18Dec2009

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Two Brains Review: Left 4 Dead 2

Everyone knows the old saying – “Two heads are better than one.” For the most part, it’s true. Get more people thinking about something, and everyone benefits – you get more and different opinions that might help you shape the way you think about… well, anything. It’s with this mindset that we go into our Two Brains review, where Tigresa and Snarkasaur have had a meeting of the minds to discuss Left 4 Dead 2 for the both the Xbox 360 and PC.

Tigresa:

In this New Age Era of the influx of zombie games, Left 4 Dead 2 is no unknown contender, am I right? For me, last year’s Left 4 Dead felt like the apex of zombie massacres at the time. I rode that baby like there was no tomorrow. Day and night just hours on end I was attached to the Xbox controller, putting countless hours into strategizing with my team on how to survive each level on Expert mode…

Snarkasaur:

It’s funny you should mention Expert mode because I played L4D2 on Expert mode last night and was bent over in a ridiculous number of ways, do you think this one is harder or is it a matter of map experience relearning and such?

Tigresa:

I definitely feel like L4D2‘s Expert mode is maddeningly more difficult than the first game! In 2, I noticed, not just in Expert mode, but in the overall game, a much larger number of zombies appear within the hordes, often bumrushing you into a closed off circle.

Snarkasaur:

There are definitely more spots where you get jumped from behind, I suppose that’s their effort towards discouraging camping spots. Though obviously there still are camping spots, but they seem to be rarer. The new Infected are experts at separating the pack as well.

Tigresa:

Oh man, they Special Infected seem to work together tactically this time around, as opposed to before. The Jockey will jump one of your teammates and pull him off into No Man’s Land and while you try to rescue him, you’ll get smoked by… you know, a Smoker.

Snarkasaur:

The Spitter is almost unavoidable at times as well, and if you’re on the ground, you have like no chance, and maybe it’s just me, but it seems like the Tanks have… either more hit points or varying hit points. I’ve come across some monster Tanks that just won’t die. I guess my point is I’m impressed at how well the new Infected work with the old. At least as a Survivor.

Tigresa:

Hahaha, I haven’t had much of an issue with the Tanks, usually a clip or two does the trick as long as everyone’s shooting!

Snarkasaur:

Have you had a chance to play as the new Infected?

Tigresa:

I’ve dabbled a bit in Versus mode, and it’s definitely a lot more fun to have a rotation of so many zombies to play as. Last time you’d get spawned as a Hunter 8 times out of 10. I think my favorite new Special Infected to play as is definitely the Spitter.

Snarkasaur:

Indeed. I enjoyed the Hunter honestly so that never bothered me, but I could see the frustration. I can see the Charger being even more frustrating though. That’s a hit or miss situation with not much recovery to speak of. I haven’t had a chance to see if the length of your charge determines damage similar to the Hunter leap. Which was my favorite part, launching myself across the screen getting 30 point jumps.

Tigresa:

Yeeeah, that’s the thing, when you miss or drop your victim in any way as the Charger, you’re kind of just “there” waiting for a clip to be unloaded in your face unless the Survivors are distracted enough for you to make a getaway. For the Charger you run in a straight path and if you claim a victim’s life, you’ll slam him into the ground repeatedly until someone knocks him out. You do massive damage so if you can nail a victim, it’s more than likely that that bad boy is goin’ down!

Have you gotten a change to try out Scavenge mode?

Snarkasaur:

No. I want to, but the people I play with can’t seem to get together enough people. It seems honky to me, because it’s filling up a gas cans, but I hear it’s wicked fun, and that’s it’s kind of a mini-versus mode.

Tigresa:

Oh man, you’re missing out. Since both the 5 campaigns and Versus modes demand a minimum of an hour of your time or more, Scavenge mode is an amazing quick break from that. You can just jump in and play your choice of 1 round or multiple rounds. You could almost call it a mini-game. And it’s really fun! Requires good teamwork.

Snarkasaur:

I’ll have to get to it then. I have what, a year before Left 4 Dead 3 comes out right? I haven’t played Realism mode much either, but I’m afraid of that in ways that I wouldn’t be afraid of real zombie attacks.

Tigresa:

That’s messed up about L4D3! Actually, that was my main gripe about L4D2 (like most players). I KNEW the game was going to be great, how could it not? It was just a matter of how much it improved since last year. To me, it felt like this game was pretty much done with development when L4D1 came out, by the finished product. While it’s great fun, it runs on the same engine, nor have the graphics improved on the 360 version.

Snarkasaur:

Well, the PC graphics seem to have improved, from my perspective. The zombies look crisper somehow, and the limbs flying all over is definitely a graphical improvement, though much of it could just be daylight illusion. I do feel as though the campaign designs are a little uninspired, like I’m walking through some boring maze. But you’re kept so paced and frantic that often that’s difficult to notice.

