There was quite a bit of controversy in the video game world right after Valve Corporation announced Left4Dead 2, the sequel to their award-winning, critically acclaimed blockbuster Left4Dead, at the 2009 E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) convention in June when a large group of gamers called for a boycott of the game due to concerns that the sequel was coming out too soon such that Valve would no longer support the first game, which was still played a lot online.
Some of the members of the boycott group felt that the additions and changes to the game as described in Valve’s announcement did not appear to be significant enough to warrant a brand new $60 game and thus inferred that Valve was simply trying to milk the young, less than one year old (at the time) franchise. Further, the fact that the release of a sequel inevitably leads to a decline in support for the earlier game(s) distressed Left4Dead fans who lamented that Valve was one of the last reputable game companies that still invested a lot of effort and resources into supporting their games.
As it turns out, the boycott was much ado about nothing as Valve released more downloadable content at the end of September, released a Left4Dead Authoring Toolset to allow gamers to create their own Left4Dead content (which would also be compatible with the sequel) earlier in the summer and proved even in the demo that they made a game worthy of being a standalone sequel instead of a downloadable expansion to the first game.
Left4Dead 2 improves on the amazing first game in almost every way with better visuals, new features and functionality, a new gameplay mode, and of course a slew of new Infected – both common and Special (plus the new uncommon Infected) – to lay waste to.
The most obvious new feature, in my mind, is the addition of melee weapons. This to me is a game changer as the ability to wield hand-to-hand combat utensils completely changes the way you approach the experience. There are a total of ten melee weapons although one, the baseball bat, is an exclusive pre-order bonus. The other nine are, in order of my least to most favorite to use on swarming zombies, the nightstick, the crowbar, the frying pan, the electric guitar, the cricket bat, the fireman’s axe, the machete, the katana, and my personal favorite the chainsaw, which has a limited amount of usage (it is gas-powered after all) but tears through crowds of Infected like a shark gnashing on a baby seal.
You can only carry one melee weapon at a time, of course, and it takes the place of your handgun(s). While I find the ability to rapidly pump an Infected full of bullets from a distance with dual-wielded pistols an asset at times (I tend to stick with a close-range shotgun as my main weapon), I much prefer to take out my enemies up close with a nice, shiny blade. It is, for some reason, more satisfying to slice through any army of enemies than it is to simply mow them down with a sub-machine gun or assault rifle. There’s also something strangely funny about hearing the clang of a cast iron skillet against the skull of an Infected – it helps to lighten the mood quite a bit. Plus, some of the melee weapons are surprisingly effective against the Special Infected.
In addition to melee weapons, Left4Dead 2 introduces a new set of firearms with which to trim the population of Infected humans. The same general classes of weapons are there but now there are more varieties of handguns, sub-machine guns, assault rifles, shotguns, and sniper rifles. True, many of them are just visual variations of the same weapon (I constantly switch between two automatic, rapid-fire shotguns that hold 10 shells at a time) but it’s still nice to see some variety. A whole new weapon, the grenade launcher, also makes its debut in this sequel, and it does just what you expect it to. I always grab it when the Director (the game’s artificial intelligence) decides to drop one in my way, but it’s not always the best weapon to use as it’s exceptionally easy to inflict friendly fire damage upon your allies and yourself. It’s still fun to make the Infected go boom, though.
There’s now a Magnum that can take the place of the standard handgun. It cannot be dual-wielded but it does considerably more damage – one-shot kills on common Infected. It only holds 8 rounds but if you’re accurate with your attacks, that’s more than enough. There’s even a new throwable weapon to join the Molotov cocktail and pipe bomb: the bile bomb, a tube of Boomer bile that contaminates an area and/or the Infected within it and causes other Infected to attack like when a Boomer vomits all over you. An especially useful tactic is to toss it at a Tank or Witch and let your enemies do your work for you.
Speaking of Special Infected, several new specimens join the Smoker, Hunter, Boomer, Tank, and Witch, all of which return in slightly varied (from a visual standpoint) form. The Spitter is a particularly nasty enemy that hurls acidic loogies at you. If you’re fast enough, you can get away from the area before the toxic spittle drains your health, but many times you’re in areas with little room for movement. The Charger is a larger-than-average Infected with one giant arm and one miniature arm that rams into players and repeatedly pummels the one it manages to grab a hold of. It’s essentially a “mini” version of the Tank. And last but not least, the Jockey is an extremely annoying Special Infected whose sole attack is to leap on your head and essentially ride you in directions you likely don’t want to go (for example, around in circles in a pool of the Spitter’s acid).
