catapult from Fallout 3 while we’re at it?)”
What’s wrong with a grenade launcher? Those things aren’t exactly uncommon in the US. (That model in particular)
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This actually make me feel things:
– Horror, is working for me. It make me feel what you are supposed to feel in a horror zombie game.
– Horror about how *terribad* play this dude.
– Renowed excepticism. Some things change for good, others looks changed to look more like Half-Life2. Grenade explosion is very HL2. These zombies on fire are toally HL2. This make the game look like less a game, and more like a map-mod for HL2. Ravenhold 2.0.
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“more like a map-mod for HL2. Ravenhold 2.0.”
With the worst server browser ever graced a FPS game.
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I’m really looking forward to L4D2 but, I just can’t bring myself to like the new characters nearly as much as the old cast (bar Francis). Maybe they’ll grow on me as I play.
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I hate console FPS’s.
Press Y to pick up! Press left to switch weapon!
Sensitivity 3, smoothing mlook. WTF.
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Perhaps I’m in the minority, but one of the things I liked about L4D was that you weren’t a walking armoury. It was about the zombies, not about a group of superheroes carrying two of every weapon ever invented.
Cricket bats, grenade launchers, incendiary ammo all just feels more like a “wouldn’t it be cool if” brainstorming session than actual content chosen because it fit the game.
@Tei: What the heck is excepticism? :D
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Not to put too fine a point on it, but why would you use a suppressor on an uzi in a fight against zombies?
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With the worst sever browser ever graced and FPS game.
You, my friend, have clearly never played Battlefield 2.
I’m still unsure how to feel about L4D2. The new weapons certainly seem like they may add a little more dynamism and flexibility to tactics, and the longer campaigns interest me.. But on the other hand, the characters aren’t selling themselves to me, and this really is very soon for a sequel, especially if it comes at the expense of new campaigns for L4D.
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Valve…up yours you greedy, backstabbing bastards :)
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“You, my friend, have clearly never played Battlefield 2.”
Eh, it was a lot better than L4Ds was actually. Which is saying something.
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Oh, Valve.
How many sharks are you determined to jump with this… aberration?
*sigh*
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@Meat Circus: I think you mean zombie dolphins…. with laser eyes.
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“GarshDarn says:
I hate console FPS’s.
Press Y to pick up! Press left to switch weapon!
Sensitivity 3, smoothing mlook. WTF.”
I hate people who don’t not what options are for, sensitivity 3 lmao.
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Would the boycotters please just shut up? You’ve made your position clear – you won’t be buying this game. Good. Great. We all fucking know from the last dozen threads you’ve derailed with this shit. SHUT UP NOW and let the rest of us actually talk about the game.
You insufferable jerks have made it impossible to talk about this game like grown adults. I hope you’re proud. You’ve probably not even put a fraction of a dent in the sales figures at the end of the day, but you’ve made it a pain to discuss, and lowered the tone of forums across the net.
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“Ye, though I walk through the valley of the Shadow of Death…”
SOLD.
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Watch out Valve, the Fun Police are after you.
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I don’t understand, it looks awesome, more l4d. Woo!
I’ll be waiting for weekend deal* but i’ll be buying it and enjoying it. I’m glad that they are remixing the combat style, i hope that the dynamic maps meet their potential. If the modders can tap into the dynamic maps some wonderful things could happen.
*as i’ve not finished l4d
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‘Axe me a question. Go on I dare you.’
Really… that line “sold the game for you”? I double-facepalmed the moment I heard it. I actually always liked the characters/settings, but the voicework sounds kinda shoddy there.
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It looks like the Spitter is going to be a big fix for the sort of gameplay Valve wanted to remove; survivors bunching up in some defensible position. The Charger has the potential to be OP, but I guess it depends on how much damage he can take.
Can’t bring myself to like the new characters, but maybe they’ll grow on you. Still disappointed the original crew didn’t get some more love; the Valve guy at Showdown promised new intro videos and maps.
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The new girl is cool. I like her.
Fat dude reminds me of uncle Phil from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air; I can’t get around that for some reason. Never liked his character.
Redneck bothers me and I don’t know why.
I don’t know what to think of the other guy.
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@Dominic White
“Would the boycotters please just shut up?”
No. Certainly not when we’re pre-emptively attacked in every thread that comes up about this game. I continue to see far more hostility from the anti-boycott segment of the population than I do from those of us concerned about Valve’s business direction, at least on RPS.
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Much as it pains me to see Valve working on something that actually looks genuinely bad, they really should have had the decency to be ashamed at demoing this DLC in such a wretched state.
It looks like a half-arsed fan mod.
Incendiary ammo? Grenade launcher? FOR FUCK’S SAKE.
Still, good to see the cosy relationship twixt Valve and RPS means it will never get anything other than breathless, dribbling sycophancy from the hive mind.
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Psyk (thinking he’s being clever) said: “I hate people who don’t not what options are for, sensitivity 3 lmao.”
Yeah because, playing with the 360 controller, it looks like they’re panning the view around with the PC equivalent of mouse sensitivity on 3 , with movement smoothing on.
Have you seen how quickly superior master race PC gamers “look around” with their mice in FPS games?
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It does seem odd to go from a game that was trying to be deeply atmospheric (but was still just short of scary IMO) to the comedy zombie apocalypse, complete with over the top accents and grenade launchers. I’d have liked to have seen them go the other direction, towards something more Ravenholm-esque, but then again there are a lot of things I’d like to have seen them do different with L4D2. Apparently it’s going to sell like crazy, though, so what do I know?
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Oh my god! The game is so great the Valve should charge 100$ for it!
I mean rehashed levels, few more enemy models and few new weapon meshes are totally worth it!!
And in 4 months I hope Valve abandons this game to and releases another expansion .. i mean new game and charges me again for few more gimmicks !!!
I love being a good consumer!
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@Vinraith
I think their intended focus was to add more stuff so killing infected was just more fun. L4D was more about…surviving? I guess? I mean, there weren’t many weapons to choose from; the idea seemed to be to get from point A to point B with a minimal amount of casualties.
L4D2, on the other hand, seems to be all about killing a bunch of infected in different ways (while also getting from point A to point B).
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@coupsan
I kind of liked the sense of… desperate minimalism I guess. Any chance of a zombie apocalyspe being frightening kind of goes out the window when you’ve got grenade launchers, it seems to me.
Then again, I’m obviously not the target audience here.
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As someone said in the Sunday Papers thread, you boycotters have gotten so utterly obnoxious – flooding en-masse into any thread anywhere on the internet discussing this game – that I want to by a dozen copies now just to spite you. I was actually fairly apathetic about the game when it was first announced, but I think I’ll probably preorder it now, because you are just being so fucking irritating that I want to do something to anger you further. Well done.
You are also making me hate PC gamers more and more, because even the most rabid of Nintendo fanboys isn’t as persistantly, irritatingly obsessive in their whining.
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Really, the grenade launcher seems like a dumb move, but the grenade launcher in the swat 4 expansion was legend. 3 guys in a room, one with a gas mask? Pop the gas mask wearer in the face with the gas grenade, when it detonates it’ll suppress the others. However, i suspect the gl will just be a skill less spam cannon. I guess i’ll wait to the demo weekend, maybe. Depends how often the boycotters derail threads, i’m going to act as a karmic force yunno.
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Can’t wait, looks absolutely awesome :D. More L4D is always a great thing.
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@Dominic White:
Looks to me like you’re the one being the angry cock.
If you wanna buy L4D2, knock yourself out. It’s just to me and a lot of people, it looks like a big pile of piss right now.
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@Dominic White
Who first personally attacked who in this thread, a boycotter or an anti-boycotter? I’m distressed by the piss-poor level of discourse on both sides, but I’ve seen at least as many incoherent and senselessly hostile fanboy rants as I have boycotter rants.
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While I think the launcher/flame ammo is a tad over the top, I feel that this is just a video game.
If you don’t like it, then don’t buy it and move along.
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@Dominic White: What exactly do you prove with this post? To the “boycotters”? Yourself?
You don’t like people who complain? Go to the fucking army and become a drill instructor. You gonna love it, I’m sure. But allow the rest of the world to have an opinion (and, god forbid, post that opinion on the internets).
