Warning! –
This game is rated M for Mature by the ESRB for violent themes. If that is something which may separate you from buying or simply hearing more about the game, then that is fully understandable. If this does not bother you in any capacity, feel free to keep reading.
This third person shooter, like with many of the Valve Corporation’s works, is a game worth replaying on your own and rewards an experience shared with friends. What seems to be a dire, near hopeless situation involving your team’s survival as some of the last unaffected people in a disastrous southeastern epidemic comes as a thrill ride of a fight as you try to escape the hordes of the Infected and find a path to safety. The military has mostly abandoned you – all you’ve got is your guns, each other, and the hordes of mutants blocking your path. You’ll come to love it that way.
Left 4 Dead 2 released on November 17 on Xbox 360 and on the Steam platform exactly a year after the first game. As bad as the reception was once the news had struck of this decision, even leading to an attempted boycott, it was a necessary decision. The original Left 4 Dead was developed using Valve’s signature Source game engine. However, its version of Source ended up being considered a broken mess which denied the implementation for any future plans the team at Valve would have for the game. So, once the studio had the chance to make Left 4 Dead bigger and better, they immediately took it. They reworked the engine, created new stories, raised the stakes, and announced the game to the public at Microsoft’s press conference at E3 of 2009.
This game’s story begins shortly after the events of the first. A virus known simply as “The Green Flu” quickly spreads across the eastern U.S over the course of just a few weeks, turning those infected into aggressive and instinctive “zombies”. Meanwhile in New Orleans, evacuation from the area is afoot. This is where we meet our four survivors and playable characters.
Coach, a high school teacher and- well, football coach, Nick, a gambler and shady conman, Ellis, a mechanic, and Rochelle, an assistant from a news network.
These four attempt to reach safety, but are unable to make it in time. Having to now fend for themselves, the survivors become acquainted and formulate a plan to make it out of this mess – ultimately needing to fight off the Infected head-on. While the first Left 4 Dead was gritty in tone, the sequel is more like an action thriller. These four survivors embark on a journey that results in explosions, a helicopter crash, a team up with the cast of the first game, and even a fight in the middle of a concert stage filled with pyrotechnics. You’ll begin to see chemistry between the survivors very quickly. Coach helps to lead the team and keep everyone upright, Nick is sarcastic, Rochelle is down-to-earth, and Ellis… oh boy, Ellis. He’s got a lot to say being the optimist of the team, especially about his buddy Keith.
Now that you’ve got your cast, what about their world? The game takes on a visual direction which attempts a sense of realism. The characters in the game were modeled after real people who were digitally scanned, and mocap work was done for the Infected for each of the hundreds of ways they’ll end up getting hurt by your hands. This is all standard stuff for Valve, the very guys who made Half Life and Portal. They can be quite meticulous in detail.
Now onto making sure you get out of this outbreak alive. Consider this your survival guide. Every campaign story follows a point A to point B objective with an open arena finale at the end. There are 14 campaigns you’ll be able to choose from at the start. 15 if you’re playing the Steam version of the game. While a bunch feature Coach, Nick, Ellis, and Rochelle, Valve went out of their way to include EVERY campaign from the first game completely for free, just to implement them to the newer Source engine. The cast becomes doubled from there, starring special forces veteran Bill, biker Francis, junior systems analyst Louis, and college student Zoey.
After starting a campaign as the character of your choice, you’ll have to equip yourself with a few of the tons of weapons in which you can find scattered about the environment. There are primary weapons and secondary weapons. The weapon variety consists of your usual suspects – rifles, shotguns, snipers, and SMGs. Pistols are secondaries, and you can’t put a secondary in your primary slot or vice versa. Melee weapons are also secondaries, so you’ll need to come to decisions whether you want to keep your distance with a pistol or get in close. Each weapon has their ups and downs, giving you opportunities to try each one and adapt your playstyle with.
Equipment comes next. Throwables usually amount to carrying something that will get the Infected off of you or out of the way. It’s always nice to have one for when you’re in a pinch. Healing items are obviously crucial, and there are a few ways to heal back up. Medkits will heal a great amount of your health back at the cost of taking a few seconds to use. For a quicker yet less-effective alternative, pain pills and shots of adrenaline have your back to give you health which drains overtime. The pills heal more while the adrenaline gives you both a movement boost and reduces the time you need to heal with a medkit and revive incapacitated teammates. Like with much of your inventory, it’s up to personal preference over what you’d like to prioritize.