Tigresa:

The levels are a LOT larger now too, and I kind of agree about the levels seeming like a maze — not counting the obvious cornfield maze with a metric ton of crying witches waltzing about! I feel the opposite though, I really love the new campaigns, I think they’re improved tenfold from L4D1. They feel a lot more innovative, especially with the new finale scenes. They are extremely interactive, something the last game didn’t have. I mean, before the finales were just — touch the radio, brace for the onslaught of zombies, run to the rescue vehicle!

Now, the levels have an interaction bit to them like in the Carnival stage you have to start a rock concert to attract the attention of the helicopter to stop and pick you up. In the Hard Rain level you need to strategize and either take shelter from the haze of rain covering your view or stay within the house with a lot of vulnerable spots and take it like a man from a massive amount of enemies.

Snarkasaur:

Well, no, I don’t mean to imply that the campaigns themselves are bad. I very much agree there. The Carnival finale is basically pure genius, particularly with the character comments cropping up. I just mean sometimes the level design, from an aesthetic viewpoint, is a bit uninteresting. There are the same old great touches like the writing on the walls, but sometimes it feels a little bland, like I’m walking around some prototype version. But that’s rare. No I love the campaigns. The bridge finale is insane, that room in the mall where you’re mired in smoke, just lots of them are crazy awesome.

Tigresa:

I love that about it! Also, as shocking as it sounds, L4D2 kind of has a story! If you play the five campaigns in order, they actually connect. After you play the second campaign where you escape on a boat, the subsequent campaign is Hard Rain, where you had to stop and find gas tanks because your boat ran out of gas. So you spend half of Hard Rain looking for the gas tanks, and the other half trekking back to the boat. Only it’s not senseless backtracking, the rain gets heavier and heavier and the level floods out forcing new areas and paths to be taken. I loved that about it!

Snarkasaur:

I’ve heard that but never picked up on it. What I found even more interesting were the comments about the players being “carriers” and all the conspiracy theories floating around about that particular theme, which if true is so incredibly awesome and deep that few story-based games could match it. Particularly given those implications in context of the first game.

Tigresa:

Carriers? I haven’t heard of these conspiracy theories, do tell…

Snarkasaur:

Well, it’s like this, on the bridge finale when you radio out for help, the guy on the other end asks if you’re carriers or not, regardless of which player you talk to him with, that player doesn’t answer because they don’t know for sure. Being a carrier is like any other disease where you’re a carrier. The disease itself won’t affect you, but you are contagious. So basically the players are running around spreading this virus and are a massive threat to the entire world.

And if you think about it, how else could people constantly get bombarded by zombies and never get infected even a little. Sure they can die, but no matter how much bile they get puked on them, they never turn. Anyway, it makes the whole series even more interesting if true, and it almost has to be.

Tigresa:

I hadn’t heard of this! Wow, that’s really interesting… Who’s to say that zombie games can’t have a little plot action and character development!

Snarkasaur:

Yeah it tickles me. I love that kind of crap. I also like the new characters, with one exception, who I think remains the exception for just about everything. Rochelle is boring. B-O-R-I-N-G. I keep waiting for her to say something interesting or funny or anything. But she just continues to suck. I love coach, Ellis is the funniest character in a video game, and the other dude is pretty slick too. I like them better than the Left 4 Dead 1 guys. There I said it.

Tigresa:

Oh. My. God. I HATE ELLIS. He is the most annoying character! He just rambles about nonsense for ages, I just want to leave him to the dogs! I couldn’t really get attached to the new team in the way that I could Bill, Louis, Francis and Zoey. They just meshed so well, and I was crazy about playing as Bill. Their banter was witty and entertaining, and they all had something special about them that just clicked, let alone breaking stereotypes in games a bit for the first time in a while! The new team feels boring as a whole, it’s not just Rochelle. There’s no one that draws me in to think, Wow I gotta play as THAT CHARACTER. I usually choose Coach, but he’s really just the fat black guy that talks about preferring food to zombies. Nothing original or special there.

Snarkasaur:

Man when Coach got up on stage and started singing I connected. I can’t believe you don’t like Ellis. We might have to stop this review right now. His stories are epic, and retarded, and amazing. I don’t think I paid as much attention to their comments in the first game. And I never played the Crash Course DLC, which I hear was more comment-ish than the rest.

Tigresa:

Trust me, as diehard as I am about L4D, you didn’t miss much on that DLC, though it was a segway into the more interactive levels we have in L4D2. I guess we’ll have a L4D Battle of the Bands when L4D2‘s first DLC launches — the old team is comin’ back! Whether they’re playable or not is unsure unfortunately… They could come back as Infected for all we know. This is where I make a sad face.

Snarkasaur:

Yes, that will be interesting. I really hope they just don’t paste them in there weakly, but rather have some reason for them to all be interacting. Something to do with the carrier business I spoke of.

