Left 4 Dead 2 : The Last Stand (2020)

2020.09.27
Any given day I start Steam I have to click through the ads. Usually I click through them quickly, hardly looking, as what I really am looking at for updates is my wishlist.

Today I am halted in my tracks by an official update to L4D2.

This should not be. The L4D franchise, like all Valve games, has been abandoned for years. Reading the text, its not that much of an update, so much as an elevated community map and some bug fixes, but still. Valve has been like a stone statue for so long, it really is news when it does anything at all.

2020.10.03

Played it. Nice bit of nostalgia. Brief.

Unfortunate return of RSI. Wasn't missing that.

status 2016 May - Oct

2016.05.09
Going through the Steam "Queue" (suggested recommendations?), I find Factorio. Funny reviews, maybe even a good game, added to wishlist.

Buy Dead Island Collection for $5.99, and Hatoful Boyfriend Collector's Edition for $3.74.

2016.07.25

While wrapping up the Fallout New Vegas post, I noticed Fallout 3 was still installed. I haven't cleaned house in a while.

There are a bunch of saves in C: that need to be moved to Z: (after deleting most of them and RAR'ing the rest).

In addition to Fallout 3 and NV saves, there's Age of Empires 3 saves, even though its not installed anymore.

2016.07.30
I have a bunch of Age of Empires (1 + 2, DLCs, etc.) installed, but in Windows, not in Steam. Uninstall all that. If I play AOE2 again, it should be the HD version in Steam.

I have two Plants vs Zombies installed. Uninstall from Steam, uninstall from Windows.

How is it that Planescape - Torment is still installed. Its like I can't even clean up after myself. I think sometimes, maybe most of the time, I slowly lose interest in something as I gain interest in something else. I usually don't draw a line and say no more of this.

Uninstaller says: "Unable to delete folder 'C:\Torment'."
There's still ~2gb left. Is this leftover from my first run through, and afterwards I installed some mods? Why didn't I delete this. Checking notes...

2016.09.02
I'm trying to alternate books with games, but sometimes I need something that's the equivalent of doing crossword puzzles, or playing Tetris. Right now, for me that's Left for Dead 2.

2016.09.11
Steam sales. Missed Borderlands. Got Dead Space for five bucks.

2016.09.19
Sometimes I connect to GTA 5 online. This is often prompted by some give-away that requires you log in that week. Its like I'm looking for something, but its not there, and I soon disconnect.

2016.09.25
Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition for $7.49 seems worth it, LA Noire, even at a dollar less, not so much.

2016.10.02
I'm spending more and more time playing GTA 5 Online, so it might as well get its own page.

2016.10.07
Steam sale, purchase Total Annihilation for $1.49.

2016.10.16
Steam sale, purchase Saints Row 2 for $2.49.

2016.10.18
Steam sale, purchase I Am Alive for $3.74.

Steam sale to the rescue

Feeling kind of trapped in Diablo 2; can't quit, can't stop playing the game.

Suddenly, Steam comes to the rescue with a big summer sale. Left 4 Dead 2 has finally dropped from $19 to $9, and I can justify the purchase. I'm still fixated on getting all my games from the bargain bin.

I'm still trying to clear old inventory in chronological order, but L4D is a mostly mindless action game that can be quickly consumed. Its also a nice break. After this, its back to the 90s.

Left 4 Dead : finishing up

I couldn't finish the last story, The Sacrifice, without having to look up some help. Its really not meant for single-player, which is all I'm really into. There is a trick to finish it - minor spoiler - you have to do what the AI controlled characters can't. No big deal, got the achievement, and now I'm technically done with the game, as there isn't anything left to do but try it at harder levels.

I'm replaying some parts that I didn't quite finish (like beating a campaign without dying), and trying out some of the weapons I never really used. The weapons are sadly few in type, but they are all good. The auto-shotgun is lots of fun. A pistol in each hand, which doesn't make much sense in real life, makes sense here. I'm getting better with grenades. I briefly read that in Left 4 Dead 2, there are melee weapons; that should be interesting. But L4D2 is still $19.99 in the steam store, so it can wait.

The campaign, such as it is, feels really disjointed, as if there were connections, but I didn't get to see them, like maybe I accidentally skipped the cut scene every time. Reading the wiki page, I can see that half the chapters in the campaign were add on DLCs, and there was a comic book that provided more backstory. For single player, just little more connecting material would have been nice, even if it was just something that let you play them all in order.

I would like a little more campaign, looked online, found "I Hate Mountains", trying that first. Nice site, ihatemountains.com; this seems like a mature product made by dedicated fans, which is always a good sign that you're not wasting your time. I follow their advice to enable console, rebuild sound cache, etc. Game seems stuck at end of sound cache rebuild; end task. Oh, its right there in the documentation, have a game running first. OK, but this time the game exits; documentation doesn't say one way or another how its supposed to exit.

(later)

"I Hate Mountains" is really quite good, not quite good enough to stand with the original campaigns, but its up there. The giveaway is that its cobbled together out of existing media (images, bits of voicework) from the originals, and doesn't contain anything unique to itself.

I haven't yet mentioned one of the coolest things about L4D and that's the return of friendly fire. This has been dumbed out of almost every game, and its great to see it back as a tactical consideration.

Off to l4dmaps.com to find some more campaigns. Looks like Mountains got a 94 rating, and happily I see several others in the 90s. Selecting "Night terror Fix". Should I rebuild sound cache everytime? I start the campaign and rebuild, again after a long wait it exits to desktop. Don't know if it accomplishes anything. The "Haunted House" level is really cute, a nice mix of childhood memories of Disney Land and something more current. In the "Moria" map - small spoiler - I didn't get the idea of holding the use key down long enough to activate the switch. They could have telegraphed this somehow, maybe by making the bucket starting to shake, or just not making it so obscure in the first place. It's kind of out of place.

(later)

Done with 'Night Terror". It was a cute bunch of maps, worth playing through once, but once you get all the jokes and surprises, there's nothing more to it.