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@Vinraith:
I think you’re right about not being the target audience.
Fucking grenade launchers? If that’s not straight from the “sell out to the fratboy consoletards” playbook, I dunno what is.
It’s a great shame to be losing Valve to the dark side, but I suppose it was inevitable.
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@Heliocentric
SWAT 4 was pretty brilliant. There’s what we need: a tactical zombie shooter. That’d be a BLAST.
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The grenade launcher is a good addition to the weapon line-up: it gives the holder devastating medium-range capability, but nothing at short range except melee (unless he wants to blow himself up!).
The voice work in these videos is very poor: flat, uninspired acting. We know Valve understands and can achieve good voicework, so I’m going to assume for now that most of the voice work we heard was placeholder, and that the final dialogue is not yet recorded.
Great atmosphere in the bayou there, too; I might pick this up on a weekend sale, just to try out the environments.
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The grenade launcher could be a good idea except, in the video, the player has thirty rounds. I guess you’d need that many if it’s going to replace your primary, but still.
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*sigh
What are you complaining, guys? Valve hasn’t yet aborted L4D and the authoring tools are out, so we will see much more content soon. Maybe everyone doesn’t have time to make a campaing, but supposedly we get more Survival-maps and maybe few good campaings (I myself am making one).
New characters look good in my opinion and they seem more realistic to me than the ones in original game. These are less stereotypic and fit well in the new environments, especially the daytime ones.
If you don’t like it, you don’t buy it. So simple. I still don’t stay that you shouldn’t tell your opinions out.
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@Meat Circus
Honestly, at this point my concern is what happens to Half Life and Portal if they go down that road. L4D isn’t that great a loss, but if L4D2 sells a bajillion copies the clear implication will be that all that commitment to quality and support has been a waste of potential profit on their part. I don’t want to see two of my favorite gaming franchises cheapened and destroyed by that mentality.
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Ahhh garsh I have a nice gaming pc sitting behind me I use one of these http://www.steelseries.co.uk/proddata.php?partno=E3128&desc1=SteelSeries%20Ikari%20Laser to game with, unlike you I also own a 360 and have the brain power to go in to the options and up the sensitivity.
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@Vinraith
That shift in Valve’s focus is my worry as well. It’s sort of implied in a recent interview with Lombardi that the hand crafted, lovingly detailed stuff like they would develop for Episode 3 takes too long and isn’t as profitable as the cookie cutter implementation they use in L4D2.
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@Vinraith
You have a point there. I too think I am less complaining about L4D2, than the direction it will teach Valve to go in the future. If this does sell like crazy, it wouldn’t make any sense for Valve, from a business standpoint, to produce anything but rushed addons for the future (something Valve has never done in the past). And if the press is jumping the bandwagon and praises this half-assed attempt at a sequel into oblivion, nobody except us is even left to complain.
Sure, everyone else is doing it, but so far, Valve has been better than that…
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@Vinraith (and everyone else it seems)
Whilst we’re busy mourning the passing of the old, good Valve we knew and love, I think it’s worth waiting until something not shit is released.
Just because L4D2 looks like a shameless, tossed together wank fantasy for Valve’s new consoletard fanboys, doesn’t mean that Valve has definitely entirely abandoned their Not Idiot fans just yet.
Do they deserve the benefit of the doubt?
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Do they deserve the benefit of the doubt?
Of course, but if they don’t turn around before the release of Episode 3, I have little hope.
Is there a “new Valve” anywhere in sight? Like the new and innovative companies the 90ies produced (most of which are now “2K [Name of the city they're in]“)? I wouldn’t mind if there was any company that seems worth replacing Valve, but I don’t see any. Which is probably why I cling so much to their commitment to quality.
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The sad thing is when HL3 isn’t as good as everyone wants its going to get blamed on this even though there made by different people.
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Trust us a little.
;P
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It looks like “Work in Progress”, but is better than the first videos. Here we see *changes*, the original videos where un-changed L4D1 gameplay with new maps. Now voices are starting to pop (placeholder or not), we see the new boss (this charger things looks interesting, but it will be laughable at in versus, because is easy to kite for good players ). So.. I see a game that is growing and becoming better.
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Also, working in Valve’s favour, is the fact that at the cost of four economy class return tickets, they’ve got the RPS hivemind believing the sun shines out of Gabe’s arse…
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Meat Circus, you obviously have problems with the game.
Please don’t make us sad by drowning us in your tears, because most of us are eagerly anticipating this release.
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@Meat Circus
Of course they deserve the benefit of the doubt. It’s my intention to voice a concern, not to imply that a decent into mediocrity is inevitable.
But if people wonder why some of us are so passionately concerned about a game that we’re unlikely to play, it’s helpful to explain that it’s less about the game and more about the implied direction of one of our favorite developers.
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@Stupoider:
It looks to me like opinion is roughly equally split.
It’s certainly not the Universal Acclaim that (inexplicably) Mr Rossignol was pretending would be unleashed by watching these notably mediocre clips.
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@Vinraith:
You’re asbolutely right. I’m not at all concerned by one more shit console shooter I won’t have to play, but I am DEEPLY concerned that we are losing Valve to the Other Half. You know, THEM.
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@Meat Circus: “Do they deserve the benefit of the doubt?”
Aren’t you the one slagging a game you haven’t played yet, five times in one thread?
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@obo:
I want to believe.
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Maybe they will do a promo: buy 3 follow-ups of L4D and get one HL3 for free*
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*valid until Judgment Day
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Why do you even stick around this hive of scum and sellouts then Meat Circus?
Not only will I pick this up in some sort of sale/deal thingy but I think I will enjoy it as well.
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@Mad Doc MacRae:
Because we all have a blind spot for Valve, one way or another. Whether we’re judging them too harshly, or announcing they can Do No Wrong, attitudes on RPS to Valve are not like attitudes to other developers.
They are a Special Case.
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Am I the only one that really liked the new cajun music added into the theme?
Sounds brilliant.
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@Leman
Yeah, it’s really good!
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Meh. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. I’ll be waiting for this to go half-price before I buy. I got suckered in once paying full-price for half a game, this time I’ll wait until it is half-price so I don’t get screwed again. Looks like a nice expansion, but I certainly won’t be paying full price for it. I can wait.
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@Leman: I loved it. The music is shaping up to be fantastic!
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Meaty: if you’re not embarressed by this…
Fucking grenade launchers? If that’s not straight from the “sell out to the fratboy consoletards” playbook, I dunno what is.
…then you really should be.
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@Funky Badger:
You think 30-round grenade launchers are a good idea in a game that’s supposed to be a terrifying struggle for survival?
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The first one was a “terrifying struggle for survival” completely missed that.
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I must say that I’m not a fan of this title, but it seems tha the adulators have been far more vocal, moronic and rude thus far. Insufferable indeed.
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@Psyk:
I admit there was something of a shortfall between intent and execution.
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agree “terrifying struggle for survival” would of been nice instead we got basically a racing game.
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Meat Circus, you might want to consider the fact that some of us play games because they’re fun.
I’m not entirely sure what sort of game you’re after, sounds to me like you’d enjoy something like ARMA 2 or OP Flash 2 far more than a game that’s about surviving hordes of zombies.
I know it may come as a surprise, but there’s a reason why games like D2 are fun, people enjoy mowing down hordes of enemies with silly weapons, and this looks like it’s going to be a fantastic example of it. Weapons that make you feel OP, but without a decent team, as demonstrated in the videos, you won’t be having an easy ride.
I’m not really seeing how you can justify someone holding a huge amount of assault rifle clips or 200+ shotgun shells but a few grenades is breaking the game.
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So, what’s wrong with the grenade launcher? That it can kill multiple infected quickly? Doesn’t every single weapon in L4D fit that description? The assault rifle is an almighty death-hose, the shotgun brings death to all, 3-4 zombies at a time, the hunting rifle is a goddamn railgun capable of killing a half dozen critters in one shot. Having 30 shots (likely to be balanced to a lower number by launch, I’d imagine) that are likely to be exhausted within two minutes isn’t going to ruin the game. Not only that, but it makes for a lousy up-close weapon, which (given the speed of all the enemy types) is pretty much essential.