You will need to make a choice fast, because the Infected will make itself known as a threat. These are not your average, slow zombies. They will SPRINT at you in groups, and under the wrong circumstances, they will rush at you in hordes and slow you to a halt. The Infected are attracted to loud noises, such as car alarms. There are also segments in each campaign in which you’ll need to stay in one area in order to progress, resulting in a wave of enemies you’ll need to defend yourself against. While the COMMON Infected can go down in a few shots or instantly with specific weapons, It doesn’t end there. This brings us to your biggest adversaries – the Special Infected.
As their name suggests, these are less common Infected with unique traits and abilities. These include Jockeys, who are short but will jump onto your head if they get close. Spitters and Boomers are fragile, but will spurt out hazardous acid or an horrendous vomit which will attract Infected respectively. Make sure to kill them from a distance. Smokers will try to tangle you up with their extremely-long tongue from afar. If you’re caught, you’ll get dragged until either in the clutches of the Smoker, or if you get caught on a wall or ledge. Hunters stalk around corners until they find a target to pounce on and tear apart. Chargers will rush at you, tackling you into a wall and slam you into the ground with their giant arm.
These final two are by far the most dangerous. Witches can be heard crying, and if you do your best to ignore them, you may evade danger. But, if you bother her in any capacity like keeping a light on her, she will chase you down directly. Finally, the Tanks. These are hulking, almost gorilla-like brutes that will take a lot of damage and dish it back out with the swing of their arms or by throwing massive rocks at you from a distance. Encountering the Tanks are envitible, and will make or break your team’s survival the most.
Expect many losses thanks to this group of Infected, and chances are, they will appear more annoying rather than dangerous. Luckly, there are countermeasures for each and every one of the Special Infected before they can overwhelm you. Audio cues will play whenever they spawn, so you can tell when one is nearby if you pay close attention. Teamwork will be strong here as well, for your friends can shove a few of the Special Infected off a captured ally or cease the trouble by killing the Infected before they can do as much damage to you as possible.
The multiplayer in Left 4 Dead 2 is a central focus. While you can play the game with 3 computer-controlled survivors if you’ve got nobody else, guaranteed you’ll have a better time with your friends. You each can give each other medical attention, revive your teammates after an incapacitation or death, and simply communicate better to last longer against the Infected. There is friendly fire, and even though it doesn’t hurt that badly, it’s just better off if you avoid it as much as you can.
The story isn’t the only thing this game has to offer. There are separate modes to change how the game is played. Versus mode allows for 8 players to come together and compete against each other. One team plays as the survivors, and the other can actually play as Special Infected who attempt to stop their opponents before they can reach a safe room, taking turns as either. On top of your basic Campaign and Versus modes, there are the “Realism” versions. These modes will remove character outlines to make it harder to see your teammates, friendly fire is increased, and it will make the common Infected stronger by dealing more damage and being more durable. For some added spice, modifiers to the game known as Mutations are available, which come in varieties to make the game stranger or more difficult to play. It’s incredible how through all of these options, replaying the same campaigns will not get stale. Even just beyond the gamemodes, the game does its very best to make sure that no run of the same chapters will line up. A tank will spawn somewhere else than it did before, or you’ll get different weapons in the same spot. It keeps you on your toes and makes sure you aren’t steamrolling across New Orleans every time.
While all of this is already enough to keep players entertained, There’s one final little trick the Source engine has up its sleeve. With Steam’s community functionality, there is official mod support for Left 4 Dead 2. That means through the use of the Steam Workshop, you can make and upload your own reskins, sound replacements, or coding scripts to completely change the way you see the game fit! And those are just a few examples! Turn Ellis into Spider-Man, or the Tank into Perfect Cell. Turn all of the Common Infected into an army of skeletons and lay waste to them with Captain America’s shield. That scratches only the surface of the layered cake that this game can become with just a few mods, and all of this is free to use after simply buying the game.
Left 4 Dead 2 is a beautifully crafted experience which takes a zombie outbreak and throws all caution to the wind. It can be your greatest stress reliever or greatest enemy. With only a 10 dollar price tag or lower with an occasional discount, the game is easily accessible and can be far more enticing to buy for not just you, but a few others to take on this apocalypse together. You may spend hours upon hours going through these campaigns over and over again, and hundreds more thanks to the window of opportunity that the Workshop is likely to offer you. Please do not hesitate to give this game a shot. It is worth your time and endurance to make it through to the end… if there IS an end.
(What could have we expected, this is Valve we’re talking about; of course it was gonna be good!)
