Left 4 Dead 2 Demo Details

[Major Banter]

$20 is very little once you've got a full or part-time job paying your own bills for housing and food. (And of course, some variation due to geographic cost-of-living.) I certainly appreciate that a large chunk of gamers are younger than that point, but you could probably mow a neighbor's lawn once or twice...

I earn £50 every saturday with a little sweat. A new game is no real biggie, especially if I trade in some old crap. I think Terr's spot on. Clean your parent's car and do your neighbours' as well if you're that desperate, I have in the past.

[Terr]

I am very sneaky, sir.

But in seriousness: Once you've got a full-time job and have taken a good long look at your student loans, or the lien on a car, etc. $20 doesn't look like so much by comparison. (On the flip side, if you are eating ramen most of the time--and not by choice--then perhaps every little bit counts, but hopefully nobody with time to post here is in such dire straits.)

Even a minimum wage job is around $7.15/hr. Three hours and you can buy a $20 game you might be able to comfortably play for 30-300 hours. And it'll be something you can put on your resume later, as well as a recurring source of income if you continue. If you have no particular skills or ideas, you can always try a bit of under-the-table yardwork for neighbors. It's not fun, but it's also something that's easy to do one-off.

So for all the 13 to 18-year-olds... Well, you've already decided you are old enough to see someone get utterly disemboweled with a chainsaw, so get a job! Honestly, you'll be quite surprised at first by how much spending money you suddenly have, and if you try for internships etc. you can get a jump-start on whatever you want to do after you finish schooling.

[joe_rogers_11155]

the gamers of today are not even children so much as they are teenagers and young adults, and sometimes even into their 30's. They have plenty of opportunities to make money.

Regardless of how much you pay for it, or how many ways you split the cost of a four-pack, is L4D2 $50 worth of content? I think it is pretty close, because (discounting the addition of infected, weapons, and maps alone) the amount of new content available in the authoring tools will turn hundreds of map permutations into thousands and thousands of map permutations. Mappers will have much more stock props and textures to choose from, and the new sub-finales and game modes will allow mappers to be much more creative with their creations.

And the lingering hope of getting a full-blown SDK for the Left 4 Dead series is well worth buying the game at $50.

As far as giving L4D all the L4D2 content as DLC: L4D2 is everything that L4D wanted to be, in every shape and form. However, the differences that exist between L4D and L4D2 exist in the form of nuance. The movement of the horde as a whole is much more fluid and lifelike. The feel and variety of weapons reaches something that resembles excellence, rather than being the same three unvarying weapon choices. The special infected form stronger teams together and are capable of doing horrible things to disorganized teams. While none of these changes are large enough to discredit the notion of DLC, L4D2's art style and more story-driven purpose seem strong and diverse enough to stand apart from the original L4D and become the beacon of zombie games.

(So I feel i went a bit sloppy with my point in the last paragraph but i hope you get what I'm trying to say)

[Zipfinator]

The movement of the horde as a whole is much more fluid and lifelike.

So the movement and fluidity of a horde of zombies is much more life-like now? Kay.

I do agree with you though. The addition of the content in the SDK and even just the amount of content in the game seems like $50 worth to me. Also the AI changes for Special Infected are a lot better. They act more like experienced players now instead of retarded NPCs. My team actually had a bit of trouble on Advanced when we didn't have too much trouble on Expert in L4D. Hopefully Realism mode will make things more interesting. It'll be hard even on normal with it on. Normal infected also seem to have a lot more space to climb now. In L4D you'd just shoot one spot on a ledge and kill all of them but now they spread out so you have to be aware of all directions (Taking this from the rolling crescendo in L4D2).

[Mess]

just had a quick run-through on this, have to say i wasn't blown away. Doesn't feel radically different, the new special infected didn't really feel at all dangerous or offered any drastic new dynamic... but hopefully that will change when they're in the hands of skilled VS players.

[Zipfinator]

just had a quick run-through on this, have to say i wasn't blown away. Doesn't feel radically different, the new special infected didn't really feel at all dangerous or offered any drastic new dynamic... but hopefully that will change when they're in the hands of skilled VS players.

The special infected add a lot of new dynamics, at least they will in versus. A hunter can pounce someone and a spitter can spit on them making it harder for you to rescue the person being huntered/causing extra damage to him. Spitters will prevent room camping on hordes as chargers will prevent corner camping. Jockeys can guide people into spitter acid or off of roofs (Dead Air). There are tons of other things a good team can do too, those are just a few that came to mind right now. Versus should also be much tougher for survivors now because the infected are tougher. They have more health/resistance to damage so it wont take 3 shots to kill a smoker.

[source-maps]

you should try it on expert with just 1 buddy, and nb_delete the bots
fucking hard I tell you, compared to l4d1

[stoopdapoop]

you should try it on expert with just 1 buddy, and nb_delete the bots
fucking hard I tell you, compared to l4d1

lol yeah, but only in most cases, the game gets really fucking hard if you have some dumb motherfuckers on your team too always having to save them, and having them just eat every kit they find.

