Left 4 Dead 2 Review

Story

Ah Left 4 Dead, how I love thee. Taking the same basic structure and wafer thin plotline from the original, whereby an infected ridden apocalypse from Savanna Georgia to New Orleans is host to a whole horde of evil undead inhabitants, hell bent on separating you and your limbs. You're dropped into what Valve call 'campaigns', with 3 other survivors and your goal is to make your way through 3-4 levels and a final to safety away from the undead hordes.

Your survivors of choice this time around are: female journalist Rochelle, American football coach aptly named Coach, red necked mechanic Ellis and some prick called Nick, whom I couldn't be bothered to research as his arrogance irritates me no end. Unlike the previous instalment, these aren't some souless bodies that you take control of throughout the game, these are real breathing characters with personalties and genuine likeable (except Nick) qualities which shine throughout their development through the game.

Exchanges between the characters including Ellis' legendary stories about his far out family adventures really bring smiles to peoples faces and add a genuine sense of backstory leading up to their premier meeting on the roof top of 'Dead Center'. Keeping the basic story simple, unlike the first game the scenarios all connect on to each other. For example, the first campaign sees you fill up and escape the scenario in a stock car only to be dropped into the following campaign (Dark Carnival) in the same car, having you abondone it due to a gridlocked deserted highway.

As the characters become familiar with the infected types on the journey, they begin to change their attitudes and begin to call them what we all know them as ("long necked bitch" a'la Coach is of course a Spitter, for example) and also adds to the feeling of a storyline. However, as you can probably make out by this part of the review, trying to drag the plotline out to fill a paragraph or 4 is difficult. You don't buy this game for its story.

Graphics

Purposeful is the best way to describe it. Detailed and with some nice little easter eggs (such as the writings on the wall) but overall, the adapted Half Life Source engine has had several improvements including new infected technology that has improved the way that undead behave when shot and downed, eg: shooting infected in the arms will decapitate them and shooting 10 infected at the same point will see the dead bodies stack as they fell in front of you.

Graphics are sharp, quick to respond with special infected's character detailing a particular highlight. Levels are satisfyingly varied, detailed and vibrant especially now that game designers have acknowledged the existance of sunlight in a horror/zombie/infected game. This adds a totally new gameplay element as you flick between bogs, fairground rides and flooded networks of tunnels, buildings and gas stations. Variety is the key with this game and the level design and look is bang on. Characters are well rendered, detailed and have neat details such as when you direct the light beam from your flashlight in a characters eyes, they begin to squint. Big tick for Valve there.

Gameplay

Put simply, it's 4 survivors versus infected, normally thousands per campaign. Campaign's last between 40minutes to who knows with the new 'realism' expert mode enabled. You select a survivor (named above) and equip your primary weapon and can swap, switch and upgrade your weapon's throughout the campaign as the levels develop.

Primary weapons include (but are not limited to): machine guns, light machine guns, shotguns, snipers and grenade launchers. Secondary weapons range from single or duel wielding pistols, Desert Eagle (although, you can't duel wield them) to a whole plethora of melee weapons from baseball bats to frying pans, cricket bats to axes. Personal favourites and highlights include the vicious 1 strike witch chopping chainsaw and utilising the upgraded incindenary ammunition on the Ak47.

There are several mini games dotted throughout the campaigns too, most are held in the frankly legendary Dark Carnival campaign as you balance wiping out the hordes with whack-a-mole and and test your strength games. Mating these side games to achievements is online entertainment gold and allows people to play the game differently every single time.

But this is half of the story, as you progress through campaigns, shooting and melee'ing infected (as you do), you must do so by mixing all sorts of different game mechanics which include: collecting gas cans to power up cars, running behind a cart on a fair ground ride to the safe room and holding fort by setting off a rock concert.

Unlike previous games, weather also has a prominent effect on one campaign, which sees your plucky survivors on a desparate mission to collect gas cans to power a boat however, once they've sourced their fuel they must make the long journey back through the previous levels. Since they left the sanctuary of the boat though, an insane thunderstorm has caused severe flooding, hampering progression as you slowly squelsh through the puddles back to the boat.

Unlike the predictable structure of the first game, level design really does alter with each play through, as alternative routes switch and change and the AI director gets dirty, spawing the 8 special infected at the most inconvienient of times, every time. The return of the: witch, tank, smoker, hunter and boomer are also paired with all new special infected for the new game. These include the delightfully tasteful female boomer, which unleashes torrents of vomit like its male cousin causing 7 shades of trouble in the form of general infected hordes to all who were coated in her delicious vomity goodness. The charger is one mean looking mother, designed to spilt up and carry away one survivor and pound them into the ground. Looking similar to the tank, they don't share the tank's impressive health bar and are quickly dealt with. The last 2 new infected are the jockey whose party trick is to jump on the back of a survivor and lead them into the path of other infected for easier kills, and the spitter who spits (apty) an acid which decimates health and quickly eliminates camping survivors.

Online

Online is quite simply, what this game was built for. All the 5 campaigns are playable online with upto 4 partners (mix of AI, second controller and online) but also a variety of other game modes are too. These modes include Scavenge which sees 4 survivors face off against 4 special infected (randomly assigned by the AI director) where the task is for the survivors to collect upto 16 gas cans to power up generators etc. and the infected must stop them.

Versus mode removes the collect gas can mechanic and instead sees 4 survivors play through the single player campaign levels with up to 4 human players taking control of the infected throughout, swapping after each round. Survival mode is far more simple, 4 survivors simply trying to survive as wave after wave of infected come until you're simply overrun. Try to survive as long as you can.

Summary

In summary, this is a fine example of how a simple idea can be developed and reinvented by simple minor tweaking and perfecting rather than a total overhall. Valve have taken an already fantastic concept and have polished it so much it can be seen in the reflection of all the credit and awards it's sure to collect over its lifespan. The lure of downloadable content is a sure fire certainty that they plan to continue serving the infected up for you to kill for some time to come. A must have.