Back 4 blood Beta Playstaion, xbox, pc (beta)

[Lebowski]

Played this a few hours last night completed the part of the campaign it gives you and tried a bit of versus and some quickplay, and to say its a let down is an understatement, I was a massive fan of Left 4 dead and this just doesn't live up to that game at all. The graphic look like they belong on the xbox 360 its jerky and Glitchy and about as generic as they come for a zombie game, i can see why they didn't show any gameplay at E3. Yes its beta but i cant see them overhauling the engine before launch yes they may get the game running smoother but i bet its gonna be a **** show in launch week.

Apparently this is an unofficial follow up to the left 4 dead made by people who worked on the first game and like a lot of these type of projects it just doesn't seem to capture what made the original special. Enemy types don't feel like they stand out at all, we have standard zombies, giant resident evil arm zombie thing, a fat zombie that spits goo some sort of super speedy special zombie that didn't seem to pose a threat and the odd screen filling massive monster that was a bullet sponge.

The biggest issue i found was that From what i could see you where kind of charging about and working against each other, their are piles of coins and ammo scattered about the level, and its always the first person to it that gets it so you kind of want to be charging ahead of your team mates or you wont get any of the coins to buy better weapons and ammo and you wont get any of the gun or ammo pick ups.

VS mode sees one team being zombies and the other being humans, and it felt very stunted and slow if you where a zombie humans run around the map finding weapons and ammo for 3 minutes before a match starts, zombies stand about waiting for this phase to be over???, it seems that this mode lets you level up characters you get currency for winning and you can level up defense attack ect, this made for some very unbalanced gameplay. on one match our largest zombie tank types where getting killed in two hits and when we swapped over the same unit was taking a crazy amount of bullets to even dent. I can understand them wanting to add a reason to play this mode but making it so new players don't have a chance until they have grinded out a massive amount of losses and leveled up their units is not fun or conductive to keeping a mode alive. This is in the first weekend too imagine picking this up a few weeks after launch your gonna be so far behind. Gonna be avoiding this didnt enjoy it at all.

[Escape-To-88]

Just played the full release of this on Gamepass. Seems like a big improvement over the beta. Had great fun for the last couple of hours on this.

[Lebowski]

They have got it running better but the fundamentals still aren't quite their, they have missed out a lot of what made left for dead special like you knew instantly if a special unit was coming via visual and Audio Cues this added tension and atmosphere, its lacking here like they just forgot how to do audio design.

it really dose feel like they have missed what made that game so iconic, its not terrible by any stretch of the imagination but its very middle of the road as far as these games go and to not build on what made Left 4 dead great is its biggest crime.

[QualityChimp]

Funnily enough, we played some more World War Z last night and although it cribs heavily from L4D, it's also its own thing.

We played and loved Strange Brigade, but found once we'd finished it, we didn't go back, whereas the constant levelling up in WWZ, means you're always wanting to replay to earn more in-game money to upgrade your weapons and class perks.

Does Back 4 Blood have anything like this?

[Lebowski]

Funnily enough, we played some more World War Z last night and although it cribs heavily from L4D, it's also its own thing.

We played and loved Strange Brigade, but found once we'd finished it, we didn't go back, whereas the constant levelling up in WWZ, means you're always wanting to replay to earn more in-game money to upgrade your weapons and class perks.

Does Back 4 Blood have anything like this?

it has a card system that lets you set up unique to you load-outs, each card offers certain perks and you buy these with Supply Points you get from completing missions. in game you buy stuff by finding coppers in the level, it can be a bit of a bun fight to get stuff in levels as its on a first come first served basis, when playing with randoms i found that they ran ahead and hovered up all the currency, guns and ammo pick ups. In that regard ts not super cooperative and doesn't encourage team play.

[QualityChimp]

Bloody hell, being co-operative is like the main selling point!

In WWZ, everyone gets XP for progress, a bonus for completion and sometime some other ones, but you don't lose any.
If you work together, you're more likely to survive and get that sweet sweet XP.

The weapons are first come, first served, but I only play with mates so we politely discuss before nabbing:
"Would you be so kind as to allow one to proceed with the PAC-12 as I'm trying to level it up?"
"Not at all, old boy, I have the combat shotgun, so I'm ticketyboo."

[Lebowski]

Bloody hell, being co-operative is like the main selling point!

