Finally, it is here. The most hated and most expected game. The launch was delayed, like usually, but fortunately only few hours, not months or years :) The game is here. And ready to be played. Are you ready to survive?

Left 4 Dead 2 has new and really cool features, but game itself is filled with several bugs. You may get stuck inside a wall/table or and cannot move! Your AI controlled team members are morons of the year and do not always stick with you, so can happen that if you are incapacitated, you’ll watch your player to be totally wiped out, because AI bots cannot calculate the right way and will not come to rescue you! When somebody starts a fire, your AI controlled moron may walk right inside that fire and start screaming in pain and lose hitpoints! You probably remember that video that was posted here before, where human player fell over the edge of balcony and team of morons came to “help” him up, two of them stumbled and fell over the edge too and then the last AI idiot jumped over the edge and fell down, I mean totally down. And similar things happen very often. I think that Valve polished their Director so much but didn’t even try to make AI controlled bots smarter and competitive.

Single player (also multiplayer, if teammates are AI controlled) drives you nuts because of those idiot bots and bugs. Multiplayer is pretty okay, it has 5 of different multiplayer game types (co-op campaign, realism, versus, survival and scavenge) and it’s fun to play.

The game is definitely worth owning/playing. If you’re in Tier 1, then ask your Tier 2/UK friend to make a Christmas gift or simply wait for the weekend deal or other good deals. Or if you really hate your wallet, you can buy this game for 50€. But just look at the screens or play the demo and you will see, it is a pretty damn good game.

But enough of whining, let’s get to the cake! :)

Hint: Click on the images to see them bigger.

Quick run-down

The helicopters are still searching survivors from the infested cities and take them to the safety when found. But unfortunately you and other 3 persons were late and now are witnessing only how helicopters take off and leave you behind. But there is no time to waste, must go to south, where helicopters haven’t picked survivors up yet. So you have to get a vehicle. You go to shopping mall and “steal” a car. But as american cars eat so lots of gas, you can’t get too far and must continue on foot. You will arrive at the Circus, like in Zombieland (damn I’m in love with Wichita :D) and start rock concert (of the Midnight Riders, rumored DLC content for L4D2) to signal the helicopter. Unfortunately the helicopter pilot, who picked you up, turned to zombie and had to be shot. So you fell down (or what happened?) and find yourself heading to swamp. New “mud-zombies” are introduced, but they are nothing special. After going through swamp and plantation, you manage to call a boat and get on the it. In next campaign you have to go and get extra gas for boat. But you will kicked out soon on the shore and you have to go through city (which is under bombardment) and reach the other side of huge bridge and get on the chopper. If you manage to do it, then you’re done with all campaigns :) Well done!

Cool features

Nice environments

Rock’n’roll!

Colorful melee fight!

And what do you think, did I kill that hunter with chainsaw or yes? :D

More details

Santa’s little helpers

Achievements

Check this nice 104.6% of all players stats.

Check here Total Playtime vs Past 2 weeks playtime :P Two weeks playtime is longer than total playtime :D

Mods

Still in love with Zoey from Left 4 Dead 1? Get her back from here!

Other mods are available here – http://www.l4dmods.com/

DLCs

Valve announced on 14th December, that early 2010 will come game add-on, where L4D2 chars meet L4D1 chars in Georgian rural town. There will be a new co-operative challenge mode of play. Also it includes new “uncommon common” zombie class, a melee weapon and a firearm. It’s called “The Passing”. So there goes another 50€ ;) Pricing will be announced closer to the launch.

Also there are some rumors about Midnight Riders DLC but this is probably only a speculation :)

Multiplayer games

Multiplayer – Co-op campaign

Well as you can understand from the name – it is co-operative campaign play. Start wherever you like and play it through with friends or strangers! I believe that your team members will be much smarter than AI controlled morons :) This mode can be switched to REALISM.

Multiplayer – Realism

This is probably one of the hardest playmode. You may choose any episodes of campaigns or play even full campaign (must be switched to campaign). In this mode you must have visual contact all the time otherwise you will lose your teammates because they are not seen through obstacles, no outlines and no names hovering over their heads.

In regular game, you will see outlines and names hovering above their heads, but as you an see on following pictures, there are none.

Multiplayer – Versus

Old good PvP deathmatch – Survivors vs. Infected. Who gets more kills? This mode can be switched to SCAVENGE.

Play Boomer, Hunter, Smoker, Tank, Spitter, Jockey or Charger when in Infected team (class is randomly chosen AFAIK).

Multiplayer – Survival

Prepare the battlefield – throw the flammable items around so you can light them on fire when infected horde is attacking. Prepare the weapons, deploy Santa’s Little helpers, start the show and survive! Another more – fun game mode and also requires little bit tactics.

Beat the survival records! Get bronze medal for 4:00 minutes, silver medal for 7:00 and gold medal for 10:00 minutes of staying alive.

Playgrounds: Bridge, Mall Atrium, Concert, Sugar Mill, Bus Depot, Burger Tank, Gator Village, Motel, Stadium Gate, Plantation.

