Left 4 Dead Multiplayer Impressions

With Left 4 Dead hitting stores today, I figured I better get my multiplayer impressions up ASAP. Of course, if you’ve been reading lately, you probably already know that this game is the shit and you should be getting it if you have an Xbox 360 or a PC. I’m really glad J got to play a little, as they’re not making a PS3 version and he needs more reasons to get a 360.Since trying out the demo solo, I’ve gotten a chance to play with my brother in a two player match, and other friends in a few three player matches.

Let me just say the obvious: the game is more fun with friends. The not so obvious? It is scarier too. Not only are you watching your own back, you need to help your team out too, which becomes a lot more urgent when it’s a real person playing (who can scream in terror for help over Xbox Live) over a computer player. I’m not surprised to read in J’s impressions that even when playing with random people, other players don’t act like selfish funhats. It’s most likely tied to the need for mutual survival; the more of the team that stays alive, the more likely you’ll stay alive. Not to mention, the more human players there are, the more threats there are too; more hunters, smokers (tongue guys), boomers (fat exploding guys)—so it’s best if every one works together.

The other interesting thing I noticed while playing is that things so INTENSE that occasionally other players may be so wrapped up in the grim situation that they won’t respond right away because they may not hear you; a few times both playing with my brother and in three player matches, things needed to be repeated. This is no fault of the online chat servers; instead it’s because of the amount of fear that overwhelms you.

Team tactics work a lot better in a group too. Plans can be made up and executed, and sometimes, more ground can be covered as the team can split up. However, I learned very quickly that you should never leave the group to go somewhere alone. There will be undead threats to face anywhere and everywhere you go, and if you don’t have at least one other team member with you, there won’t be anyone to save you once things go bad. But sticking in a tight knit group while patrolling the area, there are few challenges you won’t be able to fend off successfully.

With real players, you’re able to plan as a team, verbally call out for rescue, and hear other people in the group freak the fuck out. It also makes the sense of accomplishment much greater when everyone makes it out of a level alive. With the demo being only two levels, I’m sure things get even more intense and the need for cooperation increases. And in the final version, there’s also multiplayer matches where you can play as zombies hunting humans.

Multiplayer puts an already great game over the top. Don’t miss out on Left 4 Dead; again, it’s out today.

Max

DEMO-LITION: Left 4 dead edition

you may have heard about a game called Left 4 Dead. catchy little title. i first heard about this at E3. in between fallout 3 and gears of war 2, was a game i'd never heard of called Left 4 Dead. being a valve game, i didn't pay it much mind since my laptop isn't as awesome as it should be to run a valve game and head honcho Gabe Newell doesn't think that certain gaming systems are worth the headache of programing for.

i didn't pay much attention to the title since there wasn't much chance that i was going to play it. months go by. fallout 3 comes out and is awesome and huge. then i start hearing about this game, left 4 dead again. i see videos. it looks cool. a new take on survival horror and co-op. whatever. "i'm not going to play it." i said.

so, i opened up my steam account because i like to justify still having it on my laptop since no games i like to play will run on it, and i found that i had 23 hours to play the demo for L4D. hmmm. so i go to canyourunit.com and found that i could run it, on very low settings. so i DL'ed it to see what the fuss was about.

first off, the game is FUCKING SCARY!!! i jumped out of my chair more than a few times. and playing it in the dark isn't the move. the whole point of the game was the feeling of being alone with three other people and the fact that at any moment, you could possibly get ripped to shreds by half dead freaks. it was insane! playing with other people was very interesting. the people i played with weren't the normal, out for self, ass clowns that don't help when you're getting pinned down by gunfire. they healed me when i was down, shot boomers and smokers when i was about to get wasted while my back was turned and they yelled for me to hurry up when i was getting to far away from the group. the sparse music only added to the fright. string stabs and general droning ambiance mixed with the silence made hearing the oncoming footsteps that much more dreadful. you know they are coming. you don't know how many there are, but you know there's going to be alot of them. i quickly got sucked into to game. something i wasn't planning on.

i now see what Max was going on about. it's shaping up to being a really good time and with the possibility of a 360 showing up in my house this x-mas, i could be jumping out of my skin more often than playing the last level of manhunt.