In WWZ, everyone gets XP for progress, a bonus for completion and sometime some other ones, but you don't lose any.
If you work together, you're more likely to survive and get that sweet sweet XP.

The weapons are first come, first served, but I only play with mates so we politely discuss before nabbing:
"Would you be so kind as to allow one to proceed with the PAC-12 as I'm trying to level it up?"
"Not at all, old boy, I have the combat shotgun, so I'm ticketyboo."

I found it a bit weird as the coppers go to the first person to find them and if your slow you don't get anything, in this way your kind of working against your team mates as coppers let you buy heals and better weapons at safe rooms.

No matter what you get supply points for finishing levels and building a full set of cards is your goal with them you can also buy cosmetics with supply points too, one caveat is you need to be playing with others as in solo mode you don't get supply points.

[QualityChimp]

Yeah, it was similar in Strange Brigade, where the first person to find treasure ransacks the room of gold, which encourages selfish gameplay, whereas WWZ you like to mooch a little, but not too much and never alone as that's when you get pinned!
I learned that the hard way yesterday!

[Lebowski]

I much prefer the system in Aliens Fireteam elite, your constantly leveling your character and weapons and adding new tools to your arsenal. so you get a real sense of progression. You get supply drops that everyone gets to use to at regular intervals and you can help each other find the hidden caches and collectables through the missions as everyone can access them. All that the first come first served game-play mechanics of this dose is set you up against each other and encourages players to push forward constantly and be the person in the lead.

[nonny]

I don't know if you've tried it QC but Zombie Army 4 is worth a look. It quite a good laugh if you enjoyed Strange Brigade.

[QualityChimp]

I don't know if you've tried it QC but Zombie Army 4 is worth a look. It quite a good laugh if you enjoyed Strange Brigade.

Thanks mate, it was on PS+ a few weeks back, but a combination of being zombied out at the time (all the co-op games seemed to be shooting zeds), GTA taking hold and Lockdown easing off meant we never got into it.

Will deffo play it at some point, especially after your recommendation. Cheers!

EDIT: [MENTION=960]Lebowski[/MENTION], deffo want to play Aliens as there's not been a good one for years, it makes a change from zombies and the progression you mentioned sounds more rewarding.

[Escape-To-88]

I'm keen to play Fire Team but have heard mixed things. @lewbowski I found that some folk also storm ahead and grab the copper, but got paired with some decent team mates out of luck and everything worked much better. It does seem a bit too reliant on who you are paired with, where as it never really felt like that in L4D

[Atticus]

Got a few games in with a couple of mates on Friday night and had a blast. What it might lack in originality is makes up for in atmosphere and smartly judged onslaughts. Characters and load-outs and stats all cleverly massage the mix too, requiring a bit of thought prior to the mayhem. Fantastic treat coming to game pass day one. I'd have paid full price for this (probably will when it leaves GP).

[nonny]

I'm really enjoying it. About halfway through Act II at the moment playing mostly with randoms.

The card building part is actually useful to lean into a particular play style and I think that's the best part they've added. I also like the corruption card side of things which mixes up the levels a little...

I think though all the criticisms are valid they've got a lot right. Its certainly not a bad game, just needs something extra to raise it a notch or two.

[fuse]

I picked this up when it was 20 quid as some mates on PC gamepass told me it's got cross-play. That side of things was seamless - within a couple of minutes of starting the thing I was in a lobby with them, and I am very appreciative of when these things are idiot-proof and just work.

I was sold on it essentially being a new Left 4 Dead, and yeah, it seems to do that. That's good! There is a lot of added guff that I didn't really get a chance to wrap my head around though - currencies, cards, load-outs, upgrades and things - some of which I gather is micro transactional, some is cosmetic... for someone who wanted to just jump into a game and play it was all a little too much, not to mention just curiously clicking on these things at the base camp then insisted on playing videos that felt like sales pitches for each of them all. Hopefully if I get another shot at it all this will have calmed down a bit, these systems won't just totally break everything, and I'll have longer than 5 minutes to figure stuff about before diving headfirst into the action. It does definitely concern me though.

Also: this is also the first shooty thing I've played on the PS5, and bloody hell the haptic triggers are out in full force! Do other games do this now too? It feels like fighting the controller is another layer of difficulty on top of everything else. Keyboard and mouse folks are already one step ahead, and here I am not able to pull the damned trigger properly.