Tearing Me Limb From Limb – Review of Left 4 Dead 2 (360)
Left 4 Dead 2
Developed by: Valve
Published by: EA
For: Xbox 360
I’ve got a confession to make: I hate horror films. This may come as a surprise to some who see this reviewer as a person who can handle fantastic amount of gore and violence, especially since most of the games I’ve played have both.
The fact is that I always thought of horror films in two lights:
1) Too gory or intense to deal with, since I have a slight problem with handling intense violence on screen (as a film reviewer, I couldn’t handle Hannibal, Dead-Alive (or Braindead 13) or any of the Saw films)
2) A film made for pure shock and schlock value, just to get a rise out of an audience. Yes, I know there is an “art” to it, but it nonetheless holds no interest to me.
So, knowing this, it should come as no surprise that I was lukewarm and dismissive to Left 4 Dead in 2008. The game had a great structure that was good in 1 – 3 hour bites, but the lack of anything meaty left me to feel like it was only a shell of a game that relied too much on its co-operative feature. You can only imagine how excited I was for Left 4 Dead 2 (read: not very to pretty much disinterested).
Left 4 Dead 2, however, cleans up a lot of the issues that were in Left 4 Dead, which include a lack of personality by the cast and its environments and to what could be simply described as a feeling of being incomplete or lacking of direction. Simply put. Left 4 Dead 2 feels exactly like what Left 4 Dead should have been like, which is why some transgressions can’t be excused with this second version.
Left 4 Dead 2 first big plus is the diversification of the environments. Instead of feeling like you’re going through Junkyard A and Building B or Non-Descript Farm Area C like Left for Dead did, the differences in the environments are clear, diverse and interesting to go through. Whether you’re going through a twisted and seedy Circus area filled with parlor games and a concert hall or (in what is my favorite campaign) a sugar mill in the middle of a monsoon, each of the five campaigns has a distinct personality that caters to any taste.
While we are on personalities, it’s great to see a much more likable cast of characters in the game. Instead of having such a cookie-cutter template of characters in the last game, which consisted of old guy, black guy, white girl and amiguously gay biker dude (I swear, they are in like every game nowadays!), you get this cast of characters that are as different as any of the environments. Sure, they aren’t exactly deep, but they are pepper in just a little more personality that you can grow an attachment to any character in the game. (For the record, Nick, who looks like a disheveled gambler, is my favorite, while my girlfriend frequently uses Ellis, the hillbilly)
The look of the zombies are also decidely different in each campaign. Instead of making them ashey grey and falling limply to the ground, like the first game did, limbs get torn off from impeding gun fire, heads get ripped apart by the swing of an axe or katana and, which makes the killing so much more satisfying, blood gushes everywhere, including on the camera and in the environment.
Melee weapons drastically changes the strategy of the game in many situations. The inclusion of melee weapons felt like somewhat of a “so what?” kind of addition to the game when first announced, however the different melee weapons makes fighting your way out of a group of zombies not only makes it easier, but decidedly more satisfying and bloody. Just wait until you pick up the loud, menacing chainsaw and watch the blood really fly.
Any Left 4 Dead match would have the disgusting and dysfunctional family of “Special Infected” show up at any point of the game and the new types definitely mixes the campaigns up. Joining the standard fare of S.I.’s (Boomer, Smoker, Tank, Witch and Hunter) is the Charger (like a one-armed mini Tank), Spitter (a female looking beast that spits noxious acid) and the Jockey (which jumps on top of the Survivors to control their movement) all add more frantic firefights, which leads to more interesting and intense battles.
These new infected add to the regular modes of Campaign, Versus and Survival, but they also add to the new Scavenge mode that is introduced in the game. In Scavenge, you carry gas cans to fill up a car or generator in order to put more time on the clock. Meanwhile, players playing the Infected will stop the Survivors from getting gas cans or getting to their destination. For those who don’t like the absolutely lengthy pace of the Versus mode, Scavenge is a very nice, relatively faster paced mode they will enjoy.
A lot of praise is deserved to this game, but there are still detractors that throw it out of the “classic” status and more into the “cult following” classic. First off is “Realism” mode. This mode has the special and common infected being much more deadly by having the common infected only get limb specific damage. That means if you hack off their arm, they can still come after you with their other arm or whatever is hacked.
In theory, it sounds like a great idea that adds more strategy to the game. In execution, it’s kind of messy. Although I’m far from an expert in the game, all it seemed to do is add extra padding to the enemies to make them harder to use. And the fact that the outlines and hud help is pretty much gone makes it more difficult than is really necessary. If you want to make it more difficult yet still make it fun, don’t take away the things that make the game as accessible as possible: it looks more like they ran out of ideas.
Gunplay is also very bland and lifeless. For a shooter that is running on what is considered to be one of the best engines for First Person Shooting (the Valve Source Engine), the game still feels a little too loose and imprecise to be entirely comfortable. Also, accuracy seems a touch off, which is fine in most situations, except when trying to cover a friend and accidentally shooting their face.
Finally, the lack of a cohesive experience in a single-player sense is still a very big problem in my opinion. Yes, I have no problem with playing any of these campaigns again on my own, but after playing a game that works perfectly on single-player and multiplayer while being the same game (New Super Mario Bros. Wii), it still seems that the game is leaning more and more nowadays to multiplayer.
Which is perfectly fine, if they decided to go full throttle on multiplayer than keeping a lacking single-player. While playing the game, I played with my girlfriend on every single mode and on every single campaign and I completely enjoyed the experience with her. As the old adage says, however: Everything’s better in Co-Op. She’s also been playing the original Left 4 Dead religiously since September (when she got her 360), so I was playing with someone who knew how to play the entire time.
So, it comes down to this: If you have someone to play with that is good at this specific game and will play with you all the time, Left 4 Dead 2 is a great time that can be played constantly. The additions really make this a much more well rounded and well thought out game…
…in multiplayer. In single-player, I’m afraid it still lacks a certain type of completion or finality that some of the best games have, which keeps Left 4 Dead 2 from reaching the classic game it truly deserves. In fact, I’d tell people who don’t have a dedicated group of people to play with to steer clear of this game and that if you do, make sure one or two of them are very good at the game to make it enjoyable.
Review
Pros Cons - Intense, brutal multiplayer
- More diverse environments and Special Infected
- New Scavenge mode a lot of fun
- Melee weapons very satisfying- Single player, once again, very lacking
- Gunplay still rather dull
- Game still feels incomplete
Rating
Brad Wiswall
www.twitter.com/gamakarmica