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A really good racing game, with a really good team deathmatch mode.
I think is not really important if the target was “terror” or “action”, if the result is really fun :-)
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@ Gabe the Hutt:
don’t worry, I trust you. also, Shadowcaster ruled !
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Did anyone think the first game was at all scary anyway? I certainly didn’t, and while fun, the weapons certainly got boring after a few campaigns.
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This looks good. Fine if people don’t think full price is going to be value for money, but it still looks like great fun, and that’s what really matters.
M79 grenade launcher, yes please!
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@Meat Circus
Get that fucking stick out of your bum, take off the tinfoil hat, and learn what an opinion is. The Hivemind isn’t the only lot looking forward to this game, and just because *you* think it looks shit, doesn’t mean anyone who thinks it looks good is a drooling fanboy.
I can’t recall a single time I’ve seen you make a comment on *anything* that didn’t make me want to punch in my monitor. You’re a one man steam forum, with better spelling and grammar.
@Savant
“I got suckered in once paying full-price for half a game”
“Man, look at this weak book. It’s only a few hundred pages, so they didn’t even finish it! Now, this one thousand page fantasy monster, *that’s* a complete book!”
That’s how stupid everyone who complains about a games length sounds.
THE GAME
I don’t see how the characters are annoying everyone. Are southern accents annoying people to who aren’t used to them? I’m from the south, and they’re not over the top at all, I don’t even hear the accent.
LOVE the music, and the sound design in general.
@Jackflash
“Not to put too fine a point on it, but why would you use a suppressor on an uzi in a fight against zombies?”
L4D zombies are drawn by sound, above all else.
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Gabe the Hutt… lol
I don’t mind the grenade launcher either. What’s wrong with it? Better don’t find any arbitrary faults in a state of rage, since it diminishes the more valuable complaints…
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So this game is crap because it’s vaguely similar but subtlety different form another critically acclaimed and amazingly popular game?
Just checkin’
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Unimpressed to be honest. The voice acting is dry and unemotional, and I can’t say I’m a fan of the new character designs. It all feels… well, gimmicky and second rate. At this stage I’d have thought it would have been a bit better, a bit sharper. The prospect of running through a campaign attacking enemies with soley a fire axe sounds amusing, but I can already do that in Team Fortress 2.
I don’t doubt that the game would be fun to play – its still the same core concept and gameplay as L4D1, but I’ll pass on this. I’m still waiting out for Episode 3.
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PS: Psychopomp, I don’t care one bit what makes you “punch your monitors”. Ever considered the fact that you go on as many peoples nerves? Take some anger management courses and deal with the fact that some people think this game is a rip-off.
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Wow, crazy comments thread.
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Looks like the Boycott Brigade have graduated from Trolling 101: Passive-agressive defense. If someone finds anything wrong with your constant and unwavering obsessive trolling no matter HOW many threads have been ruined, accuse THEM of being in the wrong and completely unreasonable, possibly as part of some unseen ‘conspiracy’ to destroy your spreading of your holy gospel, no matter how annoying it may be.
By muddying the water in this way, you can slow the response of moderators, and ward away the indecisive from joining the attack on you by creating a false dichotomy, wherein those being trolled are just as guilty, if not moreso than the trolls themselves.
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@Psychopomp:
I’m really not sure I can be blamed for your anger management issues.
Thanks for noting my excellent spelling and grammar too.
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@Dominic White:
I stress, once again, that the apologists seem to be the ones getting all shouty-angry-internet-man.
One wonders what it implies about the malformedness of your theory of mind that you seem driven into such a helpless, undirected rage because a person you don’t know on the Internet has a different opinion from you over a game.
It’s intriguing.
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I wish after L4D2 the team who made this makes a proper retail product out of the Counter-Strike ‘Jailbreak’ maps.
Unbelievable potential there. Basically it’s a ratio of prisoners to guards at 3:1, prisoners having only a knife and guards access to all weapons but have rules of engagement (you can only be a guard if you have a mic, need to audible warn people before shooting, have to search for any randomly spawned weapons on prisoners, cannot indiscriminately kill, etc).
Each round consists of orders given by the guards to effect that they whittle down the prisoner population (Simon Says, last-reaction dies, races, even Jeopardy (a map has the set outside the prison where the inmates can be herded) as well as soccer, hockey, basketball, etc) and the prisoners have to rebel when they see the opportunity to either slip into a hallway unseen or shank a guard and start a critical mass of rebellion.
With Valve’s quality assurance and their resources, this could -in my mind- be one of the best multilayer games period. The rush of being the lone prisoner who finds an M4 after sneaking away and watching from the shadows as guards humiliate your fellow prisoners is unparalleled. It’s fascinating to see how people internalise their roles, some even snitching to save themselves of the respawn time.
Also I’ve never played L4D, but this certainly interests me, also in spite of the abundant stupidity in a lot of the boycott movement, they have applied pressure on Valve to at least defend their position publicly and possibly even to ensure L4D2 is a worthy sequel.
Doug Lombardi is badass evil however for not allowing Gabe to say anything about Episode Three. I need to know anything.
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What I find amusing is if you’re so adamant that the game’s not for you, why do you feel the need to be so vocal about it?
Surely the only way to show your position is by not buying the game when it comes out? Otherwise all you’re doing is being an annoying prick on the ‘net.
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I still find it non-valve esque for them to go the direction they did with l4d2. They’ve given me too much good for me to bash them now. The half-life series has given me far too many hours of enjoyment, and steam is a great utility now. I mean, when steam was in beta they let you play all their games free. They are a good company that prides themselves on being just that. Let them make the games for goodness sake, and quit judging so much until it is finished, and they have officially ended content for l4d1. I wouldn’t be surprised to see these additions added to the older maps and such.
Personally I’m not crazy about the weapons yet, but valve has a gift for balance. I’m sure in the end you will get one heck of a game whether you buy it or not, because that is what valve does, and has continually done.
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@ Lumpi
I’m fine with people thinking it’s a rip off, even if I think it’s incredibly silly
What I’m *not* fine with, is people throwing around insults, and ill thought out generalizations, over something as fickle as an opinion.
And yes, this applies to the anti-boycott crowd too, Meat Circus just got on my nerves in particular.
@Meat Circus
“I stress, once again, that the apologists seem to be the ones getting all shouty-angry-internet-man.”
This, in response to a post that contains…
“If someone finds anything wrong with your constant and unwavering obsessive trolling no matter HOW many threads have been ruined, accuse THEM of being in the wrong and completely unreasonable”
…makes me lol.
It wasn’t until very recently that the anti-boycott group started shooting first.
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Valve make consistently good games.
So this will almost certainly be a good game, buy it or don’t.
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DELETE-O-TRON! COME TO US IN OUR HOUR OF NEED!!
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@Collic
They do make good games, but, honestly, what the hell happened to TF2? Yeah, it’s a great game to play, but they really complicated things. The game was more than fine before unlockable items and the very weird random “drop” system were implemented.
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I never threw out insults unprovoked. I am part of the “boycotter group”, although I wouldn’t give it that dramatic of a name. Why am I insulted and accused of trolling?
The comments made against L4D2, agree with them or not, are as sophisticated (or stupid) as any other kind of comments on RPS. Yet they are treated like utter nonsense and trolling. In a totally out-of-proportion level of hatred and criticism-criticism meta-raging that has to be seen to be believed. No wonder people are getting stubborn.
And to those saying that “complaining on the internet” never changed a thing… I am not entirely sure of that. 2,664 1-star reviews of Spore on Amazon ( http://www.amazon.com/Spore-Pc/dp/B000FKBCX4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1248643464&sr=8-1 ) might have changed EA’s opinion of DRM slightly, for example ( http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2009/03/ea-drops-invasi/ ).
When did having an opinion go out of fashion? You can call my arguments rubbish, if you feel entitled, but criticizing the fact that I’m criticizing at all is the highest form of trolling in my book.
e-hugs for everyone too, my life won’t end over L4D2 being over-priced…
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@lumpi
“I never threw out insults unprovoked.”
I never said *you* did.
