Left 4 Dead 2 Preview/Demo Review

Fresh off its recent success of their second most famous game (first being the Half Life series), Valve Software has brought out the sequel, just 1 year after the release of the first game.

Valve brings the total of campaigns up to 5. They take the 4 new victims (Ellis, Rochelle, The Coach and Nick) and put them amidst a ton of flesh-eating zombies. They updated the weapons and health pick-ups, and added 3 new enemies to the various others from the first game. There is also 5 different gameplay modes that are available during the full game, but currently, in the demo only campaign and single player are. No versus.

As you play through the short level called The Parish, which is set in New Orleans, your objective is, of course, to get to the safe house and/or make it through to be saved. The demo ends before you get to the end of the mission, so you don’t have to worry about that part. Enemies that make a return in the game are Smokers, Tanks, Hunters, Boomers, regular ones, and possibly even the witch, though I have not came across one. New enemies include Jockeys, Chargers, armored zombies, and Spitters. The spitters spew a toxic chemical. The armored zombies are riot-suited cops. The Chargers are a miniature version of the tank, though faster and easier to kill. The Jockeys latch onto your back and guide you into danger, until they are killed or you are incapacitated. Valve altered a couple of things from the first game for the new one health wise. they kept the med kits, but they upgraded the pain pills to an adrenaline shot. They also added a defibrilator to revive incapacitated survivors, though I have not used it. The new modes that are available, or they have brought back, are Survival, Campaign, single player, Realism mode, and Scavenge.

The game allows you to pick up melee weapons, though at the expense of getting rid of your pistol. Some weapons that are available are the katana, electric guitar, a nightstick, machete, and frying pan. There are also new weapons. They have brought the Desert Eagle, AK-47, and a new sniper rifle that has a 30 round clip. The gripes that I have about the weapon selection is that the enemies seem to be a little bit more powerful and take a little more ammo then what was in the first game. Valve also has eliminated the ammo dumps throughout the levels, and put the only place to find ammo is in the safe room. Getting rid of the pistol to use a melee weapon might be a try at being more realistic, but it seems it might be a mistake to do so since the ammo is scarce around the levels. There are also weapons scattered around the level, but you have to look for them, not that they are hard to find, but at times you get bum-rushed by the zombies and might not have a chance to run for the guns.

Overall, if you liked playing the first Left 4 Dead. you are definitely going to love the game. The demo is just a small sliver of what to expect with the game.

Spitters and Chargers clip

Jockey clip

(note: these are not clips of the Parish)

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