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The first thing you will notice when you boot up the game is how much new stuff is in there. Compared to the rather spartan offerings of its prequel (when it was released anyway), this game is full of new game types. Even the core gameplay has received some major tweaks. Melee weapons are in and they open up a whole new branch of tactics. Earlier on when a bunch of infected ganged up on you, your best bet was to shove them back and keep firing until you had to reload. It made for some tense gameplay, but it could also rack up the frustration pretty fast if you got surrounded from all sides. Replace your pistols with a Katana (or a chainsaw for the psychopath in you) and you will relish the times you get surrounded if only for the carnage that’s about to follow. And the comical value of smacking a tank with a frying pan never ever gets old.
Amongst other additions to core gameplay are the new special infected. The spitter, jockey, charger etc all have their own unique attacks and require specific strategies to deal with. Also thrown into the mix are the other infected that aren’t as “special” as the special infected but unique in their own way (zombie clowns anyone?). There is also a larger variety in weapons (boomer bile that can be thrown around, for example) and equipment (incendiary rounds, shock paddles, laser sights, etc) this time around. Combine that with the AI director who can now change things like weather, lighting and even level pathways around at random and you are pretty much guaranteed that no two playthroughs of any level will be the same. Admittedly this was the case with Left4Dead as well, but this time with the number of special infected, weapons and equipment all getting a significant boost, it no longer seems like a gimmicky sales pitch but an actual comment on the gameplay.
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The centre piece of the whole game is still the campaign mode. Comprising of five different scenarios, it plays out over a variety of levels, each with its unique setting and challenges. For example, in one level finding dry land to fight on is a priority whilst in another staying together while a storm rages around you becomes the main challenge. There is some fiendishly good level design at work here as well. Most of the levels are fairly large and have multiple routes through them and the game guides you around them masterfully. Sometimes it can be in the not so subtle use of a green light to signify your exit point, while at other times, it will funnel you towards a particular place by using enemies to herd you. Most of the time, you will be too busy trying to survive to notice this, but when you do step back and look at the big picture, you will see that its typical Valve genius at work.
In the unlikely scenario that you do get bored with the campaign, there is a lot of other stuff to mess around with. Survival is back and once again it pits you against wave after wave of the undead while you try to stay alive. Again (like the rest of the game), it’s playable across more maps than you could in the previous game. Versus mode is back as well and it plays out much as it did in Left4Dead. What makes it a massive improvement over the prequel though is the number of new infected that you can play as. In fact, the only negative thing I can say about Versus mode is that playing as the infected is way too much fun so often it feels like playing as survivors is something you have to put up with to get to the good stuff.
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Scavenger mode (my personal favourite) is a new addition and it plays like a combination of Survival and Versus modes. One group of players tries to scavenge gas cans to fill up a car/generator while the other group plays as the infected and tries to stop them. It’s fiendishly addictive and a total blast to play if you have a full roster of 8 players. Unlike Versus mode, Scavenge is a blast to play regardless of what character you are playing (survivor or the infected) as.
Another new game type is Realism mode. It’s the campaign mode with a few critical changes. The HUD outlines for weapons and allies have been disabled, respawns are off, your character gets knocked down all too easily and the zombies take very little damage from your weapons unless you nail a headshot. So now every encounter is a tense fight for survival and every fight you scrape through alive is a victory in itself. It’s brutally tough, totally unforgiving and amazingly rewarding. Its a great diversion if you get tired of playing the campaign in the old way and want to put a fresh twist on it, but due to its difficulty curve, it requires steady team work and communication (even more than the game normally does). All in all, there is enough content here to keep you busy well into the next year.
Next page: Console vs PC comparison and IVG Verdict
The story in the game (haha, what story?) has more continuity than it did previously. All the five scenarios you play through tie to each other nicely and it doesn’t feel like you are running the same group of survivors through a different map for no reason. The characters are well voiced and throw up some fantastic one-liners. The humour is very much tongue in cheek and quite often you will find yourself grinning at something one of the survivors (usually Ellis) says. The music is pretty catchy as well and while it won’t win any awards, I have often caught myself humming the main theme.