“The comments made against L4D2, agree with them or not, are as sophisticated (or stupid) as any other kind of comments on RPS. ”
Are you *blind?*
“When did having an opinion go out of fashion? ”
It never did, but accusing someone of “breathless, dribbling sycophancy,” because they disagree with you was never in style, just the same of calling *every* boycotter a “spoiled rotten, prat.”
Yes, there are people like that on their respective sides, but if their all like that, then I guess I must be an inbred racist hick, just like the rest of the south.
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I suppose I’ll add my theory to how this came about, which I think is fairly reasonable. Basically:
We have little ol’ Turtlerock working on their zombie game, and Valve buys them up. We see how the game radically changes from the Valve influence. Largely the result, I think, of Valve’s wish to continue it guiding principles and to put into good use all the stuff they learned working on TF2.
The result: A very hemmed down experience, each thing in its place with practically no fluff. Not a good or bad thing, it just left the game feeling very spartan because every little detail of the game was worked over for the Valve principle of Clarity, Direction, and Purpose.
So flash ahead, L4D is done, the end product may or may not have been what the Turtlerock guys had wanted. They go to Gabe and ask if they can start on the sequel.
Turtlerock’s reasoning: They can add back in all the stuff that the Valve distillation process took out. Most notably, the linking of the stories, which is now back in.
Gabes reasoning: I think he was looking at the sales, and looking at the design pitches from the L4D team and thinking: “Hey, this did great on Consoles, our DLC model has failed on consoles, so this sequel might work.” Which would explain the lack of DLC beyond simple stuff for both PC and Console. They were limiting themselves in order to support both consoles on equal footing, something that TF2 has never bothered to do.
I hope that make sense.
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and THIS is why there shouldn’t be any fps on consoles.
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@ Vin, from the other thread
“What’s that got to do with anything? For all your presence in those L4D2 threads you haven’t actually read the underlying concerns, have you?”
That was a single argument, for a single concern
“I don’t get nearly enough game play and enjoyment out of a single L4D map for it to warrant that price tag.”
Well, as you’ve stated yourself, you didn’t enjoy L4D all that much anyway, but the amount of work that has to be put into a single campaign is a lot more than a map, say, TF2.
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“DELETE-O-TRON! COME TO US IN OUR HOUR OF NEED!!”
Personally, I think all L4D threads should just be locked down the second someone brings up the boycott, or says the word “expansion pack.”
They all go well, until that point.
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@Psychopomp
Thanks for the transfer. While there are certainly a group of OMG IT SHOULD BE FREE idiots on the boycott side of things, I don’t think they constitute a majority.
As to the amount of work that goes into a campaign map… I don’t know about that one way or the other. I can only speak to how much the end result appears to be “worth” to me personally. As I said, though, the price isn’t a matter of significant concern to me, I’m more concerned with the broader ramifications.
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It does rather look for all the world like a mod for L4D1. And that shouldn’t be surprising – a year is about how long it takes to make a decent level pack/expansion for a modern game, and that’s exactly what we’re getting.
And there’s nothing wrong with that. L4D is a great game, and I thought it was well worth the original $50. More of something good is fine.
But, like a lot of people have said, we expect more from Valve. A year clearly wasn’t enough to do something really special and exciting with this game, and that’s what we’re used to getting with a Valve title.
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@ Vin
I understand the concern about Valve, but one such happenstance isn’t going to send them to the darkside of the industry.
Now, if L4D3 get’s announced anytime within the next two years, I’ll be on your side.
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“a year is about how long it takes to make a decent level pack/expansion for a modern game, and that’s exactly what we’re getting.”
Expansion packs normally have more content than the original?
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@Psychopomp
I think in this case it’s more because the original only came with an expansion pack’s worth of content.
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just the same of calling *every* boycotter a “spoiled rotten, prat.”
And that seems to be a trend (yea, yea, not you…).
All you have to do to get a flood of hate and fury spewn towards you is mentioning the mere fact that Valve could have possibly made a mistake.
Criticizing the fact that game journalists seem to drop all doubts as a result of Dough Lombardi mentioning a handful of weak counter-arguments when asked the question in interviews is legitimate. It feels like it has become fashionable to speak positively about L4D2 out of courtesy. Sorry, but that’s what it looks like to some of us.
Why isn’t there even a hint of skepticism in L4D2 related frontpage posts? When has criticizing it been declared blasphemous? Is there even an answer to that other than a snappy remark about Shutting TFU?
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I’m definitely on the ‘wait until later, if I feel the pressure at all’ point of the spectrum. I maintain hope that L4D2 is limited to a Valve South thing, where Turtle Rock didn’t integrate into the Valve way of doing things quite as well as they could have.
My main problem, that cannot be solved by any amount of evidence that L4D2 will be a fun game (it will be, sure), is that they announced it before announcing or releasing one single campaign for the original, and I just got this instant and lasting reek indicating that they pretty much pulled all the level designers off of post-release L4D content to work on the sequel immediately. Whether or not it was the designers’ decision is immaterial, because no matter how you say it, they haven’t yet produced a single full campaign to extend the life of the original, and apparently feel the sequel is more important.
I would also agree that the original design path was a less extravagant affair. This seems like a bit of a TF2-style “Games are fun!” design reroute, more comical and exaggerated, and that doesn’t mesh well with L4D’s existing visuals or setting. Sure, people would resort to humour to try to stave off insanity, but an abundance of contact grenades, ammo with all the punch but with added gallons of napalm, and woks that can send two professional wrestlers flying away? It just doesn’t fit.
Also, the obligatory “I don’t associate with or fancy playing as a single one of the Southern character cast” comment.
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ok, the 23rd RPS published a news piece about a new video of L4D2 and some details of new weapons. The comments thread got inmediattely flooded with posts saying: “Dont buy, they lied and the must suffer our wrath”
That thread has today 250 posts. Almost no useful comments are in there, just bashing and mudding and classic boring everyone to tears with circular arguments with no content, designed just to confuse.
3 days later, a new RPS story comes out. This time it contains a bunch of gameplay videos. As I write it has 123 posts with the same people, saying the same things, over and over and over and over and over again.
Nothing related to the content of the news story, of course.
So of course it’s trolling and of course it’s a organized campaign and of course it’s going to be succesful so that no one can speak about the actual news story in peace.
Still, I’m going to try, even if right afterwards they are just going to try to take 3 words from my post and interpret it so they can answer to something i did not say.
First, the Xbox gameplay looks horrible, nothing to do with my pc experience.
Second, the charger does not seem a game changer, specially if it does not come often. L4D1′s tank already trained us on dealing with this kind of threat, i think.
Third, the Spitter DOES sound like a game changer, specially if she can fire without exposing herself. In that case, the closet tactic becomes suicidal. You would have to hunt her actively.
Fourth, everything i’m reading seems to push the game to be faster, i do not know if i like that.
We’ll see in November, in DAY ONE, when I will be playing this game.
And now the trolling…
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@Psychopomp
Fair enough, I certainly hope you’re right.
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@JoeDuck
I enjoy the comments of L4D2 articles, RPS seems to have got a great set up for L4D2 news yet the core readers want nothing to do with the game, it just makes me chuckle :)
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@JoeDuck
I enjoy the meta conversation, but you’re right, it’s worthwhile to comment on the actual videos as well.
I thought the axe looked like a good bit of bloody fun. The frying pan was ridiculously overpowered. The incendiary ammo seemed fairly gratuitous.
The maps look quite open, maybe even more than the original game. I’m not sure this really works for a game like L4D, since whenever I play the game with my friends, who only play occasionally, they always get completely lost and separated from each other and me and it impairs the “jump in and start shooting” fun of the game. And at least in L4D1, I didn’t really find my experience enhanced by the fact that there were large open areas and multiple ways to go through each section (since people tend to pick their favorite route and always go that way). I had assumed this was a relic of the original, nonlinear design of L4D1, but there it is in L4D2 as well.
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You know what’s “a terrifying struggle for survival”?
Reading this comments section.
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More games need to have fire-axes in them.
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How does the bats and axes work? Do they take over the main slot till they break?
I couldn’t see where in the interface they were stored.
Also Forscythe is right the maps do seem really open; whilst corridor shooting isn’t much fine getting separated and roundly punished when some of your party scampered off was one of the worst things about l4d.
