Left4Dead 2: Demo Impressions
Zombies are not afraid of the light. No matter what time of the day, they still hunger for your brains.
The demo for L4D2 drops players into a section of the campaign called “The Parish”, and the survivors are trying to get from a boat to the highway.
On the surface, a lot seems to be the same as Left 4 Dead one, the infected act pretty similar, and the basic gameplay follows a lot of the same principles.
There is a bunch of great new stuff too. The most immediate difference is that it’s no longer night-time.
Uncommon infected are a new threat, these are area specific zombies, which have special abilities or attributes. In “The Parish”, there are infected in riot gear, which are (seemingly) invincible from the front, you have to knock them back, then shoot them from behind. This add a nice bit of variety to the horde.
New special infected I’ve encountered are all great additions too. The charger is a big brute that barrages straight at one of the suvivors, and doesn’t stop til he hits something. The Jocky jumps on top of you and steers you around the map until someone shoots him off you. The Spitter spits nasty stuff at you, that hurts.
There are all new weapons too, in particular I really like the new sniper rifle. It comes with a bunch of ammo, and you don’t need to reload after each shot.
The melee weapons are fun too, particularly the machete. Great for mowing down the infected.
One thing I will say, the source engine is really starting to show its age now. It’s over 5 years old now, and whilst it looks great for a five year old engine, I really don’t know how long Valve intend to keep using it for. Don’t get me wrong, it is a good looking game, but the elements that make it visually appealing are the visual design flair and very importantly the animation.
I guess the important question is “Does it feel like a proper sequel”, and it’s really ahrd to say conclusively based just on the demo. It certainly, at the very least, looks like a very good expansion pack. The controversy surrounding it’s announcement, and the subsequent boycott seems to have died down now, and if any developer deserves the benefit of the doubt, it is valve.
About the source engine, it was improved for team fortress 2, and then for left 4 dead, visually, and regarding performances too (including multicore support).
The engine is old, but it’s “good enough” for the games which are, it doesn’t hurt their success much. In this case, keeping the previous engine even helps, because they can also cater to a public who didn’t upgrade their computer recently.
People have been saying the Source engine “looks old but the art is great, so it’s not a problem” since its debut in Half-Life 2. It’s most bizarre.
I do feel as though the Source engine is showing it’s age a bit more here, although it does look good. In L4D1 the night time setting, with the film grain, gave it a stylistic boost–the fact that you couldn’t see properly except by torchlight meant the game looked pretty good, and the developers really used it to their advantage (I think probably at it’s best in Blood Harvest – crazy times in that cornfield). The daytime has, I think, given it away a little.
That said, my PC can’t even run it on the highest settings so I’m not judging it on the best it can be, and obviously I’m pleased they haven’t upped the requirements too much cos it means I don’t need a new one!