I hear you can see them on a bridge in one of the new levels.

I haven’t seen it yet, but they’re out there!

Watching…

SPEAKING OF BRIDGES, I LIKE THE SNIPER RIFLE. How’s that for a segway? But really, the new sniper rifles, at least the 2nd and 3rd tier, make me want to own weapons in real life. I was disappointed in the tactical shotgun though. It doesn’t slam as hard, I swear. The new machine guns are pretty tight as well. Some people don’t seem to be a fan of the three burst rifle, but I like it. It feels good for zombie gibbing. Everyone I play with creams about the Ak47 too. And the GRENADE LAUNCHER. God I have killed so many of my teammates with that thing. It’s fun and I never stop doing it even if they hate me. I hate the slow reload, but man, that thing makes it all worthwhile.

Tigresa:

Really! I hate the grenade launcher! It doesn’t feel effective. There are so many zombies and the time between shots is too long to be able to hold them off in between bursts! I stick to machine guns for the most pain, I looove being able to be spot-on accurate. Shotguns are great fun, especially to blow away a crowd when you’re in a tight spot. But what I really love is the Magnum you can pick up to replace your handgun. That thing is a freaking beast!

Snarkasaur:

Yes, that is pretty effective. I shy away from it because of its small clip, but i won’t deny the lovely feeling it creates when firing. And you’re right, most of the time the launcher is completely ineffective and I don’t even care.

Tigresa:

You’re not so defenseless anymore if you go down and you have a Magnum to whip out while you wait for a teammate to pick you up.

Snarkasaur:

What do you think of the melee weapons? I suck with them because my connection has been poor until now, but I know the chainsaw rocks face. They really look fun too… Slicing off heads is very viscerally satisfying.

Tigresa:

Hell yes. While most of them I find to be not terribly satisfying, like the baseball bat, others like the machete and the chainsaw just feel TOO good for a game. It’s such a clean slice… Like the most perfect slices of bacon… It’s only fair that the chainsaw runs out of steam, but just running through a crowd revving your chainsaw makes me feel like a kid in a candy store.

Snarkasaur

Yeah you’re kind of invincible if you have it running. Being able to refill it would be pretty boss, particularly given the existence of gas cans in most levels. They have a good sound too. I’m fairly familiar with what it sounds like to chop off someone’s limbs in real life, so I can say with authority that it’s mostly accurate. Oh and how bout that incendiary ammo!

Tigresa:

It’s good stuff man, except when you have the shotgun since you only get 10 shots with the ammo! But I’m always using the machine gun so it’s not much of an issue with my ever romantic clip of 50. The sounds of the guns do sound pretty sharp and on point. What do you think about the music and sound effects in the game overall?

Snarkasaur:

Indeed, a bit wasted on the shotgun. I’m not sure I’ve noticed the sounds a whole lot. I tend to have to turn everything down low to hear people on voice chat, which really is a criticism on the game I suppose. Sometimes it’s all a bit loud, though that’s also fixed by some tinkering in the options. I honestly don’t know how anyone has time to even register noises with all the insanity flying at you 90% of the time.

Tigresa:

Oh man that was a gripe I had about L4D1, it is an issue that hasn’t been really changed. The sounds of the guns are extremely loud, as is the background music. It’s much louder than any game or TV, I always have to turn it down a lot after playing something else before it. The music and SFX though, are seriously the absolute same, but with a hillbilly twang added to it.

Snarkasaur:

Indeed. There is a banjo or two. Which makes sense. Thankfully everyone’s a zombie so you don’t have to walk in on lots of brother sister alone time.

Tigresa:

I’ll have to write Valve a Thank You note for leaving that out.

Snarkasaur:

I’m still upset they didn’t use my idea for a new Infected. I thought a symbiote twins attached at the pelvis who wandered around spewing hordes of zombie babies at you would have been perfect for the setting. But whatever.

Tigresa:

That’d be some Silent Hill business right there. Overall though, L4D2 is a great game so it well deserves the 9/10 we’re giving it, but it definitely hasn’t improved enough of the elements from last year’s game enough for it to go any higher than that. It’s amazing, just not much more amazing than it already was.

Snarkasaur:

I’d like to give it better, but it’s too similar to the first to score it ultra high. If this were the first game, I would give it a near perfect score personally just because it’s so complete, but because of its similarities to L4D1, I think I’d stick with a solid 9′er.

Tigresa:

If you have somehow missed out on last year’s L4D phenomenon, now is as great a time as ever to dive into it headfirst, if you’ve played last year’s and loved it, you will still love it now. The addiction may wear off quicker though due to the lack of enough “newness” to the field. I’ll tell you though, the campaigns are simply brilliant and Left 4 Dead 2‘s Scavenge mode is surely a great touch to add a little break time between campaigns!

l4d2 boxart