Valve Games Review (Part 2 of 2): Left 4 Dead 2

For my Valve game review, I take a look at Left 4 Dead 2 and its predecessor. I still remember, back in elementary school, my friend and I (both avid FPS gamers) were getting tired of CS 1.6 and CS:S, but one day, my friend spots an ad by Valve featuring L4D. Every single day, both of us would search for new Left 4 Dead gameplay videos, and I can't begin to describe the anticipation that was in both of us. Remember for us, this was essentially the newest FPS out since CS:S from Valve so we were very anxious.

Leaf 4 Dead 2 features Uncommon Commons

Getting incapacitated, picking them up and healing them? Playing as zombies? These were all unheard features of any game before its time (to our knowledge at that time). And when L4D was finally released, both of us immediately bought it. I'll have to say, both of us enjoyed it thoroughly and the game pretty much lived up to the hype. But not a year later, L4D2 was announced and this marks the split of the L4D fandom/community.

     I personally was initially against L4D2 being released so early. The main reason was that Valve promised constant updates to L4D, just like in TF2 where maps, weapons and new features were constantly added (see my other blog post). I remember I read a quote from a Valve employee that said (I'm paraphrasing), "There were many things we wanted to do for L4D but didn't, so we're doing them in L4D2". Immediate, I thought "It's not too late!", "You can release your ideas as updates for L4D". But no, L4D2 was released, and eventually, the fan base rose as time went on.

     To be fair, there are lots of new features in L4D2 such as mutations, new weapons (Military Sniper Rifle, AK47, deagle, adrenaline, uncommon commons and new special infecteds). I've enjoyed L4D2 along with a bunch of my friends, but with any good game, there are always a few downfalls.

     To give a basic gameplay overview, there is single player where you play as a human (with 3 others) and fight your way through various zombies to reach a rescue point. There is also a multiplayer mode (max of 8 people, 4 on each team) and you essentially take turns being the zombies and humans for each map (you get to play as both on every map) so obviously, teamwork becomes a huge variable for enjoyable games. Well, so with multiplayer, there are some idiots (we are talking about the internets) and some people enjoy ruining other peoples games. Some enjoy glitching (such as getting to unreachable places) and some griefing (such as team killing). But not all of this comes at the fault of the player, there are many evident glitches in L4D2 that haven't been fixed for awhile. But overall, I found some good friends to play with, to ensure at least an enjoyable game and I'm also expecting many more updates in the future (such as map ports from L4D1).

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Anyone else play games from the L4D series? What's the best zombie game you know? What do you like/dislike about co-operative shooters?