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fine = fun
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@AlexW
I agree with you; there wasn’t much wrong with L4D 1 that some ‘episodic’ content couldn’t extend the life of.
A sequel so soon seems a bit weird… not hysterically ‘death to Valve bludclarts!’ weird just you know a bit unexpected.
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It’s the same game as L4D but with new stages and characters. Does that sound as DLC or what???
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@Radiant: You can only carry frying pans and such while you have them equipped. To use a gun, you have to throw them away.
They don’t degenerate after being used for a longer time though, as originally announced.
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@Miggs: What defines a sequel?
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Why must every L4D2 news post result in long (and the same) boycott discussion again and again?
Don’t give the boycotters reason to vent their frustrations every single time. They don’t understand sarcasm so don’t even hint about it.
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@Miggs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominions_3
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I don’t get how valve is thinking this sequel through in regards to Versus play balance.
Incendiary ammo? Grenade launchers? I pity whoever is going to be playing tank online.
And how is melee weaponry going to work in Expert? Oh I can’t shoot that group of zombies because this kid wants to him them with a frying pan. I see.
Why does so much of what’s being added seem to be placed for the sake of being placed, rather then an actual need in terms of gameplay? This type of needless excess is very un-Valve.
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@Radiant
Best I can tell, the melee weapons replace your primary gun until you can pick up another primary gun down the line somewhere. At least every time I’ve seen it in videos thats how the exchange was handled.
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Not that I want to fuel the boytotters’ fire, but as a non player of this thing this looks like it has classic sequel-itis.
It’s more attitude, more corn and more dakka. Which generally means all the effort on atmosphere and horror in the world won’t stop those aspects from being merely rote. It’s just a game now, rather than an experience (but that happens pretty much instantly with anything competetitve and multiplayer anyway, so…)
Also, I could never get past the fact that zombies in these things aren’t trying to eat you. I wonder what it would take to animate that sort of thing well in first person and still make it playable?
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@Muzman
It worked for 28 Days Later, same concept here: the zombies aren’t trying to eat you, they’re trying to beat the shit out of you in a frenzied rage.
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I was sold on this line:
Hey, coach, you got anything to say?
Though I walk through the shadow of the valley of death…
Yeah, I’m walking through the valley of death, and I’m kicking arse.
INSTANT CLASSIC.
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@Scalene
I loved that line too
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@Muzman
I prefer the Romero-ian zombies who crave flesh and brains as well. I like what’s supernatural about them rather than a bunch of normal humans infected by swine flu which is rather mundane.
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With all the punching and kicking it’s probably the least frenzied rage I’ve seen. The 28days crowd were at least trying to claw your eyes out. Plus the time scale is different as they were trying to pass on virus with an incubation time of about 30 seconds.
L4D is obviously pretty far removed from both those aspects. And that’s their thing. I am curious about gamifying “proper” zombie threats though: how you defend yourself against a violent crowd of ugly nuts in one thing. How you fight off things that will clamp on to your arm and try and bite chunks off you and possibly give you a terrible disease is another. I doubt it would be easy to do though.
(I did type ‘boytotters’ up there didn’t I. That has entirely the wrong connotation)
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I have to admit I don’t quite get what you’re saying Muzman.
It’s a videogame, I don’t quite think they’re going to waste time animating 25 different ways of communicating the fact that the zombies are trying to beat you to death.
I also don’t get your point about defending against “different types of zombies.” I’d imagine you’d defend yourself the same way in a game. You would shoot them to death.
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Whilst I would be more inclined to purchase this if the original 4 characters made an appearance (or were even playable in versus/survival modes), I’m not immediately against L4D2. Just have to see what else is revealed as the release date approaches.
That said, it WOULD be nice if the few kinks in L4D were ironed out in the process before all development attention is shifted to this.
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Yes y3k, you don’t get what I’m on about. I don’t want them to beat or fight you. I want them to eat you (in some other game that doesn’t exist yet).
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@Muzman
Man, there’s one chapter in Resi 5 that’s pretty much devoted to making old fans geek out…
I was disappoint when no regular zombies showed up 8C
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The funny thing is the boycott has apparently done nothing to slow the sales for L4D and has raised the overall awareness that L4D2 is coming out. I think the casual gamer looks on with a smile on their face and might decide that getting a new game once a year (even if you have to pay for it) isn’t so bad…they’ve been doing it for years with Madden and the other franchises.
In the end the boycott group might end end being remembered as assisting sales…wouldn’t that be interesting.
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@Fuzz
ALL publicity is good publicity
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I find Valve’s statement that L4D2 has larger pre-order numbers than the original game did at this point last year slightly disingenuous considering the fact that at this point last year the game had no release date. It was a long delayed thing, with a release date that moved about all year.
And are those pre-order numbers PC, or PC with xbox?
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Also!@%$
I have no intention of getting the game due to my feeling that it’s something of a rip off, but lets be honest here, only crazy people bother signing up to those boycott-a-game dealies.
I would be shocked if more than 20% of the people who signed up to that Steam group didn’t end up buying the game on release. They WANT the damn thing. They’re just stamping their feet about it. Come time for the commercials and the huge marketing push in November, they’ll all cave. None of them will admit it, but they will cave.
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Hmm, I’m not convinced by the melee weapons, but it’s hard to tell whether it’s just because the people in the videos are bad, or because the weapons themselves are flawed, but:
* They don’t seem to offer a compelling advantage over meleeing zombies away when they get close, then shooting them. In fact in that scenario you get to kill some at a distance and only deal with the survivors up close, now you have to deal with them all but they don’t seem to offer any better pushback protection than the usual melee.
* If you’re using one and everyone else is using ranged, you’re in a lot more danger of taking friendly fire since you’ll be up in the front with the zombies, which will make them especially bad on expert.
* The time to save friends who are incapped dramatically worsens most of the time. Look at the pounce in one of those videos when the player has a frying pan, is close, but still another player shoots it off before he gets close enough. Bad on vs, even worse on expert where you can’t let people take damage from special infected or they die quickly.
And in exchange you get… what, exactly?
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You get infected dying when you melee them, rather than staggering back and then rushing forward again two seconds later. And presumably you don’t get tired so easily.
Tactically, seems like a case of hedging your bets. Can’t kill them all at a distance, but more resistant to getting overwhelmed by a steady stream of small numbers of infected and probably a bit better against large swarms as well.
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Also, the spitter’s design captures the same awesomely deranged down-south feel that suffuses the rest of this product. I flat-out love it.
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“* If you’re using one and everyone else is using ranged, you’re in a lot more danger of taking friendly fire since you’ll be up in the front with the zombies, which will make them especially bad on expert.”
As long as you’re crouching, it shouldn’t be a problem, bar the people using guns panicking.
That being said, I don’t plan on *ever* picking up a melee weapon in a pub game. These are the same people who think they have to strafe like crazy, get in my line of fire, then tell me to stop TK’ing -_-
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Maybe they could reduce FF damage on those who are wielding a melee weapon.
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@Coup
If there’s anything L4D needs less of, it’s auto-shotty spam. On any difficulty besides versus that thing was/is ridiculous.
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I am definitely not getting this sequel, for the — I think — reasonable observation that it looks just like left4dead 1 with some new stuff — the engine doesn’t appear enhanced at all. When you buy a sequel you might be OK with the game mechanics remaining the same, but I think there’s a tacit implication that the engine itself is improved — the difference between Quake games, for instance, or Grand Theft Auto. People have accused the original Left4Dead of being a glorified mod, so following that line of reasoning, the sequel is looking like a mod of a mod. For 50 bucks.
I think what we’re seeing is the death throes of the glorious Source engine. A zombie game is appropriate.
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I don’t see how that’s so. It’s powerful, but it’s not the be-all-and-end-all of the game’s weaponry because of its reload time.
I wouldn’t want to crouch every time I felt like killing zombies with melee weapons simply because my teammates are reckless. Sure, I could play with more skilled players–friends, for example–but what about those who are up at night, friends asleep, and feel like playing in a public game?
I can see crouching encouraging an element of team play, but it seems more like a chore, really.
