L4D2 : review

The first L4D was a modest breath of fresh air in FPS gaming; L4D2 felt like an expansion pack that was trying to pass as true sequel. I understand why so many fans are annoyed. There's nothing new in L4D2 that doesn't feel like it could have been modded into the original. A lot of little things indicate hastiness and lack of quality control, a failing you never expected from Valve after their years of fanatical attention to quality. For example, melee weapons are an interesting addition, but when you fall down carrying one, you suddenly have a pistol, and when you get up it disappears again. What!?

Some of the new features don't add anything to the game for me. The melee weapons are interesting, until you've worked through all the weapons, and you realize they provide no benefit over the standard pistols. Same for the new visuals. The gore when you shoot zombies is much more realistic, I guess, but it doesn't add anything to the previously established atmosphere. It just feels like something were able to add, so they did.

The voicework is mostly flat and adds little. The new crew is competently voiced, but the writing behind the lines is cardboard thin. The new witch vocalization sounds sadder at first, but soon comes off as just wailing. The original witch voice was more poignant - I could feel the pain of the witch's knowledge of her lost humanity; now its just some whiny kid to avoid.

The new special infected don't do much for me. I understand they were mostly added to help even out the multiplayer game, and prevent the survivors from camping out in one spot too long. So I can't really fault the addition for not adding much to the single-player game, which is treated like little more than a trainer for multi play. I have to mention the jockey though as just ridiculous; what a way to ruin what's left of the dark atmosphere. I think the voice actors even acknowledge this with seemingly purposefully bad line reads of their reactions to the jockey - they just phone it in like they can't even believe where this franchise is going. It doesn't help that the jockey is hard to counter if he gets anywhere near you. All the other specials have a narrow window in which you can counter them, if you're fast and skilled enough (which is a good reward for your attention and skill). But if the jockey gets within 10 feet of you it has you; you can't punch him away like you can the hunter, dodge the charger, dodge the spitter or smoker, etc. Silly and annoying.

I like the bio grenade, as implausible as it is. It does kind of hint of secret government shenanigans, but they didn't really go anywhere with it in the story. Speaking of not going anywhere, the story is not advanced at all. Wasn't the first game "Two weeks after infection", so when are we now? The two hero teams meet at The Passing, but then move on. I felt like I was being teased with hints of a story that was probably never going to be resolved.

I'm willing to let all that go, because I finally got what L4D was all about. The goal is not story and personal glory, but teamwork. In the original game, the campaign The Passing bloodily underlined that the team is more important for survival than any one person in it. You can debate that premise, but they made a solid case, and a solid game based on it. I didn't get it at first. I fumbled along, trying to apply my old FPS RPG tricks, failing again and again until it was beaten out of me. When I play these kind of games I'm used to looking out only for myself, and slowly plodding along until I know I can safely overcome obstacles with little risk. L4D taught me that I need to stick with my teammates at all cost, even at great cost to myself, or everyone loses. And it also taught me that you've got to keep moving, because the wolf is at your heels almost all the time, and you just don't have time to sit and think. This is painfully obvious in online play, but its a testament to Valve's skill that this also conveyed this in single player mode.

I always took every L4D game seriously and in character, even though my teammates were usually bots. This was lost in L4D2, as I couldn't care less about the characters. The new team, through some combination of lack of character and story, and probably voice acting, just don't grab me like the original survivors.

The lack of story shouldn't affect an action game, but it does. If you're not interested, and not invested, then the action becomes meaningless, and pointless, and boring.

I almost wonder if Valve did this on purpose, pushing a poor sequel out the door quickly on purpose to disappoint the fans, so they can now justify their incredibly long development times as a necessary evil. There are a lot of parallels between Valve fans and Apple fans for the amount of mistreatment we'll put up with for our fix.

I'm glad I played both the Left 4 Dead games, but it probably wasn't worth all the time it took, especially near the end. I also regret missing out on it when it was popular, as there were more people online to play with. This is a failing of my bargain bin gaming.

P.S. This is more a collection of rambling thoughts than a proper review; maybe I'll come back and edit it sometime. Probably not.

