Left 4 Dead 2

First things first, Valve announced Left 4 Dead 2 at the E3. The game will have plenty of new things over the first:

• A new and improved AI Director 2.0 for even more scary hordes of zombies.
• Many new zombie models (they look better and more dynamic than the ones in the first part, too).
• One new kind of super zombie, the charger.
• Dynamic weather (courtesy of said AI Director 2.0).
• Dynamic pathing through some areas (courtesy of said AI Director 2.0).
• 20 new weapons, among them, melee weapons like baseball bats, chainsaws and frying pans.
• A new setting, in the daytime instead of the night (meaning, few reusable assets).
• New survivors with different backstories and even more dynamic lines of small talk.
• One big campaign, in which the survivors get to know each other, and a feeling of progress throughout the different movie plot scenarios.
• Better Crescendo events that reduce survivor’s ability to exploit closets (I hate closets) by making them have to move.

That certainly does look like a list of changes that is a lot longer than the one you see in an EA sports title, or Call of Duty for that matter. The fact that it’s going to come out November 17th, a mere year after the first? Hooray! Gee, Valve is fast in producing quality content.

More on IGN, they have a preview.

Nerd Rage

Anyway, I promised you that I will also be talking about nerd rage. Well, here you go: There is a Steam group called L4D2 Boycott with now nearly 20k members -- and gee, how unexpected, they call for a boycott of that new shiny new game. I leave you to read the full list of their protest bullet points elsewhere, but want to point out that among the things those folks hate so much are the new music and “the game is too bright”.

Funny enough, the same folks also complain that L4D wasn’t worth its money for them. That is, after the game got multiple discounts and weekend sales, and many of them probably got it for the price of an indy game. Personally, I got more playtime out of L4D than out of many, many other full price titles, I have no clue what those guys are talking about.

We’re Spoiled

Yes, we’re spoiled. TF2 is awesome and got huge amounts of updates over the past years. New maps, new game modes, new weapons and “meet the …” videos. But what Valve seems to have done for L4D here goes way beyond these updates for TF2. Personally, I trust them enough to believe that when they think it’s worth buying a new game, then it’s worth buying a new game.

And when they say that there will be new content for the first L4D still, then the experience with TF2 made me confident enough in their abilities and their trustworthiness to believe them that as well.

Where the Protesters are Right

It is true, L4D2 could be an expansion. A standalone, tie-in expansion, a bit cheaper for those who already own L4D, with a bundle offer for those who want both.

It is also true that L4D didn’t get a huge lot of added content so far -- although we did get a new gametype, a new map, Valve enabled Versus mode on the remaining two campaigns (which meant reworking them altogether, since infected can reach many places survivors can’t). Still, there could be more. According to Valve, there also will be more -- so what exactly is the problem? Anyway, L4D got slightly less updates than TF2, point acknowledged.

But beyond that? No way. “We want to keep the old characters” and “we don’t want this new setting” and then at the same time “there’s not enough content here to justify a sequel”? That sounds an awful lot like “waah waah” to me.

Update 2009-06-09 19:53: There’s an interview at the Negative Gamer that is well worth the read. Seems that with size, they also changed to the better. Mr.Pancakes:

We changed our manifesto because we wanted to keep it in line with what most people in the community had concerns about. The first manifesto was there from the beginning. It contained our gut reactions to the new game and why we disliked it. But as the community grew, people began to focus their concerns on the content issues with Left 4 Dead 1 and the timing of Left 4 Dead 2, more than the fiddle-music or the visual aspects of Left 4 Dead 2. It became more about Left 4 Dead 1, and many of our members wanted us to drop the complaints about the fiddle-music and the Left 4 Dead 2 aesthetic.

Left 4 Dead Survival Pack

Left 4 Dead did get a new update a couple of weeks back, which improved the balance a bit. I liked the Smoker changes, but other than that, it was a bit less spectacular than I hoped. However, the slightly more spectacular update is coming: The Survival Pack, supposed to come out “sometime in March or April”. Careful, watching those videos might hurt if you’re allergic to spastic gamepad shooter movement like I am.

Anyway, what’s gonna be in it for us PC users:

• The SDK, so people can create their own maps (exclusive to the PC)
• Versus modes on the Dead Air and Death Toll campaigns (finally!)
• A new Survival game mode, where the survivors are pitted against wave upon wave of infected
• Lighthouse, a new level for that new game mode

I am really looking forward to this, being the old Versus nut that I am. I actually never played the Dead Air campaign yet, with it not being available in Versus.

There also was a minor patch on the 11th that brought some further balance fixes, in particular, who plays the survivor side first in Versus is now determined by who is leading -- those get to play first, as the ones coming second know where all the weapons are, and have a rough idea of where tanks and witches will show up.

Update 2009-03-14 09:45: Just now, new post on boomercharged.net, with essentially this very information, plus they say that Valve named “before April 21st” as release date.

Quake Live Open Beta

It’s running for a couple weeks already, and the comments on my most-commented-on post ever have dwindled ever since the beta was made public and no longer invites-only. Quake Live is still a perfect reenactment of one of the two core roots of today’s online shooters, Quake III (the other one being the original Unreal Tournament).