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Wow. The voice acting is really bad compared to L4D1. This is going to make playing it heaps annoying. Especially if people can spam voice like in L4D1.
Also, horde music is crap. I’d prefer they just re-used the old music like they did with the common-infected voices/sounds. Hopefully there’ll be a mod to use L4D1 music.
On a positive note, the spitter is a nice addition, as is the charger. Couldn’t care less about anything but the new special infected… would prefer the old survivors and the new weapons are fluff to me.
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@Matzerath
Engine upgrades for sequels are usually only truly implied for games that have had a development cycle of many years. Really, L4D2 doesn’t fit the role of a sequel very well. It is, as many people have said, more like a content update.
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Oh and the new maps… new maps and new CI/SI is what matters.
The new characters and weapons are crappy and meaningless as far as I can tell.
my2c
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I want incindiraearerryryryeyry rounds to be available for my pistols, please. If not, an incindierarerery grenade in my grenade launcher please.
I like the grenade launcher as a weapon idea. Single shot, low refire rate, high damage weapon with massive potential for friendly fire, including death to self. This immediately pegs it as more of a support weapon than say a shotgun, and with the projectile speed and explosive radius shown in the video it looks like it will be great for taking out hordes at medium range (which is a hole in the current L4D arsenal, as the carbine can’t effectively mow them all down fast enough)
Combine with the fact that these new environments seem kind of claustrophobic if not in sense of actual space then in atmosphere and you’ve got a tangible ‘to fire or not to fire’ fear running through your head. On the one hand, if I shoot that Charger now, I may kill it, but if it charges us, the grenade will go off as its in the group and we will all die horrible horrible explosive deaths.
I also really enjoy the new Glock pistol models. The M1911-ey models from the original always seemed a bit peashooter-esque to me. What I would really enjoy is random weapon skins, like a mishmash of (functionally identical) pistols, so you can be dual wielding a mixed set of Glock and M92 Beretta, or a Five-seveN and the previous, etc.
For primary weapons this skinning idea could happen with battle damaged weapons, or weapons with identity scratches or decals; weapons missing part of their iron sights, duct taped stocks and magazines, etc. None of which will affect weapon functionality, but would go a long way towards improving look and feel imo.
Also, did I hear correctly about an ammo pack that replaces health packs? Ammo wasn’t really a problem in the original game so unless they’re going to be hitting us with way more infected between weapon spawnpoints (which would be great btw, ammunition is a resource much like health and pills are) I feel that ammo packs are unnecessary.
Now, a portable sentry gun that replaces med pack? That I want.
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I’m seriously loving the look of this now. Then again, I was totally sold at the idea of being able to bop zombies about the bonce with a frying pan. Give me that and I’m happy for life.
This sort of seems like, really bad analogy ahoy, Left4Dead: The Eighties Movie Edition.
The first one had a great gritty sort of late 70′s horror thing going on, 4 survivors against the odds in a post apocalyptic world with no happy endings whereas this seems to be going for the bigger! harder! faster! more! OTT BIG GUNS AND WHITE SUITS! thing.
Give it a Brad Fiedel soundtrack and job’s a good ‘un.
I can live with that and the more I see, the more I’m glad the two are separate entities. I like the purity of L4D, but a slap happy big bang companion piece is definitely welcome.
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About opening the levels, I have to say that the swamp looks awfully difficult to defend, specially if the hunters can climb the trees to regenerate and then pounce down.
In L4D1 versus when you had open spaces that made the hordes effective, you could not approach the survivors, a decent team can protect itself from boomers and hunters without problems. In close quarters the boomer will hit, but the resulting hordes are quite easily neutralized. Now, when I look at that swamp as a zombie I see low visibility, open area so not defined vector of attack AND altitude advantages. All good news for the zombies… as it should be.
In L4D1 versus, normally the survivors will get safely through the level. It requires a lot of skill and luck to kill a team of competent people.
My proposal would have been to make the zombies in versus have expert level stats and behaviour, instead of normal level.
That would have made a team’s survival a worthy event…
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Man, I’m getting so excited for this now. It looks better and better everytime I see new footage/screenshots/media. I’ve had so much fun with L4D1. Nothing beats the wife and me taking on the zombie hordes of an evening!
And lol @ the boycotters! They do make me chuckle!
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Can we talk about the videos in the article please? Rather than a talk about Valve’s business model? It would be nice, for once. We understand – there are some who are really looking forward to the game, and others who are concerned about it and its supposed implications. Ok – but the article here linked to some quite fun looking videos.
I’m not entirely sure about the grenade launcher – things like a frying pan I can accept, but a grenade launcher seems to be a step a little too far. It seems just a little over-the-top. I know people are saying that in the previous game you could carry hundreds of rounds and molotovs and pipe bombs, etc, but it all seemed ‘grounded’ in a way. Maybe the move to the South has allowed them to a bit more goofy – unleash a bit of that southern spirit – but a grenade launcher seems a bit like overkill. Firstly, I’m not sure how effective it will be – the hunters and chargers will be in close proxmity most of the time, at that range the grenade launcher isn’t viable. Unless they’ve made it so that firing a grenade at a pinned surviver will kill the infected but won’t damage your team-mate. But then that would just be silly. I think that’s my singular complaint so far though – an evolved version of L4D is exactly what I’d like at the mo.
Nope, thought of one more thing I’m not that keen on and that would be the moving parts to the weapons. Like the Uzi’s magazine shaking and the rifle’s grip wobbling. It’s a bit aggravating and I don’t know why…
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This thread needs more comments about the actual content.
Looks good to me. Here’s hoping valve release the SDK for it post haste this time. That would really allay much of the problems L4D 1 had.
I mean imagine if we saw the first(fully functional) community maps, cosmetic weapon replacements, sounds tweaks, new characters etc(I’m not talking about texture swaps. That barely counts as modding), within a few weeks instead of er… still waiting for the SDK to be finished 8 months later?
And whats with the Hivemind bashing? It’s their blog, sometimes they post about stuff I don’t give a shit about too, but I don’t go claiming that they’re sycophantic just because they happen to like something I think is bollocks. I scroll past it.
Shit like that will make ‘em want to post less about anything.
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Demikaze: Yes, that’s precisely the tradeoff a grenade launcher has. It’s powerful but cannot be used in many common game situations
Also re: the jiggling bits on weapons. I posit that it’s aggravating because the human eye is drawn to movement and so you’re drawn to the shaking bits and it’s causing irritation.
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This game looks great, it’ll be even better than L4D1. Can’t wait to play it. Lol @ all the people who rage about it, have fun playing WoW.
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@Sigma83
You’re probably right. It’s also probably a bit of OCD – I just want to tell the survivors to take a minute and lock those moving parts down. Just sixy seconds of their time and no more jingle jangle!
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“Expansion packs normally have more content than the original?”
Good ones, yes. See any Relic expansion ever made for example.
The new additions in L4D2 are simply “dumb” and sound like they’re straight out of the ‘would be awesome’ notebook of a 13 year old: Grenade Launchers, fire bulllets!, gore!, zombies that are bulletproof on the front and can only killed from behind, chainsaw!, etc.
They’re also diluting the nature of what the zombies are – they can’t be “Infected” if the run around with their entire torso missing. They’re magical undead at that point.
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Ugh. If your reaction to not liking it is to not buy it, that’s fine, no problem. If your reaction to not liking it is to try and organise a boycott and spam every thread on it with crying about how you’re boycotting it and how meeeaaan and unfaaaiiir Valve is, then you might want to think about how that might make you appear to be an obsessive whiny cock. Just sayin’.
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I think future L4D games sould be more like OperationFlashpoint, in these things about be able to see your own body, not only your own feets. I like gore. Some gore that would be fun, is the ability for zombies to eat your arm. Imagine playing with only one arm, and be able to see your arm bleeding, with a trail of blood.
Since theres explosives now (well.. more). It will be fun if explosives put on a “unconscient” state, where you are not dyiing, but you are vulnerable. Another option is to become deaf for few seconds. I think will fit the theme of the game.
If we are about to add shilly weapons like fire bullets. Why no more no-letal weapons like a zapper? a pistol that can electrocute a tank, and make hime become uncoscient for a few seconds.