L4D2 : add-ons

I think I'm near done with L4D2; I've played most of the variations I want to play, gotten most of the achievements a solo player reasonably can. Let's try add-on campaigns, starting with the best I can find on l4dmaps.com. There seem to be errors caused by having multiple campaigns loaded, so I'm only using one a time.

A Dam Mission

The addition of voicework shows effort, but this is not a good idea for most amateurs. The writing is no better, nor is the unrealistic map design. I made it through the first map but I can't go any further. I remember last time I played L4D I played through a lot of mediocre maps that and I can't justify doing that anymore. I gave it more than a chance.

Arena of the Dead 2

Short, and not bad, but nothing memorable. Not bot friendly, they were falling down a lot especially near the finale.

Blackout Basement

Level design is pretty crude and unrealistic. I like how you have the option of turning on the lights, at the cost of a minor horde rush. Map feels too open and empty to ever have been a real place, but its somehow still compelling enough to keep going. Things start getting more interesting when you have to cross a train bridge. The scripted event was cute, but killed 2 of my bots instantly. Luckily there's a resurrection closet nearby. The rescue ending was fairly standard, but got more and more intense. Overall, it got better as it went along, but I can't recommend it as even a play once.

Blood Tracks

Plays with the original L4D crew. It's easy to get knocked into the water and insta-killed. Big open spaces, but it feels natural. Clear instructions, that's good. The added music is just OK. The addition of new graffiti was nice, until it started getting cheesy. It gets worse, with references to the gnome from L4D2 - its just not fun or funny. Further on, I'm continually impressed by the large and roomy map design, that still manages to feel like a real place. So many maps are so constrained you feel like you're on a rail, so this is a real talent. Surprisingly understated ending. Worth playing once just to experience the maps, but would probably not replay.

City 17

It came back to me as I played it, that I must have tried this campaign when I was playing L4D.

These maps work in L4D, not really surprising, but I don't feel anything of a Half-Life vibe at all. Throwing two witches at you with just tier 1 weapons is mean. I like the use of pictures taped up in the wall in the safe room (but if all you had left of a loved one is a picture, would you really tape it up on some random wall and abandon it there forever?). I recommend a melee weapon for the long run up to the alarm. There are other annoying enemy spawn points, that seem more like torture test than challenge; I'm starting over in easy mode, I don't have time for this.

Other than City 17 makes a nice L4D map, there's no point in playing this, but I keep going. It feels like I'm nearly done, and only now does the Half-Life music start playing - why bother now? Half-Life is coming back to me - I find myself hoping to find some auto-turrets I could set up, but I know that the code just isn't up to it. But at least they set up a fixed machine gun to play with.

It wasn't terrible, but I wouldn't recommend playing it.

Crash Course Enhanced

So far so normal, wait... is someone shooting back at us? This clearly isn't a straight port of the original Crash Course. Starting over, paying more attention this time. OK, the author thought it would be cool to have a jet fly over every 40 seconds and bomb something at random - this makes zero sense. Why would the last few survivors bother random bombing - a tactic which doesn't accomplish anything against even uninfected humans?

Encountering some soldiers in fatigues who attack you with a rifle is cool - until you realize it makes even less sense. Either zombie (too dumb to use guns), or humans who hate carriers (not going to hang out with infected) - take your pick - but not both.

The riot shield is cool, really cool, like the creators of L4D should have thought of it. It was even in the 28 Weeks movie, so it has a solid zombie lore canonical reference. Except it doesn't seem to work, or I'm using it wrong. And I only play with bots, so I can't take advantage of any team work bonus it might offer.

While crossing under the bridge, the game crashed to the desktop. Some minor pop-up error, looked like a memory error.

Do I want to keep trying... no.

Dead Before Dawn DC

I was just about to write what an interesting map, until I saw the graffiti.

This playground seems familiar - I guess I played this campaign in L4D also.

There's a bunch of voicework, which is surprisingly not awful, but a lot of it suffers from bad timing. Most of the voice comes right before fighting, and I don't get to hear most of it.