Multiplayer – Scavenge

Scavenger mode is a probably most funniest type of a game. Survivor team must fill their goal and Infected team must do everything that the other team cannot fulfill their goal. There game/lobby leader can define the win conditions – single match, best of 3 or best of 5.

Sample goal – fill the car with gas cans. There are 3 rounds and team, who has most cans in the end, shall be winner.

Playgrounds: Dead Center – Mall Atrium, The Parish – Park, Hard Rain – Sugar Mill, Swamp Fever – Plank Country, Dark Carnival – Motel and Hard Rain – Milltown.

Screenshots

Bad features

* AI moronity. This VG Cats comics summarizes the AI Team member “intelligence”:

* All of your computer controlled team members are morons, who can’t follow.

Sometimes few of them doesn’t follow and take a break to watch the stars or jerk off, I don’t know exactly, what the hell they do when they must run for their lives. Situation: everybody were in safe room and Ellis was just standing outside the house, in the middle of the parking lot and guess what, doing nothing! I went and kicked his ass, shot him in the face, but nothing. Then I lured Boomer or Hunter on him and only then, after killing horde and reviving him, he realized, oh, there is a god damn safe-house, where he must go! And there was no Charger to punch him inside the wall, from he cannot break free. Unfortunately I didn’t do any screenshot then…

* AI controlled team mates are simply idiots. Yes, run straight to the fire and scream “awww! awww! awww!”, you moron!

* All of your computer controlled team members are morons, who can’t shoot.

* Buggy Charger AI: Charger can charge and run with you into a wall, so you will be inside that wall and you cannot move. What a stupid bug, huh? Fortunately, a friend Boomer helped me out there – it spit and then small animation began (as usual), where my character was shown in 3rd person view for few seconds and then switched back and fortunately out from the wall :P Note: The bugfix was released on 27th Nov.

* Another Charger AI bug that causes such buggy reactions by your morons: when walking on the roof, Charger comes and charges me off the roof, then 2 morons who are on the roof, will try to reach me from the roof and of course they will fall and will be hanging on the edge of the roof. And the third moron can’t decide whom should she help and which way to choose.

* Also was annoyed by the not balanced level lengths. Some of them are so long and some are so short.

* The bitch-witch is blocking the way all the time! Sometimes even safe-house!

* Shooting ladies, who may be dead but not so ugly like the other monsters.

* Stupid AI for mobs.

* When I say something, then I am one of those 4 players, but when I do something, then I am called with my own nickname (slay). So why to confuse people? Just choose one god damn name to call me!

Still hungry?

Check my Left 4 Dead 2 Demo post here, it contains screenshots and info about The Parish first 2 levels. There are also pictures about new features that weren’t covered in this post.

Creation trivia: Live Writer draft: 116mb, screenshots in post: 105, publishing: 15 minutes, first screenshot on 17th Nov, last screenshot on 08st Dec, screenshot size: 1680×1050, total screenshots made: 1140, total screenshots weight: 446mb; playing time to make this post:  15h 25m 41s (total), total bugs found: several

That’s right!

Someone is already playing Left 4 Dead 2 and streaming the game over justin.tv!

Click here to watch it live!

Or watch it here directly:

You can read from Left 4 Dead 2 blog following:

Due to an ongoing debate in the office and online as to whether “12 AM” means noon or midnight (we’re still sticking with midnight), it’s been more challenging than we realized to tell people when exactly our game will be available. Factor in the Earth rotating around the sun, daylight savings time, some of our fans insisting on using the Mayan calendar, and we’re just going to try and make this as specific as possible:

When L4D2 will go live:

Tuesday, November 17th, 12:00 AM (midnight) Eastern Standard Time

• Monday, November 16th, 9:00 PM Pacific Standard Time
• Monday, November 16th, 10:00 PM Mountain Standard Time
• Monday, November 16th, 11:00 PM Central Standard Time
• Tuesday, November 17th, 12:00 AM (midnight) Eastern Standard Time
• Tuesday, November 17th, 5:00 AM Greenwich Mean Time
• Tuesday, November 17th, 8:00 AM Moscow Time
• Tuesday, November 17th, 2:00 PM Japan Standard Time

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Started single player Offline game “The Parish” with 2 episodes, normal difficulty. I was randomly chosen to play Coach.

As I used to play guitar some time ago, I chose guitar as my primary weapon and now I am a Guitar hero! :D I didn’t see promised baseball bat though..

Here are some screens… Click on thumbnails to see bigger pictures in new window.

more screens below…

working jukebox with cool OST	poor infected bastard

Spitter acid is unhealthy	Your pal Ellis

Old friend Hunter	Couples Retreat?

Eerie scene :)	New mob Armored Zombie

Girls of L4D2	Girls of L4D2

New item Adrenaline…	… which boosts speed

I’m still high :)	New evil mob Jockey

	New mob Spitter that spits ;)

New item Defibrillator, with you can revive dead players	Healing is still the same :)

Pipe bomb explosion	Matrix ;)

Home, sweet home	The Survivors have escaped!