I think “more weapons” vs “the only one weapon” model is a problem. Maybe the game sould be modified so you can have two weapons.
Imagine playing with two double barreled shotguns, or with two M-16. Or with a uzi, and the baseball bat.
My main point to play this game, If you can choose your character from *ALL 8 CHARACTERS*. Maybe I want to pick again Zoey, or Francis.
Other people is commenting that L4D is a race game. So.. where is the Ghost mode? Imagine a “Ghost mode” for L4D, tryiing to run faster than your ghost :-)
Theres soooooooooooooooooooooo much that can make this game better.
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A infenced dog, or polar bear, will be **awesome**.
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I am wondering if what they are going to do is to create more weapons but make them part of the randomness. In L4D1 when you get tier1 weapons, you get both of them. The same happens with tier 2, you get to choose what you use from between the 3 options, every time (Except outside the church tower, I know…).
I would like the AI director to say: “ok, this time you’ll have ONLY grenade launchers” or “only one ak47 for the whole group”, or whatever. That way a weapon would become something more precious and special and each round would have a lot more adaptation and uniqueness.
Also, it would stop the (very valid, I have to say) concern of the “walking arsenal” that some people here have expressed.
I have played some L4D1 mods in which you only had one weapon, not and infinite amount. I thought it was a good, realistic gameplay choice. In a public team, everyone would scramble for the gun. In a good, expert team, who takes what becomes a tactical choice…
And if we go to the end of my argument, please, an achievement for doing a whole campaign using only frying pans would be awesome… :-)
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MeatCircus is right.
I’ve come to respect valve for what they’ve done, but releasing what appears to be at this stage an expansion pack for full price? Well that’s a bit cheeky. Will I buy it? Only when it drops in price. I don’t have a problem with the game itself, more than likely it’ll be yet more fun, it’s really not the game I have a problem with, it’s just a bit cheeky valve asking us to pay full price for this.
There’s what, three new campaigns? New guns, new enemies? It’s a real cheap move to ask us to pay 40-50 quid for this, tbh. 20 quid maybe, but not 40.
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@Metal_Circus – *Five* new campaigns (with more random elements/branches than the original *four*), new guns, new enemies – word is that it’s longer, more replayable and more story-driven than the original.
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40-50 quid? You can pre-order it from Amazon for 27. :\
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I am secretly hoping for a large left4dead 1 user discount on steam.
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Left4Dead 2 PC preorder in the UK, 26.99 pounds
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Left-4-Dead-2-PC/dp/B002BSH9J4/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1248698835&sr=8-6
In the US it’s 47.99 also in Amazon, surprising…
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002BRYXRQ/ref=s9_simz_gw_s0_p63_t1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_r=19N1M66PTP6FYCVXG1R1&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938131&pf_rd_i=507846
but the most amazing thing, in Amazon Germany it’s 55.90 euros!!!
http://www.amazon.de/Left-Dead-PC-Englisch-Uncut/dp/B002BSH9J4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1248698886&sr=8-1
Wow, just wow…
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“They’re also diluting the nature of what the zombies are – they can’t be “Infected” if the run around with their entire torso missing. They’re magical undead at that point.”
I’m having a bizarre deja vu flashback about mummies here but zombies aren’t real, man. They’re fictional magical undead already!
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I hope they sort out the problems in versus with this game. They need to make a set amount of medipacks and pills each round rather than having it random like it is in left4dead 1, because it really takes all the skill out if your playing really well but then the opposing team gets the contents of boots to heal themselves with. Preferably it should be a very small amount of health boosts outside the saferoom.
They also should make a proper server searching system so you can join servers you like, you should also be able to group up with friends properly. They should also design versus levels from the ground up ( or at least heavily modify the existing levels) to be interesting to play versus in, as it is I find the only versus level I like is the no mercy campaign because it has lots of hang up points you can grab the enemy in and ruin their game.
Also they should make a mode where you can only play infected if people want to do that, and they should make an alternate versus mode consisting of shorter games where you can have a quick game with the same team instead of people raging after level 1, as an alternate to the lengthy versus modes. Oh and I want a really hard mode thats a step up from expert.
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I’m sorry but that should really just be a Addon for L4D.
Its identical in every way apart from a few new weapons and new characters?
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Catastrophe, they’ve recoded the AI director, along with producing more than a few new art assets, and probably lots of other stuff.
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For me, the problem with the original had nothing to do with gameplay; it was the fact that the ratio of good game sessions to mediocre ones was pretty low. A huge proportion of the time, I found that either my connection to the server died at some point during the game, or a couple of times I was kicked by arseholes. Very annoying.
P.
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Demikaze: Alas, as in Doom 3 the characters have not discovered the magic that is duct tape.
Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side and a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
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A significant portion of the voice acting on show was weak.
Of course we all know that it’s a game, and that if people shoot us in reality we don’t simply complain about it and carry on, however when you hear “someone’s shooting me” spoken in the kind of tone usually used to inform people of a mild headache, or perhaps the presence of a slightly annoying fly, it pretty much spoils the mood.
Either those samples are just place-holders, or they are in real need of re-recording the characters.
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This game has been rated NON-U.
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Have Valved licensed Goblin to do the music or something? (listen to the first video) I always thought the original L4D could have done with a Dawn of the Dead style prog schlock soundtrack or a John Carpenter-esque electronic score.
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Same assets being reused, same engine, same ui, same gameplay, same game reskinned. A few new characters, levels and guns. You can even see the gameplay hitching just like the first game.
And to add my voice to the horde: it should have been an expansion for the first game for $25. I wasn’t happy with the amount of content or patches for the first one, they clearly started work on this a few months after LfD1 shipped, and I won’t be picking this up until it’s $20 in the bargain Steam bin.
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and since i loved every single valve game before I’ll just wait for it to be released before boycotting it now when i know practically nothing about it.
But that’s me and people often call me crazy.
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@Lukasz:
Must be contagious, this craziness you have. :-)
And what is this thing the spitter spits?
It’s supposed to burn you, which is awful, but does it burn the zombies?
And do you go on burning after walking away from the yellow spitted zone?
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The stated intention for the spitter is to make the players split up, so I don’t think it will burn after they clear off (doesn’t appear that way in the video either)
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The Spitter effect and graphics are just temporary according to Valve, so that grenade launcher explosion might be as well. The regular flames look great.
You didn’t need to see the UI to realise this was the Xbox360 version being played…:)
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I don’t know what all the commotion around the grenade launcher is about. Anybody with half a brain and some kill with the mouse would use the sniper rifles instead, given their body penetration values; and the only real advantages of the ‘nade launcher are its ease of use (for noobs and poor people who can’t afford a video card, which seems reasonable) nd the potential for indirect fire.
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IvanHoeHo: Don’t forget damage per shot, which against clusters the nade launcher almost certainly has the sniper rifle beat.
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The nade launcher replaces your primary weapon though, plus it’s not suited to close quarter combat. There’s probably more chance of friendly fire too, so there are pros and cons, in no way is it OP.
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Grenade Launcher actually looks under powered to me, due to it’s MANY flaws. However, I suspect it may be effective against special infected like the Tank. I guess balance is restored.
@Meat Circus: You a hypocritical angry internet man IMO. Hoeever, this is just my opinion, like yours that L4D2 sucks.
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@RabidZombie:
You have a low threshold for what you consider “anger”. It feels to me more like “mild amusement” that so many seem to care what I think.
FWIW, when L4D2 hits 15 quid, I might consider it. And I might even enjoy it for a bit.
But FULL PRICE? I think not.
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“for noobs and poor people who can’t afford a video card, which seems reasonable”
How does someones ability to afford a graphics card got anything to do with a weapon in the game to many sly digs at consoles by elite pc gamers its unreal you people need to get a life there aint nout wrong with the consoles there equally as fun to play as a pc and thats the whole point of gaming to be having fun.
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supposed to be “graphics card have anything to do with” not “got”
And GarshDarn adding to my earlier reply to you have you ever seen for example cod 4 being played at high sensitivity on the consoles im guessing not.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tOK0lHIcd4&feature=related there you go, there not good but you can see its anything but slow thank you devs for option menus.
