Widescreen Gaming Forum

And: Holy crap there's a City 17 mod? I have to try that out...

It's actually Half-Life 2 Episode 2 in Left 4 Dead... very hard map, I played through it on expert tonight and was dying every couple minutes (but then I wasn't really in the mood to play, which always makes me do terrible).

[quote]And: Holy crap there's a City 17 mod? I have to try that out...

It's actually Half-Life 2 Episode 2 in Left 4 Dead... very hard map, I played through it on expert tonight and was dying every couple minutes (but then I wasn't really in the mood to play, which always makes me do terrible).
Hmm, sounds interesting. I'll definitely check it out, thanks for the heads up.

It's Episode 1, not 2, sorry about that.

Value to Cost: 7/10 (This really should have been an expansion to the original.)

Also considering there's been many deals on it lately.. I mean Steam had it on sale like 2 weeks after it came out or something like that for $37 and the 4-pack for even cheaper than it was originally, and it was on for $28 I think during one of the Christmas sale days and it's been $37 for the entire christmas sale period as well. I'd say you could have easily gotten the game for expansion pack price which makes it worth the money.

When I list the Value to Cost ratio, this is based on it's MSRP, not it's sale prices, now with it's sale prices, it did reach 11/10 and at one point 12/10, but still, more people are going to come across this article when it's not sale season (they're too busy pricing out cheap games on steam mind you,) and long after it's been written, which, I do believe games have a somewhat linear drop-off in value as time goes on, some games, more logarithmic, depends on the title and the support post-sale. This makes my numbers feel a bit more solid. I think I'm going to have to provide a little more detail into how I construct my reviews so people understand a bit better where I pull these numbers from, that's for a later time though.

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Sorry to rez an older thread, but L4D2 is my current fixation and has been for the last 2 months.

I played the original frequently since it's release as well.

The thing that keeps me going back to L4D2 is the VS. modes. I never cared for VS in the original, but after playing the campaigns through several times, some friends made me try VS and I loved it.

A little while later I started playing Scavenger and that is by far my favorite. It's not particularly popular but I like the short rounds and the need to keep the strategy fluid while still learning the maps and developing some sort of flexible pattern.

The new specials combined with the old specials mean that the infected team has to always assess what their assets are and how best to deploy them. The game seems to try to always spawn either a boomer OR a spitter and then 3 ensnaring specials.

If you play these modes enough, you will meet a lot of friendly and talented players and if you demonstrate reasonable competence, you will almost always have good people to play with.

As for other changes, I like that you have to choose between melee and pistols - I always loved the pistols because they are accurate at range (a good compliment to the shotguns or grenade launcher) and the magnum rewards those with good aim. However, the melee weapons (especially the katana) seem to be the best solutions for large waves of common infected and the fastest way to clear a snared team mate.

I don't really care one way or the other about the gun sounds being "unrealistic". The fact is that 4 people firing automatic weapons without hearing protection is highly unrealistic and what I want is fun and play balance. The 3 rifles offer a good spectrum of ammo capacity, firing rate, damage and accuracy. Between the sniper rifles, the hunting rifle has a higher rate of fire and the scoped rifles have the often overlooked benefit of unlimited target penetration which allows you to easily clear large groups from narrow passages. My favorite gun for most scavenger games is the tactical shotgun - it has a tight pattern for better range and the high rate of fire lets you clear a downed opponent extremely quickly (in vs modes, you often have only a second or two between coordinated attacks and the speed of the shotgun is often enough to clear the first target before you yourself get hit).

There are plenty of things to complain about - pub matches are very hit and miss. Often one group of friends will just stomp a group of radsom pubbers but when you can get 2 balanced groups and numerous closely contested stages, it makes you remember what is great about multiplayer gaming.

If you enjoy the game but want a better experience, I recommend befriending the good people you play with - it won't take long before you have a nice little community and your experience will be much more consistent.

Thanks for reading.