By Melissa Traynor
If you enjoy a good zombie apocalypse movie every now and then (and who doesn’t?), you’ve probably wondered how long you would survive among hordes of the undead.
Given the circumstances of survival missions, and convenient amounts of both weapons and ammunition, Left 4 Dead 2 allows players to shoot, bludgeon, hack, bomb and batter their way through a pretty interesting trip.
Much like the first game, L4D2 uses the same post-apocalyptic storyline with four survivors, hordes of common zombies, “boss” zombies with abnormal abilities, safe houses check-ins and rendezvous points. This time, maker Valve waves goodbye to the previous characters Bill, Lewis, Zoey and Francis and introduce us to Coach, literally a high school football coach, Nick the gambler, Ellis, a townie mechanic and Rochelle, a low-level TV news producer.
The game’s makers have also relocated the original setting to Savannah, Ga. and provided for five campaigns in the South; the levels are interconnected, with each one beginning where the last ended. Ultimately, the characters have to fight their way west to reach New Orleans where military evacuation is their last chance to escape the infected.
But on to the good stuff. Within minutes of gameplay, it’s obvious that the sequel is far superior to the first. It seems the makers took the approach, “crazier zombies, crazier weapons.”
L4D2 not only employs abilities of the original special or “boss” zombies – the ensnaring and strangling tongue of the Smoker; zombie-attracting bile of the Boomer; pounce action of the Hunter; the Tank’s rabid strength and size; Witch’s shrieks and claws – the game has three new foul creatures to threaten the survivors. The best of these are the Charger, an infected creature with an oversized arm that can run out of nowhere and beat a survivor into the ground repeatedly, and the Jockey, which latches onto a survivor’s back and steers them into other common infected.
More important, however, is the game’s arsenal of unusual and deadly weapons. L4D2 makes very good use of new melee objects. Take, for example, the frying pan. It makes a “fwing” noise when it collides with the skulls of approaching infected. You can easily knock away two or three infected at a time. Other notable melee weapons for you to check out on your own include chainsaw, electric guitar, axe, sword, cricket paddle (a la Shawn of the Dead), baseball bat and crowbar.
Power weapons are another staple of the game, but L4D2 brings in a few new concepts, such as “fire bullets” – yes, bullets that ignite fires that engulf their targets – and rocket launchers.
The element of the game that really sets it apart from the first is the difficulty of play. That doesn’t just mean adjusting from “easy” to “expert” level and running through a campaign with only pistols, but the obstacles are much more extreme. In the “Hard Rain” campaign, the survivors must move through two safe houses and the notorious cornfields to retrieve gasoline for the getaway boat, but in the meantime must fend off the common infected, as well as an unusually high amount of roaming Witches. They must also battle through extreme downpour, slowly wade through murky water and creep around something that looks like an abandoned refinery maze.
Valve also included features that make for slightly frustrating, but more enjoyable gameplay once players learn to take advantage of them as training grounds. I remember playing through campaigns from the first game specifically to reach the finale where endless waves of the “boss” and common infected rush the survivors and the Tank appears three or four times to destroy our chances of escape. The new game has a level that is strictly dedicated to these ultimate “survival scenes” – though without an escape. The level is purely set up just to measure how long it takes for the survivors to perish among the hordes.
The new features make for a significant improvement on and already stellar game, especially with the complete “movie” feel (did I mention that the game is directed by an AI to alter paths, infected populations and create tension with music?).
Replay-ability for Left 4 Dead was high originally, but with more options than players know what to do with, the sequel is destined to provide infinite ways to slaughter masses of zombies. Perfect to put thumb-twiddling to use over winter break.
