Review | Left 4 Dead 2
Format: Xbox360 | Genre: Online FPS | Publisher: EA | Developer: Valve | Release date: 20/11/09 | RRP: £49.99
By Daniel Lipscombe
This review and its associated score refer solely to the Xbox 360 version of Left 4 Dead 2. Due to the nature of the game, we feel it only sensible to tackle the PC version separately. We will endeavour to have a PC review with you very soon.
Whose side were you on? When the battle between good and apparently evil raged, did you support those who wanted Left 4 Dead 2, or those who campaigned for a boycott?
No matter which side you chose, or whether you sat precariously on the fence, Valve plugged away at making the most controversial sequel in recent history. The arguments have died down, the dust has settled and we’re left with the game that so many want to hate. With such a small gap between the original and its successor, have Valve really managed to create a whole new game?
The changes and new additions are well documented. Uncommon zombies, melee weapons, new characters, new items and a whole new game world – it is indeed very much a new game. There’s very little here that’s been recycled from the first, ground-breaking co-op shooter. In fact, other than the core mechanics and HUD displays, everything is shiny and unique. In many ways, this is a good thing – it’s nice to have new things, new experiences and such – but it’s difficult to escape from the feeling that the original may just have been an experiment to test the water for this, the true Left 4 Dead experience.
Still, there are a great many changes for the better. Most obviously, Left 4 Dead 2 has a tangible story, albeit one that’s not overly prominent. If you play each of the campaigns in the order that they’re listed, you’ll find more interesting dynamics between the four characters. In the first campaign, Dead Center, our cast are fighting their way out of a burning apartment building, zombies everywhere and only a few weapons at their disposal. In fact, this level only starts you with a melee weapon or a pistol. After fighting their way to an elevator, our characters all take a breather on the trip down to the ground floor and, interestingly, all take turns to introduce themselves.
With everyone stating their name and a little quip to accompany it, you can see the archetypal character types standing out. Coach is the big, caring and smart member of the soon-to-be team, Rochelle a sassy, street-smart woman. Ellis is a typical young man, nicer then he is clever, and Nick is the arrogant loner of the group, who feels the need to shun those whose help he needs. As each chapter progresses, the team members become closer, talking about themselves and their homes, discovering this horrific world together. And discovery is a real theme here: in the first episode, the outbreak is fresh, the team referring to smokers as “them long-tongued things”. By the finale, they’ve named each of the infected, and call them out as we already know them.
This story is solidified by the introduction of CEDA, a company who seems to know a fair amount about the situation. They set up extraction points and help stations, and indeed, the first uncommon infected you come across are kitted out in CEDA hazmat suits.
It’s refreshing to find all these small clues to a back-story, and Valve lets you fill in some blanks yourself too. From the first campaign right through to the last, the transition between each is seamless: if you get on a boat to leave one campaign, you’ll arrive by that same boat in the next. It’s clear that Valve have worked to make the overall experience a lot tighter and more coherent, and the game benefits greatly from it.
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Glad to see it’s an all round improvement over the original, but still slightly disappointed that it’s more of an evolution than a revolution. I am still not sure whether this really required a new, retail release, especially as Left 4 Dead was so woefully developed upon by Valve when it came to DLC. A series of 800/1200 point chapters would have been so much more appealing.
After all is said and done, very little actually measures up to the thrills and spills of a campaign co-op that is provided by Left 4 Dead and that alone is why I am still very intrigued by this sequel.
I loved the first L4D, but don’t really play it any more. I had scribbled L4D2 down on my Christmas wish-list, as I was keen to play it but not desperate – but now I really want it! I’m still not quite sure about paying full price for it (though I was never caught up in any sympathy for the angry boycott), but now I really want to play it. Maybe I will trade L4D, as it’s unlikely I’ll ever go back to it now…
I’m amazed Daniel found the melee weapons disapointing. I’ve been playing on the PC version admittedly so maybe they aren’t as good on the 360 but on PC they’re very useful and I’d pretty much always pick one of the good melee weapons over a single pistol. They’re by far the best weapons for fighting at close quarters and unless the 360 version is a very different beast then fighting at close quarters isn’t an optional activity since at times the AI director will send zombies at you faster than you can shoot them, that’s kind of the point of a zombie horde otherwise you’d never lose any health.
Please forgive the pedantry but I’d like to point out that CEDA stands for Civil Emergency and Defence Agency and it’s the L4D equivilent of the real world US government agency FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. CEDA also featured in L4D, all be it less prominantly. Also the smoker always had sores and boils. Admittedly they’ve grown larger since L4D but pointing them out as if they’re a new feature almost makes me wonder how recently Daniel played the original…
I’ve played the original every week since release, the smoker comment was based more in the fact that Valve have added detail and the character model has been changed. It may also be the fact that a lot of the game is played in daylight and it highlights the models more. In respect of the CEDA comment, thank you for pointing it out, I didn’t notice it in the first game, as you said it’s less prominent.
To address the melee weapons, I found them underwhelming. Yes as you say you can fend off hordes of zombies with them, but you can also still shove them back and if you’re working in a good team, you shouldn’t really need to do more than shove them and shoot. If the weapons had perhaps been used as part of moving through the environment or otherwise implemented better, I would have enjoyed them more.
They ultimately feel like a gimmick to me, anyway, the zombies shouldn’t be that close ;)
Many thanks for the reply. I guess the time I really felt the melee weapons were really useful was the Dark Carnival when you’re trying to get into the last saferoom. Although I’m sure a good team could handle that bottleneck in different ways. I have to admit I’m mediocure at best at L4D and I don’t really have many friends who play it so the teams I work in our generally pretty awful public groups so I guess we’re looking at the melee weapons from very different perspectives. As a fairly poor player typically in a fairly poor team I found myself shoving quite a lot in L4D and I really liked the fact that with the melee weapons I can basically do a shove like move where everything I shove dies. I guess as a good player who plays in good teams you find pistols are more the thing since you can hold a horde back away from you more easily. They ultimately feel like a useful alternative to me because whilist zombies shouldn’t be that close in my experience they all to often are.
Nice review, Dan. Seems like an improvement, but ultimately a formula I tired of out of never playing with friends, only random 13-year-old French kids :(.
Sheriff Denby should really organise a game night to address that concern.