While the Smoker, Hunter, Tank and Boomer are largely unchanged from the first game’s versions as far as behavior and abilities go, the Witch is a little different in this game. Instead of just sitting around moping about whatever has it all worked up, the Left4Dead 2 Witch shuffles around slowly in a general area, making it somewhat more difficult to avoid. This is especially true in the “Hard Rain” campaign in which one level has about a dozen Witches wandering around throughout the level, some within close proximity of each other.
In addition to the new Special Infected, Left4Dead 2 introduces a new class of enemy known as uncommon Infected. These are essentially common Infected – they deal and take the same amount of damage as their more frequently seen counterparts – with specific attributes that make them a little tougher to deal with. For example, the Infected CEDA Worker wears a hazmat suit that protects it from the flames of a Molotov cocktail or ignited fuel canister (and makes an interesting hissing sound when punctured) while the Riot Infected’s riot armor protects it from bullets and melee attacks (it’s only vulnerable to melee attacks from behind).
Fighting all these new enemies are four brand new Survivor characters who are more developed than the Survivors from the first game. You never learn much about Francis, Bill, Zoey and Louis, who appear more flustered and panicked about their situation. This is perhaps appropriate considering the first game seems to take place at a time much closer to the outbreak of the infection.
In contrast, the second game seems to take place further along the timeline since the new Survivors show they know a lot more about what’s going on through their in-game and cutscene dialogue. Ellis, the youthful weapon-obsessed mechanic who loves telling tall tales about misadventures with his buddy Keith, especially seems a little too comfortable with the scenario, never coming across as scared or distressed about the fact that he’s being attacked by mobs of crazed humans (never mind being disturbed that he’s slaughtering fellow people).
He’s joined by Rochelle, a fiery young journalist with a proper Southern upbringing but no qualms about getting feisty when necessary; Nick, a vain and self-centered womanizer who isn’t cheap with sarcasm, complaints or insults; and Coach, a stocky football coach who looks kind of like Judge Banks from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and is the de facto leader of the group, dispensing common sense and pep talks like candy out of a rotund purple Pez container.
The game is divided into five campaigns (compared to the original’s four) that take place across various parts of Louisiana. You start off in a burning hotel in the middle of a city and make your way across swamps and plantations to reach a final rendez-vous point with the military, who are bombing the entire area as a last resort preventative measure against the infection. As in the original game, progressing through these campaigns with three other players online is the way the game was intended to be played, but the developers included a few other fun modes to change things up.
Returning are the Versus mode, in which a second team of four players take control of random Special Infected in an attempt to wipe out the Survivors before they can reach the level’s safe house, and the Survival mode, in which four players fight as long as they can against a never-ending army of Infected. New to the series is the Scavenge mode, in which a team of four Survivors tries to collect fuel tanks scattered around a map and return them to a power generator to extend the time in the round while a team of four Special Infected tries to stop them or destroy the tanks.
As far as the graphics are concerned, Left4Dead 2 looks pretty good considering it uses the five-year-old Source game engine that powered Half-Life 2 in 2004. The graphics don’t hold a candle next to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, also released in November 2009, but appear better than Left4Dead’s thanks to more chapters taking place in the daylight where players can get a good look at the attention to detail in the environments and an improvement in the animation of the enemies as they advance, attack and react to damage.
Better yet, Valve improved the modeling of the Infected so that when they are hit by gunfire, not only do the appropriate pieces of their bodies fly off like in the first game but flesh tears open to reveal bone and guts underneath. Good times.
All in all, Left4Dead 2 is a marked improvement over its predecessor and an evolution in almost every aspect of the game. The rogues gallery has expanded with some nasty new additions to the Infected army, the new player characters are more fleshed out and entertaining to listen to, the environments are more beautifully rendered and creative in their design, the new functionality fits perfectly and makes it difficult to go back to the first game without feeling handcuffed by limitations, and the overall experience is significantly more immersive.
Valve Corporation should be applauded for their effort and lauded for the results, which are about as good as you can get without a whole new game engine (which I hope Valve will develop by the time the fourth Left4Dead game arrives on shelves in a couple of years as a truly next generation version of this series would be awesome).
If you’re a first-person shooter or action fan, there really is no reason why you shouldn’t have Left4Dead 2 in your game library.
Final score: 5 out of 5
Parent to parent
I didn’t recommend Left4Dead for young children and I won’t recommend Left4Dead 2, either. The sequel isn’t anymore kid-friendly than the first game and is, in fact, less appropriate for children as the gruesomeness of certain aspects of the experience is greater than before. Valve even had to create a less gory version of the game for the Australian market as the original version couldn’t get proper classification (and thus couldn’t be sold in Australia).
Experience this for yourself!
- Left 4 Dead 2 (Xbox 360)Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.(Amazon)
- Left 4 Dead 2 (PC)Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.(Amazon)
