PAX 2009: Left 4 Dead 2 Impressions

Nick, is that you on the right?

im personally looking forward to l4d 2 and a lot of people want it to do something and sence they didnt a lot of people are complaining about it. I think that l4d is more about the storys you can tell after playing it.

Now imagine Left 4 Dead 3, featuring out very own 4PP as the main characters..

L4D2 is yet another example that games in a franchise don't have to be revolutionary with each iteration to be successful and, more importantly, enjoyable. I want to know as little as possible about the scenarios in the game so that I'm in for more of a treat when I eventually get to play it--I can do this because I'm confident L4D2 will provide the same level of value (enjoyment) the first one did, if not more improved and in a greater dose.

Nick, people enjoy Versus Mode more than Campaign. The time you played Left 4 dead for the first time was campaign on normal difficulty. BTW 4PP skins for Left 4 Dead would be nice... if it's easy to do and looks good.

exactly what i expected!

holy shit! imagine if you could import your avatars, that would be awsome!

I think that the next time someones says they are boycotting L4D2 we find them and hurt them. It is the biggest B***ch fest I know of. Get over it, Its gonna be a good game.

In other words, this game is not worth $50. Gah.

I think the pill would've been a LITTLE easier for people to swallow had they simply called it an expansion, but still charge the $50. They keep touting it at a sequel, but they haven't shown us anything really sequel-y.

I think the sooner they stop trying to justify calling it a sequel, the sooner people will stop feeling a bit cheated at a sequel.

Don't get me wrong, i'm very excited for L4D2 and will buy it day one. But I can sympathize with the dissenters as well.

Man, I want to get this game just for the clown zombies.

"I think the pill would’ve been a LITTLE easier for people to swallow had they simply called it an expansion, but still charge the $50. They keep touting it at a sequel, but they haven’t shown us anything really sequel-y.

I think the sooner they stop trying to justify calling it a sequel, the sooner people will stop feeling a bit cheated at a sequel"

THis guy is a moron. He hasn't considered that maybe it's TOO BIG for an expansion? TOO BIG to be DLC? Has he even read up on all of the stuff they're adding to the sequel?

A Director that can now CHANGE THE LEVEL depending on how you're doing.

three new special infected

New guns with variations for the player's preferece

New melee weapons.

New kinds of panic events.

Entire new Game Mode

and again, 5 new levels. Can you possiblely imagine a game LARGER THEN THE FIRST being DLC? It's too big to be simple download.

And let me note, they haven't even revealed everything to us. They're releasing it little by little, not all at once. So, there will probably be EVEN MORE stuff they haven't announced yet.

Case and point, ZCalibur is a moron.

I didn't pick up the original L4D, I didn't have an Xbox 360 before, so this'll be a must-buy for me.

I'd love it if they made the original 4 characters downloadable as well, and you could really choose to make your team up of whoever of the 8 you wanted.

Pie, calm down man. The guy was just stating his opinion. And like 90% of that stuff would not be impossible to put in just an expansion. Save for 5 new campaigns, that stuff is really freakin' minor.

We don't know how big of a change in the level the AID 2.0 will create, whether it puts a door in a different spot or what, which is my biggest concern. If they could show me just how much it changes, and it is an actual huge change in the level, I would be sold on this game.

I waited 2 years for L4D. I preordered it the day it was available. All of the people waiting were under the impression that we would get the definitive horror FPS. 4 player coop in a zombie setting. A procedural AI system that would make sure you never knew where the infected were coming from.

What did we get? An almost campy 4 player "coop" shooter, where the adrenaline rush from tons of infected running at you was gone after about 3 plays of the game. The music got old, the oft talked about visual nuances were so subtle that you could hardly notice them unless you really stopped and looked, which was impossible 99% of the time. The AID turned out to be a semi random infected generator whose procedure was, "Would players be able to see the infected spawn? No? Ok put em' in." It was a let down for a lot of people waiting for the game. This game started off so horror feeling and went downhill into a meh coop shooter.

And what happened to the SDK in L4D? People have been waiting for that for so long. Sure there's custom maps, but playing a Silent Hill level with a boomer or a hunter in the level just does not feel like Silent Hill.

Calm down calm down... no one here is an idiot.... except for Pie. Zcalibur makes some good points. The approach to developing L4D2 taken by valve is drastically different to the typical Valve process. First of all, Valve never releases a sequel so close to the original release. With only a year separating the release of both games, it is very hard to call this a full blown sequel. Especially when you consider what the game could have become if it was given a couple extra years to cook.

After reading my post, I realize I have overreacted... I was already in a pretty sour mood when I wrote it up so that's why I was so pissy. I just hate it when people are judging the game when valve obviously still has information they're hiding. Like at e3 when people thought that the demo they played was the demo for the real version.

Again, I'm sorry. Like I said, I overreacted in a immature way instead of intellegently stating what I believed. I truely acted like an idiot.

I guess we'll see if the final product will be worth the money in November.

To be honest, I think this is just the type of sequel l4d needs. Think about it, changing any of the base concepts of l4d such as the smart ai director, heavy emphasis on team play ect, ....wouldn't make it l4d.

so really, the only sequel that would work for l4d is one that adds heap loads of new content and improves on the already existing game features. After playing the game so much, the same maps, same zombies and same characters make the game kinda repetivitve so a new load of content is what this game needs.Thats EXACTLY what valve is doing. However, people feel cheated about this because they see all the new content as having the qualities of an EXPANSION.

So in short, I think l4d2 will be well worth the 50 bucks i have to shell over in november.