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@psyk
Consoles have poorer controls in general. Watching one of the videos it is clear that the player has trouble aiming at a Boomer, which, really, shouldn’t be hard to hit–at all. They aren’t bad to play games on, they’re just not as precise as “pc gamers” would like them to be.
And regarding the comment on graphics cards and grenade launchers: if you cannot maintain a smooth framerate, you can bet that it’s going to be more difficult to aim a gun than it would be if you were playing on a computer that could maintain a very smooth framerate. If you have a grenade launcher and a terrible computer, you could still kill lots of infected without needing to aim.
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“Same assets being reused, same engine, same ui, same gameplay, same game reskinned. A few new characters, levels and guns. You can even see the gameplay hitching just like the first game.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominions_3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_2
I guess those were all just cheap cash-ins
@DK
“See any Relic expansion ever made for example.”
You mean those things that add one or two new races, and a half baked campaign?
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Oh, and incendiary ammo is real.
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I can already see the grenade launcher being cut out of Versus mode, it would make a mess of Tanks.
Apart from that it looks like a hell alot of fun and i won’t have any hesitation picking this up release day. These boycotters need to stop acting like spoilt children, i’d rather give me cash to a Dev that pumps out quality titles than some of the other jokers around today.
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One of the gaming highlights in my life was definitely “dominating” Chet in a 2fort match.
He’s a stand up guy – hilarious over the mic.
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Oh, and “And to add my voice to the horde: it should have been an expansion for the first game for $25. I wasn’t happy with the amount of content or patches for the first one, they clearly started work on this a few months after LfD1 shipped, and I won’t be picking this up until it’s $20 in the bargain Steam bin.”
So if L4D was a terrible purchase for you, due to the ‘few’ additions like a new level and so on, what WAS a good purchase? Do you even buy games?
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You know, if Left 4 Dead 2 REALLY didn’t have enough for a sequel, the boycotters wouldn’t have to try their hardest to downplay every addition.
Honestly, from the way some of them go on you’d think all they were adding was new skins for the characters and guns, 2 or 3 new maps, (not campaigns, maps) and a frying pan.
“The new additions in L4D2 are simply “dumb” and sound like they’re straight out of the ‘would be awesome’ notebook of a 13 year old: Grenade Launchers, fire bulllets!, gore!, zombies that are bulletproof on the front and can only killed from behind, chainsaw!, etc.”
Those things ARE awesome. Are you criticizing Valve for adding what people like?
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@Psychopomp : Fallout 2 is the only relevant example in your post.
Dominion 3 : 3 years in dev
Diablo 2 : 4 years in dev
I’m not saying that I side with the whiners here, but yes, L4D2 feels like a cash grab (and so did Fallout 2, to some extent). I had so much fun with L4D though, and I bought it without any DLC “preconceptions” and whatsnot that I don’t care, but I can see how some think that way.
I wish they’d shut the fuck up though.
@ Erlam : The problem (as I see it) is what they promised, not what they are offering. If they had just shut up about all the cool DLC that they promised to drop on us like if it was Christmas all year, no one would be complaining right now.
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@Gutter
I refuse to even acknowledge the “IT’S ONLY BEEN A YEAR,” complaints anymore, considering that was the first thing I thought.
Ask anyone who was in the Steam chat when it was announced, I was fucking livid.
Damnit, now I wanna play Dominions 3 again. WHERE’D THAT DISC GO?
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unimpressed. Where is the zombie horror survival? Welcome to the survival for kids version. I willing to bet you dont even have to conserve ammo still.
The worst part of the game is the fact the strongest way to play is rushing. Cause that is exactly what would get you killed in zombie horror movies. But not in L4D.
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Vhati, I take it this is the first time you’ve heard of Left 4 Dead and have yet to actually play either game. Also, that you would criticize someone’s dog on the basis that it’s not a cat (to use one of Penny Arcade’s lines).
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@coupsan
mmm maybe but surely groups of zombies blowing up with limbs and blood flying everywhere is going to slow you down even more.
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“The worst part of the game is the fact the strongest way to play is rushing. Cause that is exactly what would get you killed in zombie horror movies. But not in L4D.”
“SOMEONES” never played on Expert
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Why is that in quotes?
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1) Theres a infinite stream of zombies
2) The director is slow to spawn zombies.
3) If you are playing versus, the zombie players are slow to spawn.
As a result, If you can rush, in a versus game, you eat the other team alive. By the time the zombie team “feel” how the game is, your team is already more than half the level away.
Its probably a bad idea for Coop/Hard, but for versus is a ***DESTROYER*** strategy.
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THe game doesn’t need to be harder per se, just needs to emphasis tactics more imo
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@Tei:
Yes, because the zombies in Versus are “normal” level zombies. :-)
Each “expert” zombie hits for 20 points of damage out of your 100 and friendly fire in expert can easily kill you in one shot.
Running in expert is quite fun… and short.
What we are doing in expert now and quite succesfully I must say, is having one runner go ahead and the other 3 a small distance after him so the zombies get shot from behind as they run towards the first guy. The problem is that it’s very, very difficult to stay in formation and keep the proper distance between the members. If the runner goes too fast, he dies under a hunter. If he goes too slow, he gets attacked from behind and is in the line of fire of the rest of the group. Also, if one of the “slow” 3 gets bogged down, the communication has to be smooth or the first guy will run on, alone and technically dead…
So basically we don’t rush all the way, we do sprints to safe spots, regroup, sprint in 1+3 formation, regroup, etc.
Works very well in open, long levels.
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Funnily enough, because of this thread, I decided to revisit L4D after many months and had a great old time in Survivor mode, with some people who weren’t twats and even got a Silver medal. Chalk an accidental -1 up for the boycott.
P.
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Oh, one thing I would do if i were at Valve (yeah ,right…)
would be to apply difficulty levels also to the audio cues.
As it stands now, we know a long time before that there’s a tank, a hunter or specially a boomer and a good team reacts to that automatically.
In L4D, audio is so important but at the end, but so much of a giveaway of what’s going to happen that I think it would be great if the “superexpert” difficulty had audio cues that were more difficult to recognize.
The obvious thing would be lowering the volume of the boomers, hunters, etc.
Ideally, this difficulty should scale gradually from easy to expert as with the hit points and all the rest…
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I really don’t get the boycott proponents. It’s just a game. Claims that the sky is falling in the Valve Studios seem to be a bit of an overreaction. It’s not even done yet, no one has seen the final price point, yet preemptive zealotry is running rampant. Some perspective would be nice.
I thoroughly enjoyed the first L4D, and never even once played Multiplayer. I always ran single-player campaigns for fun. The idea of being assigned to a group of random strangers and being forced to hear their ravings and profanity just did nothing for me. In single-player there was a lot more tactics involved since your AI buddies only provide marginal support. I suspect this has made my gameplay perspective slightly different than most others’. Working through a campaign on Expert in single-player is a case-study in vantage points, moving from cover to cover, and working with limited ammunition.
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It’s a discussion about a game on a gaming site. A PC-gaming site that is, so everything Valve-related is double-relevant. Sure, discussing gameplay is more fun, but I don’t think that DRM, pricing or corporate philosophy are irrelevant topics, either.
L4D2 looks like a meager title to justify the status of a true sequel. But I only played the L4D free weekends so far, so who am I to judge? Felt like I could play everything I could out of that game in a session of 8 hours or so, which is the reason I never got it. So the argument about lacking content seems to be quite accurate…
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That 1+3 strategy sounds interesting. I may give that a go next time we’re out shooting zombies.
Also, what do vegetarian zombies eat? Graaaaaains
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Man, the effect for the spitter spit is neat. Bright and obvious, cool looking boiling oil effect that clearly lets you know “get the fuck out of this area here”. Shame that apparently nobody playing got that.
Also digging the new gore system, it’s a nice contrast to Soldier of Fortune which I’ve been replaying recently. L4D2 looks WAY more detailed in that way.
Awesome gore system, bunch of new zombies to mix up the game, bunch of new weapons so not everyone’s running for the same thing over and over, and more procedural events? I’m completely sold.
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really i hope there playing on easy cause a charger does not need to die with one hit with a frying pan
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