If you haven’t checked this out, maybe you should do yourself a favour and relive some good old school fun

Team Fortress 2 Scout Update

Ah, the big one. This update for Team Fortress 2 is a few weeks old already, in fact. Like the Goldrush/Medic, Pyro, and Heavy updates, this one features tons of achievements and three new, unlockable alternate weapons for the Scout, and a couple community maps. Have a look at the goodies!

Unlike with the previous updates, Valve themselves didn’t provide own maps or even new game types this time. I have played all the maps they officially release now months ago, too -- although an official release like that gives them more exposure of course. On the other hand, with payload, control point, capture the flag and arena, there’s plenty game types in TF2 now.

Sandman User Guide

As before though, the unlocks aren’t necessarily better than the original weapons, but different. For example, the Sandman allows you to knock out an opponent, but foregoes your double jump. And you give up your ranged weapon, the pistol, for the Bonk! energy drink. If you’re using the Force-A-Nature and the regular bat over the Sandman, you’ll have a triple jump even, counting the gun’s knockback -- which is awesome, I love it, it gives the Scout even more flexibility and speed and allows you to reach places way faster or even at all. Just watch:

Sorry about the distinct lack of sound, I didn’t switch the recording device for Fraps

Anyway, that’s it for now -- we’ve got plenty of shooter goodness to get us over the coming weeks.

Now if you’ve heard a few of those conversations, you know that Francis hates quite a lot of things. Here’s a little music video that proves it:

Via tons of places, but I think I saw it first on Destructoid.

Hope you enjoyed this little interlude And let me take this opportunity to say that the Zerg post is nearly finished, just lacks pictures, and I’m working on the Terran strategy post today. Guess they’ll both be up in the next 1-2 days.

Update 2009-02-03 10:48: Since I’m already linking random stuff, here’s some L4D Valentine cards. But I’ll try to keep random reposts to a minimum, you know there’s delicious.com for such things

Left 4 Dead Title

It’s rare that I’m as hyped up for a game as I was for this one. I think the last time this happened was for Age of Conan, and I was disappointed by it, and the time before that must have been World of Warcraft (which I still irregularly play).

Zombies in the Rain

So what makes Left 4 Dead special? First off, it’s by Valve, and they know what they’re doing when it comes to multiplayer shooters – you know how much I love Team Fortress 2, admittedly I never was a Counterstrike person but that game is rather good as well I’m told.

A Horde of Zombies

Next, it has zombies – and zombies are great. Those are particularly nasty, the runny, 28 Days Later type, not the more common shuffling and loitering Zombies!!! type.

And finally, it has proper teamwork (a headset is very, very useful), and a truly cinematic feel – that Director AI thing does work. Eventhough just two chapters of one episode (total 20 chapters in 4 episodes, I think) are in the demo, it’s totally worth it, and does what it’s supposed to do: raise expectations that were really high even higher.

People who preordered (like me, obviously) already got to play the demo since yesterday, it should be in your Steam games list then. It’s gonna be open for everybody else as of tomorrow. Get it from Steam. As for me, I can’t wait for the 18th, when the full game comes out I will make a review after I got to play it properly.

If you want extensive previews of the full thing by the way, Rock Paper Shotgun has one for the coop mode, and one for the versus mode. And just now, they posted tons of screenies.

Update 2008-11-08 02:11: Apparently, you can play as the infected, even in the demo Gotta try that out tomorrow.

Update 2008-11-09 16:57: Seems I was wrong about the demo going open on the 8th, it’s on the 11th apparently. Torrented versions will not work online, they’ll only piss of legitimate customers like me when the game won’t start because somebody doesn’t have a legit demo.

Update 2008-11-10 16:55: I read two main criticisms when it comes to the demo so far: “The game is dull, something for sitting on the couch and eating chips while playing” – you haven’t played it in anything but easy or normal if you think that. And “the guns don’t even allow you to scope” – if you have a PC monitor, you won’t have to, as you have a high resolution; and the hunter rifle does have a scope and allows you to scope (middle mouse button), oddly enough, just like those guns that don’t have scopes don’t allow you to scope.

Left 4 Dead

I just got mine today.

Left 4 Dead is coming in roughly four weeks, I’m sure you heard about it. It’s the upcoming post-apocalyptic zombie shooter by Valve, the makers of the awesome Team Fortress 2 and the Half Life series, with raving previews (an extensive preview is here) – everyobdy who played it loves it, it seems.

The Team Fortress 2 guys are working on it as well in these last weeks before release, and there’s a Left 4 Dead Blog meanwhile. With Lego, how cool is that.

It’s got zombies, and tougher boss zombies, and the humans struggle to survive, and there’s some AI stuff going on that tries to match the enemy toughness to the player skill, and generally it looks pretty interesting and great. Anyway. The reason why I’m writing this post is because preorders are open now (on Steam, for example, which is where I got mine), and if you preorder, you also get $5 off. Via Rock Paper Shotgun, and Joystiq.

On the other hand, I’m fairly certain that you’ll hear more about the game in the following weeks, considering Valve plans a $10M ad campaign (via Edge Online). Video games really do have reached the mainstream, don’t you think?