[Kodox]

LOL Valve gives us a huge bargain with the orange box, but after playing the demo I'd have to say they are making up for it. They could have made L4D and L4D 2 one complete game, but instead some ppl are paying nearly $100 BUCKS for ONE GAME (L4D+L4D2) Still fun to play tho.

Two ideas that may have made L4D 2 a worthy sequel.

1. New Engine.
2. A Twist. (Acquire super hulk zombie solution that you learn to make, smashing and throwing infected and going toe to toe with the bigger monsters.) They could make use of the gibs cuz u would be ripping infected apart, blood gore etc. and you could actually fight the boss infected instead of running around like a sissy girl and shooting. Just look at what Batman Arkham asylum did. New engine and awesome combat. When I play L4D 2 after playing Batman, the melee in the game is nothing compared to the combat in the Batman game.


I didn't see any cool physics stuff in the demo.Ep2 introduced a new version of the physics stuff but I didn't see any of it in this demo. New infected? Yea, but none of them were interesting to me. Overall, the demo lacked epicness and creativity but it's still fun.

[Mr-Jigsaw]

When I play L4D 2 after playing Batman, the melee in the game is nothing compared to the combat in the Batman game.

L4d2 is first-person shooter. Basically it sounds like you're finding any excuse to disparage the game now.

[joe_rogers_11155]

I didn't see any cool physics stuff in the demo.Ep2 introduced a new version of the physics stuff but I didn't see any of it in this demo. New infected? Yea, but none of them were interesting to me. Overall, the demo lacked epicness and creativity but it's still fun.

But did you watch the trailer at the beginning of the game where a huge bridge is exploded out from under the survivors' feet? I have a feeling L4D2 is going to be a huge playground for cinematic physics shows. We thought the gas station and the airplane were neat-o? The bridge explosion is much bigger than the explosion at White Forest. I'm psyched to watch all that stuff blowing apart in Source.

PS, I don't think a new engine would be necessary just for L4D2. It would be like Valve making a new engine for HL2: Episode 3. Just doesn't make sense. If they do make a new engine, it will probably not occur in the middle of a series of episodes. They will certainly wait for the next iteration of the Half-Life series to unveil a new engine.

[Zipfinator]

I didn't see any cool physics stuff in the demo.Ep2 introduced a new version of the physics stuff but I didn't see any of it in this demo. New infected? Yea, but none of them were interesting to me. Overall, the demo lacked epicness and creativity but it's still fun.

But did you watch the trailer at the beginning of the game where a huge bridge is exploded out from under the survivors' feet? I have a feeling L4D2 is going to be a huge playground for cinematic physics shows. We thought the gas station and the airplane were neat-o? The bridge explosion is much bigger than the explosion at White Forest. I'm psyched to watch all that stuff blowing apart in Source.

PS, I don't think a new engine would be necessary just for L4D2. It would be like Valve making a new engine for HL2: Episode 3. Just doesn't make sense. If they do make a new engine, it will probably not occur in the middle of a series of episodes. They will certainly wait for the next iteration of the Half-Life series to unveil a new engine.

Agreed. I don't have any clue why people keep basing their opinions completely off of the demo. There's going to be a lot more cool stuff in the full game. Valve said that the demo levels are probably the two shortest levels in the entire game, the demo didn't include a lot of the exciting new stuff such as the best melee weapons and the new game mode and it didn't include some of the best new engine/AID modifications such as weather effects and random path generation. Also I'm really excited to get my hands on the new SDK content. Already have a campaign planned out for me and someone else to get to work on the week it releases.

[stoopdapoop]

LOL Valve gives us a huge bargain with the orange box, but after playing the demo I'd have to say they are making up for it. They could have made L4D and L4D 2 one complete game, but instead some ppl are paying nearly $100 BUCKS for ONE GAME (L4D+L4D2) Still fun to play tho.

Two ideas that may have made L4D 2 a worthy sequel.

1. New Engine.
2. A Twist. (Acquire super hulk zombie solution that you learn to make, smashing and throwing infected and going toe to toe with the bigger monsters.) They could make use of the gibs cuz u would be ripping infected apart, blood gore etc. and you could actually fight the boss infected instead of running around like a sissy girl and shooting. Just look at what Batman Arkham asylum did. New engine and awesome combat. When I play L4D 2 after playing Batman, the melee in the game is nothing compared to the combat in the Batman game.


I didn't see any cool physics stuff in the demo.Ep2 introduced a new version of the physics stuff but I didn't see any of it in this demo. New infected? Yea, but none of them were interesting to me. Overall, the demo lacked epicness and creativity but it's still fun.

Your post is leaving me under the impression that you don't know what an engine is/does.

also, your second point is confusing me to no end.

[ad_hominem]

Also I'm really excited to get my hands on the new SDK content. Already have a campaign planned out for me and someone else to get to work on the week it releases.

Has the SDK actually been talked about by valve, in terms of when it's being released? It's not listed as being included with the game like L4D1 was (and even that took 6 months!).

[no00dylan]

the authoring tools will go out as soon as l4d2 does, says chet