Left 4 Dead

[PeteJ]

Demo is available on PC for those who preordered on Steam, just two chapters of the No Mercy campaign (the first one) in single or multiplayer.

It's awesome

It basically plays exactly like it should do - intense, crazy, fast, insane - but with the added Valve magic touch that we all know and love.

The game does everything it can to make the experience more Coop friendly - the other three characters are outlined in green (or orange or red depending on their status) at all times, even through walls. Every time you spot something useful, like ammo or health, your character will automatically shout it out to everybody and you get a little icon on your HUD. You can see the health of all characters on the HUD, and can heal them if you want to give up your health pack.

Also, at the end of a level you need to fight your way into a safe house, but it only ends when all four people are in the room and you can close the door.

Four players, each can only carry one main weapon, pistols (infinate ammo), one explosive, one health pack (which you can use on any player, not just yourself) and one health pill (likewise, but it only gives you a temp health boost).

The much hyped 'AI Director' is just fecking amazing. I've been through the demo twice and it completely changes how things plays. It works out how 'stressed' you are and gives you a break if needed, or sees if you are ready for a big fight (health\ammo) and just goes bloody crazy with the number of enemies. Because this can happen at any time, and not scripted by the level designer, it makes for some really cool firefights where you are fighting the hordes from the obvious angle when suddenly a whole screen full of zombies rush you from behind.

When you get a screen full of zombies all running towards you at high speed, climbing over fences, cars and all sorts of **** just to eat your brains, you know you are onto a winner.

It's so madly intense in places I can't even describe it. It's also pretty atmospheric - in places it is so dark you can only see with a torch, and the zombies are proper fast 28 Days Later style.
The demo features all of the main enemy types bar the Tank (which may appear depending on how the director feels, I guess!):
Boomer -

->Open Spoiler<-

be hulking mess that explodes goo when you shoot it. If you get covered you can't see anything, and it attracts ****-loads of zombies when it does - very nasty

Smoker -

->Open Spoiler<-

dies in a cloud of smoke so you can't see anything, but also has a huge tounge that can pull you across the level

Hunter -

->Open Spoiler<-

jumps from miles away onto you, knocking you down

Witch -

->Open Spoiler<-

attracted to light, not sure what the main attack is because I killed it dead(er) as soon as I could

.

Online play is available with full matchmaking (even on PC), but I kept lagging out when trying. Achievements are not available in the demo.

Great stuff

[Mr Pump]

I had a tank during my first play though. Jumped out down in the subway and I was completely flattened by it. Thankfully I was revived by a teammate. I think witches are a one hit kill if they get to you, haven't played on a higher difficulty to get one yet. Boomers are so much fun to blow up

Online (PC) seems pretty broken, haven't played about with ports yet but just time out or error everytime. Anyone had any success?

[PeteJ]

Had a go on Expert, just cleared the first level but got destroyed on the second.

When you go down it has a CoD4 style Last Stand moment, which you can only get out of by being helped up by a team mate.

I got into one multiplayer game but I got disconnected as soon as I ran down the first set of stairs. I wonder how much this 'early access demo' is actually just a beta...

But it still rocks

[Hohum]

Been playing this earlier - really good fun, but very hard to get a game going on PC at the moment. Doesn't let you choose your server, on the rare occasion it finds one to join you inevitably get stuck on a server in the USA... so rubbish ping. Most of the time it just asks if you want to host yourself - no problem, except people either can't connect, or they all suddenly get dropped in one go after a couple of minutes.

So... think I'll leave it for a bit.

[Mr Pump]

Just downloaded a patch and the next game I had worked fine

[watusi]

Damn I really want to try this demo but refuse to pay more to get it through Steam than it costs from shopto.net

I assumed the Stea version would be cheapest. Anyway, it sounds amazin!

