X’09 PREVIEW
Left 4 Dead 2
By Jorge Figueiredo & Shaun Hatton - October 3rd, 2009
At X’09, four big screens were set up to show off Left 4 Dead 2, each with a controller in front of them. Zombies groaned and shuffled along in the background as the game waited for players to dive into it. Michelle from EA was very excited about this Valve title and was incidentally pretty damned good at kicking zombie ass. Four of us each took a controller and assumed the role of one of the four survivors in the aftermath of a pandemic that left people as zombies.
As expected, the game looks pretty good if not a little dated. We’ve played Left 4 Dead on the PC when it first came out and weren’t expecting a drastic change in visual style anyway, plus its familiarity is kind of comforting. The most interesting feature of L4D2, however, is “The Director.” This is the artificial intelligence engine powering the game, which has been improved greatly since the first one, altering not only the difficulty of the enemies and the variety of weapons you pick up, but the environment (wall placement, weather, lighting). Consider us impressed!
The action was intense throughout the demo save for some short moments where the team regrouped, picked up supplies such as adrenaline shots and Molotov cocktails, and just waited for the next wave of attackers. Enemies were, for the most part, fast on their feet. As far as zombies go, they were more like the ones from the film 28 Days Later than the classic Romero undead. For a game, this makes perfect sense, as the aim (no pun intended) is to keep things exciting. If this causes anxiety on the player’s behalf, well, that’s just how it goes.
The demo featured a good variety of weapons, including the standby pistol with unlimited ammo. Some of the zombies took a lot more bullets to take down, and head shots were somewhat tricky to pull off due to both the enemy’s speed and the fact that the game was being demonstrated on a console and not a PC (the mouse/keyboard combo is preferred for L4D). There were also a few oversized enemies that were fond of puking goop on survivors, which in turn slowed them down and held up the team as other members would have to help out eventually.
The demonstration level took place through various streets in what seemed like a decent facsimile of the French Quarter in New Orleans with building architecture, both inside and out, being very indicative of many of the buildings found in that area. Thinking back to it, some things did feel a bit off but if you’ve never been to that area you won’t particularly care. Either way, the map made for a decent, often claustrophobic experience.
Photo courtesy of Highroad Communications.
What was interesting about playing through the short demo was how intensely the participants stared through the TV screens. While communication is a big part of establishing a sense of teamwork in the game, no one said anything while playing through it but somehow everyone knew exactly what to do and where to go. It could very well be that L4D is a great training simulation for the day when a zombie apocalypse us upon us. We don’t have an exact date for that, but L4D2 will be unleashed on November 17, 2009.