The end…

PS. This is the 3rd time I made it from scratch! Damned Live Writer.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Looks like they’re having a blast!

Left 4 Dead 2 was rescheduled for today @ 9PM (Central European Time). Meanwhile Left 4 Dead 2 demo server files are already available and we have some good news, thanks to our friends at Strefa Gier TP we just setup 10 servers in Poland.

Click here for IP addresses!

Update:
Something is downloading right now:

Update 2:
Fuck it, still blocked and redownloaded the whole demo and nothing. Nice job Valve.

(click for info)

If you happen to have a console please take some shots or videos, meanwhile check out YouTube for Left 4 Dead 2 demo gameplay videos.

Scavenge, the fourth game mode to be included in its upcoming zombie thriller, Left 4 Dead 2.

Scavenge mode challenges players to compete in round-based games of up to 8 players (Survivors vs. Infected). The Survivors must battle both the Infected and the clock as they collect gas cans to refuel a generator located in each map. Every can the Survivors pour into the generator scores their team a point and adds time to the clock.

On defense, the Infected team plays as the boss Infected (including the new Spitter, Jockey, and Charger). They must keep the Survivors from fueling the generator by attacking them, destroying the gas cans, or running out the clock. During a round, each team gets an opportunity to play both sides, with the round going to whichever team successfully delivers the most cans.

Coming exclusively to Xbox 360 and PC, L4D2 promises to set a new benchmark for co-operative action games and become one of 2009′s marquee titles. Set for release on November 17, the title adds melee combat to enable deeper co-operative gameplay, with items such as a chainsaws, frying pans, axes, baseball bats, and more.

L4D2 also introduces the AI Director 2.0, adding the ability to procedurally change weather effects, world objects, and pathways in addition to tailoring the enemy population, effects, and sounds to match the players’ performance. The result is a unique game session custom-fitted to provide a satisfying and uniquely challenging experience each time the game is played.

Finally, with new Survivors, boss zombies, weapons, and items, Left 4 Dead 2 offers a much larger game than the original, featuring more co-operative campaigns, more Versus campaigns, new Survival maps, and a brand new competitive mode all available at launch.

Source: http://store.steampowered.com/news/2916/

Previously only differing the price between US Dollar, Euro and British Pound, they now topped it by even discriminating between the European countries.

So we not only have the well known unfair price difference between Dollar, Euro and Pound:

US L4D2 Pre-Purchase: $44.99

EU L4D2 Pre-Purchase: 44,99€

UK L4D2 Pre-Purchase: £26.99

but also differences between european contries:

Germany, France, Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and a lot of others pay the high, unfair price of 44,99€ (L4D2)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/550/?cc=de (or /?cc= fr, nl, dk, fi, se..)

while countries like: Poland, Norway, Italy, Spain, Lithuania and a few other – for incomprehensible reasons -, pay a much cheaper price of 34,19€, which is only slightly more than the UK price in Euro!
http://store.steampowered.com/app/550/?cc=pl

Thats a price difference of 10€ or even 20€ less when buying a bundle of four L4D2 copies.

Workarounds:

1.) Gifting cheap games to friends in an expensive, foreign region is thankfully still possible, eventhough it probably won’t be for long, judging from recent developements.

So have a good foreign friend who lives in a cheap priced region gift you L4D2, after sending him the money via PayPal or likewise.

2.) If you can live without the “exclusive baseball bat” weapon that comes with Steam Pre-Purchases: Don’t support the Steam Regime at all and Pre-Order L4D2 on Amazon.co.uk for the cheapest of all prices: £26.99 (29,26€)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Electronic-Arts-Left-Dead-DVD/dp/B002BSH9J4/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1254503223&sr=8-2

German users should be aware that L4D2, like 1, will be censored again, when buying from their region.

Buy the game at Amazon.co.uk or have a foreign friend gift it to you, for uncensored Zombie Slaughter.

At a press conference held earlier today in Tokyo, EA took to the stage and revealed that a playable demo for Left 4 Dead 2 will be out next month.

It’s dated for October 27, and that’s all that was discussed. Not which platform that was for, not whether it was for pre-order customers or everyone, which map it was, nothing. That info will have to wait, it seems!

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Source: Kotaku

“We still wanted it to be on the East coast, a bunch of us are from the area,” he told Planet Half-Life. “It’s an interesting place that is not covered in a lot of video games. There’s not a lot of video games that go down to the deep south, through the Savanna and New Orleans. There’s a lot of cool gameplay there, there’s a lot of cool areas. You can be in the swamps, the Savanna or New Orleans, it’s a beautiful city.

“It seemed like a good opportunity to go through there, so we jumped on it.”

Don’t forget that the deep south can be a very mysterious place, what with all the live oaks littered with Spanish moss fluttering in the breeze; the humid heaviness of the air; the thick essence of jasmine and wisteria wafting through your nostrils; toothy zombies just gagging to sink rotting fangs into you.

Great place it is.

Source: Videogaming 24/7