[mr_woo]

For anyone who isn't keen on the matchmaking (On PC) you can get a list of Servers. This was posted on the Steam forums (I in turn got this from GAF)


Looking around, there actually IS a server browser!
It's called up with "openserverbrowser" console command, here's a snapshot:
http://img233.imageshack.us/my.php?i...browsernl0.jpg
It shows only specific servers set up for this though. Why the hell didn't Valve use this as standard?

[KIT786]

Is it possible to change the camera to third person?

[Beelzebot]

I had a couple of games with some friends. Loads of fun and really frenetic at times. Normal difficulty is straightforward enough but ramp it up to Advanced and it becomes challenging. Team work is essential.

I wasn't able to connect to any dedicated servers so ended up hosting myself each time.

[mr_woo]

Well that gamestop link actually worked (they must have crappy programmers if they don't even check for transaction ids!) and i've been playing it online for most of the night on the Xbox 360.

It's absolutely fantastic and I really can't wait to get my hands on the full game.

I played about 6 - 7 games at least and there was no lag at all during any of the games, smooth as butter.

Each game was different too, the AI Director is an evil bastard, the way you hear sounds from one direction and then have zombies either appear behind you/from above you etc. No game's been the same so far.

The demo goes public worldwide next tuesday (people who preordered only get it early for a few days) and I highly advise anyone to give it a go, it's a blast and it will be more fun to play with forumite/friends than random americans. Though funnily enough every single random person I met was actually pretty cool. One guy even said something like 'I've been waiting for this game my entire life!' The way the game makes you work together doesn't give you time for any messing around/griefing. Really well thought out design.

[SuperBeatBoy]

Hows the story if there is one? I remember this starting out as just multiplayer only. I just want to know as i'm curious, i'll be picking this up regardless anyway. I'm gonna get it off steam, that way i can improve my Steam catalogue.

[mr_woo]

Hows the story if there is one? I remember this starting out as just multiplayer only. I just want to know as i'm curious, i'll be picking this up regardless anyway. I'm gonna get it off steam, that way i can improve my Steam catalogue.

No story whatsoever apart from the introduction at the start (which is the intro already recently shown). Can't speak for the final game though.

In terms of game content you have 2 levels from the No Mercy campaign which does you for either Online or Single Player. You can create private lobbies too and invite your friends to play.

No versus mode is included in the demo either.

[PeteJ]

For a giggle, stick it on expert and shoot the car to set off the alarm

I tried to get a screenshot of it but missed every opportunity (what with my face being bitten off) - at one point I caused a huge fire in the middle of the zombies...and to my surprise they kept running at me. ON FIRE!

This game ticks all the right boxes for me
Other things I love:
Zombies can (and will) beat down doors to get to you
If you are moving too slowly through the map the AI Director basically tells you to get a move on, by throwing a ****load of zombies from behind.
The final set piece of the demo!

I'll be on steam tonight if anyone wants a go, seems they have fixed the online issues. SteamID - PeteJ

[halfhearts]

man this game is sooo awesome was playing it alll night, just had the one game online with people but when on forever it was smooth no lag, but kept dying on expert on the subway section that whitch is one tough cookie!

Just great stuff because basically you have to stick together you go solo you die, and dont go chasing hunters or boomers coz you will die they lure you away and kill you. You should close doors behind you also but zombies still break through just takes um longer to get to you, but a great feeling shooting hordes of zombies through a big hole in a door.

The music and atmosphere are brill because the music goes all high pitch when sh*t is about to go down like millions of zombies heading your way, or feeling the shake of a Tank making its way to ya, just incredible! Also hearing the special types of zombies knowing there somewhere around and not knowing wher they gonna from from jus amazing.

One of the first time i played online was strolling through the house and suddenly from behind us loads of zombies burst through a wall and we all got owned just ace!

Loving this sooo much and its different every time, top notch!

[Stormtec]

What does everyone think of the matchmaking system? There's been a lot of fuss (generally negative fuss) about that particular feature at the moment...