This co-operative action horror FPS takes you and your friends through the cities, swamps and cemeteries of the Deep South, from Savannah to New Orleans across five expansive Set in the zombie apocalypse, Left 4 Dead 2 (L4D2) is the highly anticipated sequel to the award-winning Left 4 Dead.
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Additionally, upgrades for weapons and ammunition, plus new items such as defibrillator paddles to revive dead teammates help tip the scales back toward the survivors.ĭespite selling upward of 2 million copies thus far, “Left 4 Dead 2” is definitely a niche title. To help you hold your own against the new enemy types, Valve has added melee weapons, useful for bashing and beheading at close range. The Spitter expectorates globs of flesh-eating acid over a focused area, while the Charger and Jockey excel at busting up a cluster and hopping on the head of a survivor and riding him off to be slaughtered in a corner. To mix up gameplay, and to respond to strategies popular in the first “Left 4 Dead,” the sequel features a trio of new special infected designed to keep players from clustering together. (No, I’m not sure why the survivors couldn’t have hotwired a regular car in the mall’s parking lot, or why gas cans are strewn about a shopping mall.) The Parish, for example, culminates in a brutal trek across a zombie-infested bridge, while Dead Center has players gathering gas cans to power a race car on display in a mall. No longer are you holing up on a rooftop or in a house awaiting rescue in every single scenario. The biggest improvement is the way Valve has mixed up the finales. (You’ll only find clowns in certain parts of the Dark Carnival campaign, for example.) Many chapters feature unique enemy types. Dead Center, for example, features a section in which you have to fight through a burning room, while Dark Carnival has you running along roller-coaster tracks. Unlike the first “Left 4 Dead,” gameplay changes quite a bit depending on which scenario you’re playing. I guess that was you guys.”) At some point, one of the other survivors eventually interrupts each one and tells Ellis to save his tale for another day. While I was partial to Louis in the first “L4D,” the best banter in the sequel comes from long-winded mechanic Ellis, who spins seemingly endless, preposterous yarns about “my buddy Keith.” (“Did I ever tell you about the time my buddy Keith and I were on top of a burning building, and we had to fight our way down, like, five floors of zombies? Wait a second. It features new survivors and a more cohesive, though still sparse, narrative, as well as new enemies, weapon types, ammo upgrades and supplementary items.Īs with the first game, one of the sequel’s strong points lies in the running banter between the characters as they’re fighting zombies. “L4D2” trades its predecessor’s vaguely Pennsylvanian setting for the Deep South, beginning in Savannah, Ga., and progressing into New Orleans. You may be able to memorize the layouts of the game’s levels, but don’t expect them to play the same way every timeīut there are a few differences. The proceedings are managed by a computer-controlled “director,” which rations out supplies or calls down more pain at different spots in every playthrough. A number of different special infected possess the power to incapacitate a survivor until another player comes along to rescue them, which makes teamwork a must. In each scenario’s finale, the survivors fight off waves of undead while working to escape. While the essential gameplay remains unchanged, a number of upgrades, enhancements and more creative level design will have you forgetting all about 2008’s top cooperative shooter in no time.Īt its core, the sequel works like the first game: Three everymen and one everywoman, immune to a zombie outbreak that’s infected most of humanity, battle their way through several, multistage scenarios while hordes of zombies, or infected, assail them. After playing “L4D2” (rated M, $60 on Xbox 360, $50 on PC), I can’t see myself choosing to play the original over the sequel for reasons other than nostalgia and a desire for achievement points.
Valve Software’s “Left 4 Dead 2” accomplishes what should be the goal of every video game sequel: make the previous title in the series, no matter how good, feel obsolete.
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