Gaming Left 4 Dead 2 Hands-on Preview

http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/pc/2009/07/14/left-4-dead-2-hands-on-preview/1

We've been hands-on with the latest build of Left 4 Dead 2 recently, playing through a bunch of levels from the new daylight campaign, The Parish. What do we reckon to the new finales, the melee system and the fact that it's all so much brighter than the original? Find out within.

 

And yet, i can only look at the screenshots and think "Why can i see so much?" i'll stick to my original L4D a little while longer.

 

I don't see why they felt the need to include a melee system. It'll increase the number of halfwits that run blindly at the horde, for no appreciable difference.

Day/night - who cares which, all it is is a new skybox and different shadow directions. Zombies are zombies, and will gnaw your arse off in either one.

The new finale system - Great, I found the first ones 'endings' to be stale and, well, rather boring. Side note: Did anyone wonder why the same four survivers ended up needing rescuing like.. Four times with no apparent reason for it? I mean, unless it's like that zombie webcomic, I can't immerse myself in a game that makes no sense like that. There doesn't even seem to be a tenuous link.

New Infected - I couldn't give a crap. I'm a Romero zombie believer. "What'd they do, come back from the dead and join a health & fitness club?". So long as it goes down with a shotgun, though.

I still don't see how any of this is 'too big' for DLC, or even 'too difficult' to add as DLC. Ahwell. I guess Valve is just succumbing to the EA syndrome.

 

N'ah, I think it is too big for an upgrade. It's actually more content than the original. You wouldn't expect to see Bethesda release Fallout 4 as a upgrade to Fallout 3.

If it was a new engine, would people be complaining as much?

 

I tend to get annoyed when I have to use a torch to see what's going on, so this sounds promising.

 

Cool Pirates, any sign of Ninjas in a future update?

 

No, because that'd be a hell of a lot bigger (And hopefully more visually impressive), not to mention more complex, than this.

Side note: I doubt that size wise it is that much bigger. The AI director has supposedly been overhauled. Unless they didn't remove the useless code from the first build (IE: the stuff that has (Unless they're **** at their jobs) been re-written) then I seriously doubt the data files behind that are going to be THAT much bigger.

Campaigns are likely to be roughly the same size - Since it's the source engine, unless the levels are massively larger than the existing ones, all that will be majorly different is the change of a skybox.

Melee weapons are likely to have taken the place of the flashlight on the 'inventory' screen, I expect everything else will be in similar places.

The only thing that should really be larger is the weapon texture packs, weapon model packs, and the additional code to drive the melee weapons - Since they abandoned the weapon breaking system, it shouldn't be that huge.

If L4D2 is larger than 7gb (360) I will be very ****ing surprised. For reference, the original dumps ~6gb off a 360 disc. PC version is likely to be larger to deal with the different textures etc, but I doubt that it'll be THAT much larger, since textures in source games, well, they tend to be pretty small in comparison to other games with a more recent engine.

 

Joe are there any technological or graphical advancements in Left4Dead 2 over the original?

As far as the game is concerned I am really not impressed at all. This could have easily been DLC or an expansion for the original. How this is a new game I just can't see it.

Gabe Newell is making a huge mistake listening to people like Faliszek. I will stick to Left4Dead as it really is still a great game.

 

It's not purely a matter of size. It's a matter of worth and visibility. This is entirely new content, with new enemies, levels (and more campaigns), new modes, new weapons, new textures, new features, new AI Director - that amount of content is sizeable enough in terms of worth to merit an independent release rather than a DLC pack that'll be little seen, unavailable in shops and completely unknown to anyone in a non-hardcore market.

Besides, be honest - if this was all unveiled as a series of DLC packs, with each new campaign costing a conservative £8 each (making 4 campaigns roughly equal to the cost of Left 4 Dead 1) then everyone would just get even more pissy and would start whining that they were being nickel-and-dimed to death and that Valve should just collect a bunch of the new content and release it as one big pack - which is really what they are doing.

This type of argument about whether or not it's an expansion pack is pointless and stupid - whether it is DLC or a sequel the same is going to be true either way; If you want it, you buy it, if you don't, you don't. The only exception would be if you were expecting it as FREE DLC, which is massively unrealistic and foolish.

The only real argument which holds and validity in the boycott debates is the idea of on-going support for Left 4 Dead 1 - which was promised by Valve. To that, Valve has said it will continue to provide support and still has stuff to announce.

 

All the politics aside i'm so excited about this game, i cant really see how anyone could fail to be excited by what we're seeing. To me L4D was a training exercise in what valve could do with the concept, now we're going to see a much more cohesive attempt at the same thing. Some of the stuff like the weapons and one or two of the characters don't look perfect, but L4D was far from perfect in the first place.

