Ready to 
Left 4 Dead 2 demo impressions, or “Fight me like a man”
Brian Ambrozy
October 28, 2009 11:11 PM ET in Gaming
What are you swinging at my head?
Now that Valve has finally unleashed the Left 4 Dead 2 demo, the Icrontic Steam group has been descending upon it in droves. I had a chance to play a round with some of the {IC} crew: Winfrey, Cola, and Sir Candle.
One thing that hasn’t changed a bit from L4D1 is “playing lobby.” We played lobby for a few minutes but quickly got the game launched.
The initial weapon loadout is relatively similar to the first game: a variety of SMG or a shotgun. Then you look to the left, and you see a frying pan. That’s when you know this is a whole different animal.
The rhythm of combat is similar to the first: horde, lull, horde, lull, with random occasional individual zombies coming at you before you can get too relaxed.
As we moved through the campaign, we all commented at various points that the game is noticeably more difficult, more wide open, and gives you many more ways to deal with clusterfucks.
The {IC} crew I played with were asked to give me their impressions on the demo. Is Left 4 Dead 2 worth the price of a new game? Is it more than just an expansion pack?
"These zombies have armor! I want armor!"
The answers were unequivocally “Yes.” Cola stated “The melee combat alone is enough for me to consider it a new game.” Winfrey and Sir Candle commented on the open-ness of the map. “The game is much more open–I’m not sure exactly where to go. Whereas L4D was fairly linear, I find myself not knowing exactly which way to go.” We all agreed that this was a Good Thing™.
There are a great many new items; adrenaline shots, for example, give put you into a sort of bullet-time: the screen vision narrows, the zombies slow down, and you can act quickly for a brief amount of time. It’s a great way to get out of tense situations. Things got a little hairy for us as we had to climb a tower to turn off an alarm, and Cola got killed–luckily I had picked up a defibrillator kit and was able to revive him. There are many more guns as well; in one game I was able to try two different assault rifles, a new chrome shotgun, and two different SMGs, as well as the much-more-useful hunting rifle.
Don't stand in the acid... trust me
There is a new mechanic that involves objective-based scenarios: An alarm goes off, zombies swarm the area and go crazy because of it, and the four of you have to climb a tower to turn off the alarm and open the door to the next zone. The game throws you into long corridors and encourages you to run, run, run through them–picking off zombies who are climbing fences and trying to jump in front of you. There are many different ways for four players to handle these situations, which makes for a great deal of variety. We chose a “send a scout ahead” strategy–I ran ahead and scaled the tower while the other three players stayed on the ground and tried to keep the horde from taking me out.
Another interesting item was the Boomer Bile. You take a jar of bile, and throw it at a zombie; the horde swarms that zombie like crazy, giving you a chance to take out the whole group at once. This would also be a great way to help take out a tank or witch.
Speaking of infected–the new ones are exciting. The jockey jumps on a player and controls their movement. They tend to steer you into the most dangerous situations possible; for example, I got jockeyed into a molotov. The spitter leaves a giant puddle of acid on the ground for several seconds. There are zombies with armor that can only be shot in the back, and the charger is basically a mini-tank. The old favorites are still here. The witch, smoker, boomer, and hunter are all here to play.
All in all, after playing the game for an hour or so, we were all resigned to it: Left 4 Dead 2 is not an expansion pack. There is definitely enough content to justify a whole new game.
See you in N’awlens.
Left 4 Dead 2 is available for pre-order from Amazon and Steam
Bullet-time in a syringe
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