Left 4 Dead 2 [Demo]

[El Leone]

No one hasn't made a thread for this, seriously?

Anyway, the demo is finally out for both PC and X360 users. Should be out next week for those who hadn't pre ordered. Got a couple of hours of play and this is what I think:

Graphics:

• Looks good generally very nice
• Zombies look better with better variety, gib effects are also improved*
• Environments and graphical effeccts look better*
• For PC users: Runs pretty much exactly the same as L4D1 specs/fps wise

Sound:

• New style music is very awesome.
• Special infected have had their sounds reworked and given more depth
• Weapons sound loud and weighty
• Characters have plenty of voice clips and generally pretty humorous

Gameplay:

• Best way to describe this game is that it is very polished version of L4D1
• Weapons feel more weighty and with more impact. They have different shooting habbits and they're not as easy to use
• Meleeing is fun and provides a good alternative for close combat - fighting a witch with a frying pan is pretty kinky
• The new special infected keeps the experienced fresh and different
• Bigger variety of weapons, health packs and grenades keeps your playstyle different.
• Overall, very fun

*compared to L4D1.

Before the boycott: I was never boycotting L4d2, but I did agree with much of their criticism laid across Valve due to their handling of L4D1. I have been on a bit of a black out on this game, but from what I saw it looked fun but ultimately a expansion pack.

After the Demo: Describing this game as a 'expansion pack' is incorrect due to the amount of new content and polish this game has to it. I can see people playing for ages, especially with all of the new game modes such as realism and scavenger. Also I'm getting it for free.

[Charlie]

Nice impressions, sounds like everything I was hoping it would be. Roll on next week when I can play the demo and see for myself.

[Malc]

What day is this supposed to become available for everyone next week?

[Family Fry]

think the demo is out to public 2nd november, pre order code went live monday and it a week early pre order code.
the new zombies are awesome fun, they are adding avatar awards into the game too which is nice.

[squidman]

Any NTSC boys playing this on PC? Been playing it quite a bit this morning and I'm nothing but satisfied. The machete is a true instrument of destruction.

[SuperBeatBoy]

Where do you need to preorder it to get the demo for the 360?

[El Leone]

Any NTSC boys playing this on PC? Been playing it quite a bit this morning and I'm nothing but satisfied. The machete is a true instrument of destruction.

i'm on the pc - steamid is chinner and my pic is a duck

[Family Fry]

Where do you need to preorder it to get the demo for the 360?

GAME. Stores should have codes, so you can put pre order down and leave with a code.

[Soundwave]

Is there any chance this will appear on PS3 this time??

[El Leone]

get it on pc bro

[Hohum]

I tried the demo earlier (single player only so far), and it seems like they've made improvements pretty much everywhere. Lots of neat new touches, particularly with the new weapons and horde variants. The only thing I'm not keen on is the Parish campaign in general, but that's probably just because it's based on a setting that doesn't really appeal to me at all (although it could get better later on I guess). Can't wait to try the other campaigns though, which appear far more interesting.

[MrMarbles]

The only thing I'm not keen on is the Parish campaign in general, but that's probably just because it's based on a setting that doesn't really appeal to me at all

Hmm, for me it lost a fair bit of atmosphere thanks to its daytime setting.

Still, it's a lot of fun and I can already see that, thanks to the design of some of the areas in the demo, the variety of weapons available and the additional special infected and armoured infected, there should be plenty of variety and replay value in this.

I'm glad that the characters seem to be pretty likeable too.

I was always going to purchase this and the demo hasn't dissuaded me one bit; I'm quite sure that the swamp and fairground levels will give me all the atmosphere I need.

[El Leone]

to be fair, when i played no mercy on the l4d1 demo i wasnt keen on it at all, but as soon as i played the full campaign i changed opinions.

[Soundwave]

get it on pc bro

Lol would need to buy a PC first though...dont think the Laptop would cope

Suppose I should just get the 360 fixed really.

[Malavon]

I wasn't particularly impressed when they announced L4D2 and thought it sounded like a glorified expansion. I thought the new characters, items, and melee weapons were just gimmicks and that daytime campaign(s) would ruin the atmosphere.

I was wrong

It feels incredibly polished, enough that I'm not convinced I could return to L4D now and still find it enjoyable.

There is now a new tier of weapons inbetween the usual two which pads it out a bit (e.g. silenced smg <

->Open Spoiler<-

AK

< M4) and when you find weapons it's not always more than one (compared to the trio of super weapons that you'd find previously and then have no need to change from for the entire campaign), and it isn't always the one you want. The last game we played we had to do the gauntlet style panic event with 3 of us using sniper rifles as it was a) the best gun available and b) the only thing we had enough ammo for. The guns all sound and look much nicer than they did before and I didn't realize the melee weapons took the place of your pistol and not your main weapon which actually makes worth taking in some situations. You wouldn't want everyone in your group to have them, but the machete sure can mow down hordes, especially if they're wailing on a team mate.

The new items are sweet (spoilers just in case you want to experience these things yourself first)

->Open Spoiler<-

Defibrillator - Allows you to revive dead players, not sure if the bodies fade after a while or if you can do it always though as we only found/needed it once. Takes the place of a medpack.
Boomer bile - Awesome. If used on zombies it drives them mad and they attack each other, if used on an area of ground they run to it and attack the ground. Apparently if you use it on a tank they all go ape**** on him - can't wait to try that Shares the slot with pipe boms/molotovs
Adrenaline - Not convinced by this actually. I only used it once (shares the slot with pain pills) and it didn't seem to make a huge difference, but then i still had the basic starting weapon.

What does everyone else think of the difficulty? I always play on expert and I can't work out if it's easier or harder. Zombies seem to do more damage to you when your knocked down (I was pissing around with 3 bots earlier, got incapacitated by a smoker and because the bots bugged* out it was a good chance to see how quickly you die. With five or six zombies hitting me aswell I dropped to 0 in about 4 seconds.

We didn't seem to get horded as much as usual and although the specials came just as often (and in greater variety) we never really had major problems. The spitter seems like the most annoying/cool of the new specials. Twice it ****ed us over - once it spat on the ground just behind me as I was running, effectively cutting me off from my teammates just as a horde came, and earlier it sniped us out perfectly in an enclosed area and took three of us out.

Played for a good couple of hours and we only had a wandering witch once (who seems to have more hp, or we do less damage) and one tank (who seems to have less hp, or we do more damage).

The witch killed one of us (aggrod it accidently) despite all 4 of us emptying a shotgun clip into her, while the tank died without killing any of us (and we were all using smgs). He did seem to change targets more often though; before he would just incapacitated someone, kill them and move on to the next target but now he incapacitated one person and as I ran in to shoot him point blank (a tactic we used to great effect with the auto shotgun in L4D) he changed to me immediately - something they rarely did in L4D.

The new random map feature is nice, but maybe a bit too subtle. On the first level it does alter things a little as doorways can be blocked up, shortcuts over walls fenced off etc but I can't actually remember it changing anything on the second level.

I won't go into too much detail about the panic event but it's a nice change from the "hold this spot from a horde" event that you had previously and works really well as it's even more tactical now - you have to push forward at a reasonable pace because if you do it too quickly you may leave someone behind (this is where the specials make things interesting), but if you do it too slowly you may get overwhelmed.

*I was in an alley adjacent to the building they were standing in and they just stood there trying to free through the wall. Didn't really work :P

Anyway, it may only be two levels (of what I assume to be the first campaign, which could account for it being a little easy), but it's definately an improvement over L4D and I can't wait until Nov 17th