 

Fair enough Joe, that does make a lot of sense. I suppose we have been spoiled by TF2 and it's huge updates. I really do love Valve and guess I have to trust Gabe Newell's plan for this game. I really do hope they support L4D properly. That would soften the blow and possibly get me to part with my hard earned cash for L4D2. Nice preview by the way!

 

I've always made it clear that I don't care if it was chargable DLC or not. I'm not one of these cretinous gamers that thinks a developers work should go around for free. I like free DLC, but I am by no means going to avoid paid for DLC just because it's a cost. I don't believe, much, in this nickel and diming thing that so many people seem to - I believe there are a few cases where it is true (RE5, for example), but most of the time it is not a fear worth having - You're getting extra life out of your game. SR2, for example. I've bought both of the DLC packs so far, and enjoyed them, and I feel that they were worth the money. I felt a little cheated by the Fable 2 packs, but that hasn't stopped me buying them. I might be slightly less inclined to buy L4D DLC, because frankly, the game doesn't do that much for me.

Before you start wondering, then, why I get louder about the whole L4D/L4D2 thing, well. It's two things.

One: They promised things before, and after, release - And they were considerably late with the SDK, without really explaining it. They could have been more forth-coming with information there. So far, it feels that they were late because they were so busy with L4D2, which says (to me) "We're less interested in keeping promises to the community that makes us so successful, than we are trying to milk their wallets". Now - I don't mind them doing a sequel. Everyone does sequels, and some of them are good continuations of the experience. What I do mind is the way they're trying to justify it with, frankly, mediocre excuses. I'd be much happier if they came out and said "We're doing it this way. Don't like it? sod off. Otherwise, buy it when it launches" - Instead they're saying things like "It's too big a change" which, frankly, is either a lie or evidence that their team is not that fantastic at updating existing files. I very much doubt it's the latter.

Two: I liked being able to trust Valve. So far, I am not seeing any special reason to continue doing so.

I disagree that DLC would be seldom seen - Steam is one hell of a marketing tool - It's their own product, putting a "Hey, look, DLC" news post in would be about as difficult as it is to masturbate. XBL, slightly more costly, but no more difficult. Hell, the GTA IV DLC got 'boxes' in stores. Sure, you had to go home and download it, but there were 'boxes' in the store, and they weren't tucked away. If Rockstar/MS can manage that, so can Valve/MS.

The only thing different in the list you provide to, say, Fable II's DLC is the AI, enemies and arguably 'features'. Three things extra, which would be, essentially, a patching of an existing file if it were DLC, does not make it somehow impossible to supply as DLC. This game will, most likely, be purchasable on Steam - That in itself negates the idea that it is too big for download. Textures are a non-issue, Soruce engine textures are next to nothing in size.

 

And it has helicoptor pirates, this franchise just gets better and better!

 

Of course the melee system is dumbed down. Otherwise it would become completely biased and the melee-spam that was the first released of L4D!?

 

I never liked the sound of the melee system. As if playing with strangers on L4D wasn't bad enough, now you are going to have people running into waves of zombies, getting teamfired in the back and surrounded by zombies they can't quickly put down. It sounds utterly retarded. And now that I know how the system works, it sounds even worse, and a terrible idea.

That aside, the other additions (moving finales, uncommon common, new specials, day levels etc) sound like good ideas, and I look forward to hearing what else Valve have planned.

Having said that, I am more interested in hearing what they have planned for L4D1. I am very much in the same mindset as liratheal here. It's not so much the fact a sequel has been announced, but the fact I think L4D, when released, was very much under par for a Valve game. We had no SDK for ages, with no decent reasoning, the levels were good, but short and not very numerous, and the variety of weapons was apalling.

The SDk and game creation tools for Natural Selection 2 are being released before the game even gets released! THAT is how you cater to the fans. Not by releasing the tools way too late, and then shortly after announcing a new game. Even if it isn't true, it reeks of "We care more about pumping out sequels than fulfilling our promises".

 

Greetings!

No. With a new engine it would make sense to glue a "2" after the original game name.

That and the split of the L4D community into three groups:
The "original" group, consisting of L4D owners.
The "new" group, consisting of L4D2 owners.
The "all" group, consisting of L4D and L4D2 owners.

Valve is suffering from "NFS-dite", new game every year. Wonder if it got infected from the relation with EA.

At least it seems there will be a retail version, to alleviate the St€am ripoff prices:

 

There was a retail version of L4D1 - I know this because it was about half the price of buying it on Steam at release in the UK

 

I'm a L4D1 owner... And until now, L4D2 doesn't impress me... It has good things, but I can't help feeling that I was a beta tester with L4D1. Just hope they can make this game more appealing until November, or I'll pass...

 

The hands on preview was good but didnt mention the versus system? Are we only going to get one or two maps like the first one and have to wait till they announce left 4 dead 3 before we get the other two or will there be more this time?

 

Yes - the retail copies are published by EA.