I like the mini scavenge puzzle, and how one person has to dedicate to moving it while the others protect.

Found a radio - can't hear message over fighting - hit ESC out of frustration. Ah, that's interesting, even though the game is paused the voice message still plays. Weird but useful.

More interesting and implausible puzzles - but its already a concept map and they're kind of fun so who cares.

No good in-game explanation for why if you leave you get one-hit killed on the spot. It's just lame.

Two voice messages playing at the same time? Was this even play tested?

More failure - there are now ads and graffiti shouts to various members of the mod community. Not much point if you have to lower the quality of your map to do so.

Done. OK, so there's a bit of goofiness in this map, and its not the dark horror I prefer, but its different and fun. Definitely worth playing once, and maybe has some replay value.

Dead Echo 2

Started out really crude, almost skipped. It gets better as you go along.

Keeps getting better, at least enough to keep me interested, but its still crappy in some spots (boxes you can't climb because of invisible walls? c'mon).

Lost a bot to the map.

The finale is in a huge open space - easy to fire on whatever runs our way.

So where is the rescue vehicle? No help at all in this huge space.

Checking YouTube videos... its all they way back there? That makes no sense at all.

I don't recommend this map at all.

Dead Series

The endless rush until you can shut off the alarm is more annoying than challenging - a melee weapon and adrenalin helps. I like the treehouse. The farmhouse area is cool, but the dynamite puzzle feels very fedex. Hiding in the well, and falling into an underground river is different, but stupid. This game never intended you, let alone bots, to swim. Luckily I found land before the whole team got wiped. The fireflies and cavern feel more like Fallout than L4D; interesting.

Some nice big open detailed maps here, very nice.

OK, that kept me busy until the end, too busy to notice there's nothing really going on here in the way of story or atmosphere. It was mostly just good mapping and some new tricks.

Worth playing once.

DeadCity II

I remember playing this in L4D. Maps are long and convoluted, and don't feel like a real place. The AI seems strangely dumber than usual, sometimes not helping or healing the way they usually do. They also keep repeating the same stock phrases.

It's strange how memorable this map is, almost as memorable as the stock maps.

Lots of attention to detail, multiple paths, some puzzle solving - maybe there is a reason why I remember this map.

It has its moments but by the end I'm just glad its over. Maybe worth playing the once.

Death Aboard 2

Looks like another conversion from L4D.

Yeah, I remember this map too, and I remember getting lost in here last time. Its unusual to get lost in L4D since its usually on rails, even when its well disguised, you don't usually get lost.

Multiple pathways, and small electricity puzzles - feels kinda Deus Ex.

Some nice maps here along the dock and on half sunk ship. I remember these tilted decks, the undead have a heck of a time getting around - I guess L4D2 still didn't fix it.

Got stuck, couldn't find exit - thankfully there was a Youtube walkthrough.

Finale is good, if a bit silly. Definitely worth playing, and probably fun for a human team. If I had a top five custom campaigns this would be on it.

Detour Ahead - L4D2

Falling into a few feet of water equals instant death? Stupid map; any more stupidity and I'm out. I'm already getting sick of amateur hour. OK, this is amusing. There's a witch blocking our path - that's some mean placement. And then I notice, right near her is a grenade launcher - problem solved. Silly, but amusing placements.

Map seems to get a lot better - as if made by someone else. Areas are more organic, and feel less like a big corridor. You should feel like you're somewhat lost, and trying to find a way out. A lot of maps get that wrong - even some of the stock maps sometimes.

The special infected respawn time is set to nearly zero - even on easy.

OK, that last level was predictable, but intense.

Worth playing once.

Diescraper Redux

Another map where the military is dropping bombs on nearly dead cities - not because it makes any sense in the map's story, but because the code is there to do it, and it looks cool. That's all quickly forgotten because it turns into an escape from the burning building scenario, and that actually is cool, and doesn't happen enough in game considering what would really happen if you took away the fire departments.

So far gameplay pretty standard (run through hordes to shut off alarms, paths blocked by witch and tank), but the mapping is quite good.

Oh, no, such nice maps and it had to stoop to crappy graffiti. It was doing so well up til here.

