So I got Left 4 Dead for the holidays and have been getting a good chance to play it, for 360. After running through the campaigns, doing some online, doing some versus, and listening to some of the director commentary I realized this might be the worst game of last year. No really.
What went wrong?
4 hour story mode.
2 maps for multiplayer
4 'characters' (really jusat 1, the rest are just skins)
4 special enemies
1 incredibly trite plot
6 weapons (two of which are upgrades)
Repetitive gameplay
Difficulty just affects damage
In the director commentary they said they made the engine in a way to make them lazier.
How was this meant to be fun? If you told the community and one of those things about any game they would rip it apart! But you know what the weirdest thing is? I can't seem to put it down.
The game really looks terrible on paper, but when you sit down to play it suddenly something changes and it becomes incredibly fun. The achievements make you strive to do various things that spice up the gameplay. Playing with people teaches you new areas to hide, and forces you to help incompetent teammates. The director actually is neat because you don't know where and when anything will come from, which helps out a lot in replay. You can't just hunker down in area X because Tank 2 will show up and cant bass by obstacle Z. Its neat that way.
Ah teamwork in this game...there usually is none. Some people play without voice. Some people have the option, but dont use it. Some people blaze ahead and leave others behind them to die. Its rather annoying how poorly a team can go. But if you play single player the AI is so overpowered that you can't actually kill any special infected, so you need the crappy people team. When a team does work together it feels awesome. No special infected can bring you down, and you don't leave any man behind.
I find multiplayer to be the same thing as single player, but with every problem worsened. If you have crappy teammates you will die ten times faster. Or if you are infected you will never touch the other team. There are 2 maps (and really No Mercy is played about 4:1 to blood harvest). However there is a general feeling of relaxation while playing as the infected. You get infinite spawns, so if you die, its not big deal. I actually like that aspect because it makes it more fun to just get to try again in a bit.
So I guess overall I can't really say a score on this game. I figure I will be bored with it eventually and give it about a 6 or 7, but for now its the one game that I cant put down, at about an 8 or so.
(As a final comment, you PC users can just shut up now. I know you can do maps and mods and all sort of goodness that the 360 people can't, and I am sort of jealous. So in short, I know, keep your elitism to yourself, this is a 360 review, not PC. : P)
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You should join me on FNF's meng.
Not only does this seems vary opinionated, but some of it is just plain factually wrong.
Good luck next time.
And it is true that it thrives on its online components. No one denies or tries to hide it. I thoroughly enjoy versus mode with D-toid peeps.
*very
*seem
(for fuck's sake)
Learn 2 Speel HalfLeft
I dunno, I just didn't like L4D and I think the name 'Valve' being attached to the game is blinding alot of people from what this guy said. There's alot in this game that has been done better by a ton of games before it.
And while this game is terrible on paper, from my experiences I think it plays out terrible as well. (Braces for flames)
You should join Blehman on FNF meng.
People keep talking about the plot as if it matters. It's a zombie game, and Valve knew that going into it. There's nothing you can really do to a zombie story that hasn't been done. And if you're going to have a story, make it a good one. Valve are semi-perfectionists.
The thing is, you're on ground zero. No one knows what's going on when they're in the middle of it. Plus, what you should know is subtly and brilliantly placed within the environment (ie - the way bodies are positioned, the destruction, and the graffiti).
And this game isn't about being an epic tale either. It's simplicity to the max. It's fun. That's all it's going for. It's not trying to be the next Half-Life or the next CoD4. It's not trying to be survival horror. It's a co-op multiplayer game that's...just fun.
Also, you should join blehman for FNF, meng.
:D
The game isnt trying to do anything special, it does what it does best, its basically what Jim said about GOW2, "A big, dumb shooter."
And FNF with blehman is amazing.
You should join us on FNFs, meng.
L4D is only as good as the people you are playing with (don't bother with single-player). If you can find people that are really cool to play with and are around the same skill level the game is a blast...
Oh, and join Blehman on FNF meng.
The thing I wonder is- and I only played the demo, admittedly- if the engine was already basically in place, the characters play no differently from one another, etc., why couldn't Valve put some more maps or more story areas in? Why can't there be 8 stories to play through, and say, 6 MP maps?
I know that games aren't all about quantity over quality, and I appreciate shorter games a lot, but it seems like they knew they had fun gameplay and let themselves get lazy with actual content.
@akathatoneguy
It's not that Valve gets lazy, rather; they are perfectionists. They do not release anything unless it is of utmost quality, even if it means less quantity as a result.
I want to see a mod of left 4 dead with the portal gun.
That would be far beyond awesome.
I love the game. In fact, I'm addicted to it. It's the first shooter game I've played on Xbox. I never play with people who don't have a mic because I find it difficult to play with people who can't yell out for help. I love the team work but finding people who are cooperative is a problem sometimes. For the most part, I've met a lot of great people to play with and probably why I got so addicted to the game.
I've been playing the game for almost 3 weeks, every night for the most part and never got tired of the repetitiveness. But hey, you're opinion is your opinion. Not everyone is going to enjoy it the same way. I've gotten a lot of people addicted to the game. :D
This game is obviously not for you.
Valve said nothing about a story mode dude, its not their fault if you assumed otherwise. The point of the game is to make you feel like you are surviving a zombie apocalypse, and it does it awesomely. With the scribbling on the wall, the random scenarios you find, the dude hiding in the church, the stylized characters and the general environment tell you a hundred stories while you play the game.
Difficulty changes a lot, including placement and scarcity of items (no medkits), the zombies movements including making them able to crawl and hit as well as changing their movement arc which lets them run all the way around you instead of just limited to your field of vision, it makes friendly fire much more damaging and it determines the timing and ferocity of the special infected.
There are 25 maps, stretched across 4 campaigns, each with their own unique settings and themes. There may not be 40 maps to choose from, but the 25 that there are are packed to the brim with awesome design and are full of atmosphere and style.
I totally agree about the weapons, even if it were more melee weapons, that would have been a great addition. I also think the game would benefit from a few more random "objectives", like having to reroute power, or flick 2 switches at the same time, or some other things like that.
I think the problem here is you were expecting something else, when in fact Left4Dead is well worth it's price and is amazingly fun to play. Chin up, Valve have said that they will be opening up all 4 campaigns for multiplayer mode soon.
I'm not very pleased with the game at all, but I think it's mostly just not my kind of game. I hate playing games over and over again, so that doesn't really cut it for replay value. I don't find the core gameplay fun enough to make me want to play it a lot, either.
Everybody says it's a different experience each time, but I don't think random item and zombie placement makes it that much different. Maybe if the game randomly blocked off certain paths so it wasn't so straight forward each time. After the first time or two, we all know exactly where to go, so it would be more interesting if the game forced us to go a different way on occasion.
I dunno. Just not my cup of tea, I guess.
Well, is a coop game and is allways better played with people you know or that use a mic. I have the PC version and, yes, I havent played it as much as TF 2, but still, is good if you find the right people.
i also think you were expecting another game, the fact is, L4D is one of the best multiplayer experience i ever had, it's incredibly fun to play (with friends).
i have became ''friends'' and learned a lot of things about a lot people from D-Toid because of l4d, you don't come to get that close to people on, let's say, Team Fortress 2.