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Graphically, it’s nothing to write home about. The source engine is starting to show its age and the texture detail level isn’t anything special. What it lacks in visual fidelity though it makes up for in numbers. There can often be a ton of characters on the screen and the gore factor is off the charts. Dismembering a zombie has never felt this good in any game. Another silver lining of the Source engine is that the game doesn’t need a beefy machine to get a playable frame rate at an acceptable level of visual detail. I ran it maxed out on my aging 8800 GTS at a very smooth frame rate. The Xbox 360 version looks on par with the High settings of the PC version. And while there is nothing here that will make your jaw drop, it easily manages to look like a very sharp, competent shooter.
My biggest gripe with the Xbox 360 version is the NAT problem. If your NAT is strict or moderate, you will not find any games online. Bad enough as that may be, worse is that the game will not let you know that it’s a problem with your NAT. So you will sit there scratching your head while the game will gleefully inform you that there are no available games. However, once you do get that sorted out, it all works fine online. The games it will find for you are pretty smooth with minimal lag. Having said that, the pickings are definitely slim. Some times (rarely to the game’s credit), it’s hard to find a game in a particular game type you want to play so you wont have any option but to switch over to another game type and play that instead. It’s not the game’s fault that people aren’t playing a specific part of it online, but it does affect the overall experience negatively.
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Things are better on the PC; much better actually. The matchmaking works as it should and there are a ton of people playing pretty much every game type the game has to offer. You can now even browse for servers and pick the ones with the best ping. No longer will you will end up joining and quitting multiple games before you can find one that’s actually playable. Add all of that with the cheaper price point, more local Indians playing this over Steam, and a good chance that future DLC will be free on the PC makes the PC version the winner by default.
Having said that though, aside from the matchmaking and the online aspect there isn’t much to separate the PC version from the Xbox 360 version. The PC version looks better, but not by a big enough margin to make a difference. The console version on the other hand supports split-screen and that alone makes up for any graphical shortcomings it might have. Load times are slightly faster on the PC, but again, the difference isn’t really noticeable. The controls are smart and tight on both the versions. If you play a lot of split-screen games, the console version is definitely the one you should be looking at. If you prefer playing online, I would recommend the PC version.
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There are some other minor issues that are also worth mentioning. A couple of times I got stuck in the geometry and wasn’t able to move. The only way to proceed further was to have one of my team mates kill me. This happened to my AI controlled team mates as well. For what it’s worth, the problem hasn’t repeated itself since the first patch came out. While we are on the subject of friendly AI, it’s definitely worth mentioning that it is really poor. The biggest problem is they can’t keep up with you, especially at critical times when a horde chewing on your heels and you are trying to turn off an alarm. What makes it worse is that when a special infected pulls you down, you have to sit and watch because your AI team mates are far behind. Even when they are around you, they seem to be in no hurry to help out. You might lie helpless when a charger is pummelling you, and they will run around shooting at straggler zombies. In short, you can’t count on them to do anything. Complaining about the AI in a multiplayer-focused game seems a bit petty, but unless you have a full compliment of 4 players, you will have to deal with the AI niggles.
Conclusion
Right now if I sat down to make a list of things that a sequel should do without fail, Left4Dead 2 would be hitting almost all the bullet points. So as a blueprint for a perfect sequel, it’s up there with the best. The game builds on everything that Left4Dead did right and improves everything that it didn’t. In a nutshell, it’s the kind of sequel where having played it once, you can’t ever imagine going back to the first game. Despite it’s shortcomings in the single player side of things, I would be hard pressed not to recommend Left4Dead 2. Recommend it very highly. So go buy it. Now. The zombie apocalypse ain’t gonna wait.
(+) Lots of gameplay modes
(+) Great level design
(+) Tons of variety in gameplay
(+) The AI director
(-) Average graphics
(-) Poor AI team mates
Title: Left4Dead 2
Developer/Publisher: Valve/EA
Genre: First-person shooter/survival
Rating: 18+
Platforms: Xbox 360 (Rs 2,499), PC (Rs 699)
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