A standard but intense wait for the helicopter ending, with a few nice extras at the end.

Overall definitely worth playing once, would play again.

2012.08.11 - This is getting boring; checking L4D campaign reviews before I decide whether to move on. OK, I think I need to wrap this up soon. I'd like to at least play I Hate Mountains 2 before moving on.

Drop Dead Gorges

Ah, original survivor team, haven't seen enough of that.

Good map, feels like a real place. Convoluted enough that it feels like a much bigger space.

For such a nice map, the alarm puzzle UI is unusual and crude.

I think this is the longest time I ever spent in a safe room reading the graffiti. Usually this is highly annoying to me, but in this case there's so much wackiness its overwhelming. It also kind of conveys a more innocent time in the infection, when there were still enough people around to have a sense of humor about anything. Strangely, it works.

Having multiple pathways is really cool - highlighting that with floating instructions kind of spoils the illusion. And some more: there's glowtext saying don't fall in the pool - the right thing to do is put up lots of work safety signs to that effect, and let the players figure it out for themselves.

Having stuff coming through the police scanner is a nice new addition - but the audio is from a much calmer civilized time - not the chaos (or silence) you would expect this long after first infection. It also begs the question why can't we pick it up and call for rescue.

Two bots got killed by the map near the end, and the rescue area has no resurrection booths. Restarting. OK, easy this time.

Definitely worth playing, maybe even replaying.

Gas Fever

I'm getting tired of the endless cars with their headlights still on, after how many days and weeks now? On top of that, this map is using flares to guide your path. Permanent, everlit flares.

How clever - trap us in a small space with a tank with only our tier 1 weapons. Every bad map does this (and places witches on unavoidable paths).

Do you really have to tell the player after you start each generator you're getting a tank?

Despite all that, it was still fun, and it was nice to see the car again.

Worth playing once.

Haunted Forest (Dead Line 2)

Ghost themed; but decently rated. Of course its tacky, but not as tacky as I thought it would be. Just interesting enough to keep going. The maps feel like Quake, or Hexen, in some parts. I guess I never thought about it at the time, but all those old early FPS maps never felt like anyone ever actually lived or worked there - they were just painted stages with cardboard and styrofoam props. We've gotten spoiled by modern maps that can sometimes actually pass for a real place.

Paused and came back a few hours later - my game is stuck and had to be forced closed.

Just as well, no need to start over.

Highway to Hell

Starts with melee and pistol only, which feels right - don't know why we don't see it more.

Immediately impressed with map, its small but intricate.

Kinda neat to come across a dead tank lying next to a broken still-burning tanker truck - it gives evidence that you are in a larger world and there are other things going on besides you. I'd love to see more.

OK, its not a great innovation, but this is the first time I've ever seen a safe room door, after you've closed it, off its hinges in the next round, and the area further back closed and reinforced. Its no big deal, but its a new one to me.

Another nice detail - instead of random items strewn about the map, you find things like laser sighs on in a military vehicle, or medical items next to a dead CEDA person. Sounds obvious, but very few maps do it.

Another neat thing - a closed safe room door, with no way to open it from the outside. Another obvious never seen it before.

Overall few technical problems, but there's a big one near the rescue site - if you step past a certain point you just die, no explanation. Sure, there's the word danger on the ground in front of it, but it makes no sense. It wouldn't be so bad if it was just that, but the bots can wander out there and die. A better barrier could have been devised.

At the end, it was too easy to defend the waiting spot. When the rescuer said come aboard I went to the ramp and it lowered on me, trapping me in place. Luckily a few seconds later it teleported me next to the ramp.

Overall, all the thoughtful little extras don't add up to a great experience. Definitely worth playing, but I don't see playing it again.

I Hate Mountains 2

I don't even know where to start, this map is good enough to feel like one of the stock campaigns. It should have been elevated to official status before Cold Stream. Probably my favorite custom campaign. And its got the original survivors, so that's icing.

I downloaded a few more campaigns, but its not going to get any better than this. This is as good a place to stop as any; time to call this game finished.