Left 4 Dead is out tomorrow. demo is available now. and the original manhunt is really good. not like that other manhunt.......


J.

DEMO-LITION: A Taste of Bird, Bear, & Zombies

While I usually don't take time to delve into demos unless I'm really curious about a game, or want it and can't afford it, I've checked out a couple demos lately and am here to report on 'em.

Banjo Kazooie: Nuts N' Bolts


I enjoyed the original BK, but my wife Maureen was an absolute fanatic about the two N64 games in the series. She played them non-stop, has a stuffed Banjo-Kazooie plush (which compliments my Mumbo Jumbo plush quite well) and used to draw several cartoony pictures of the bird and bear duo. You'd think we'd both be excited about the new Xbox 360 version, but we're not. We've been skeptical about the whole "Nuts N' Bolts" part, as while building a variety of vehicles may be cool, it seemed too much of a deviation from the original formula. Still, over the weekend when I was looking for the Left 4 Dead demo and couldn't find it, we downloaded this and gave it a try.

The game is beautiful and the character models have been updated and redesigned well. The music is true to form and initially, the gameplay seems fairly intact. Unfortunately, Nuts N' Bolts is one of those annoying Xbox 360 games where only HDTV owners can actually read the in-game text. This was a major bummer, as the game starts out in a town, where a computer screen faced robot, Mumbo Jumbo (in overalls), Grunty the witch and several other anthropomorphic animal characters all have something to say—including how to play the game and build vehicles. This doesn't make the game unplayable, just confusing, as only by leaning in and squinting and working together could we get the essential instructions on what to do. You’ll need to follow instructions too, as initially, the town is blocked by some red force field looking thing which only opens up for exploration after you complete an assigned task. After some fiddling around, it seems Kazooie now has a tractor-beam ability, which allows her to pick up various parts in a level, and flip them or place them elsewhere (like a designated area). There are also vehicles, which presumably you can modify to be a variety of things, but without textual instructions, we had no way of knowing how to do this (plus there weren't too many parts in the opening area).

There is some small amount of good platforming to be had, and the one vehicle we found controls well, though figuring out what to do seemed to be too challenging, because everywhere we went different instructions were being told to us in lengthy text increments, and it got to be too much. The game, at least the opening, is very heavy on dialog. This reminded me of Kameo, which I was excited about ever since it was announced for GameCube but found it disappointing when I finally played it on 360. It was an amazingly put together game, but it just seemed like there was too much of everything. I could wander around the town and talk to people multiple times with them saying different things each time; there were so many moves; so much story... It was a little overwhelming. Of course I only played a little of Banjo Kazooie: Nuts N' Bolts so I can't say it's like that for certain, but it kind of feels like that already. Rare has seemingly (and increasingly) always been about “more of everything” though sometimes less is more. Again though, I only sampled BK: NnB so I should shut the fuck up.

We did make it to the customization part of the game, which is a garage run by Mumbo, and it seems like there are a plethora of ways to customize your vehicle from parts you acquired down to the color scheme. Seemed neat, but there was too much tiny text to try to make sense of it.

Bottom Line: Even if I had an HDTV, I don't think I'd be interested. There's a little bit of the old stuff in there, but it's too different and (apparently) too vast to pull me in. New is good, but I’m not a fan of the little I played and could not understand. Take that as you will. But please, we'll take those XBLA downloads of Banjo Kazooie and Banjo Tooie ASAP!

Left 4 Dead

Dustin called me Tuesday to inform me the Left 4 Dead demo was finally up, and though the jerk never called me back after work to try out the multiplayer, I still put the demo to the test. If you haven't seen the opening film yet, go watch it right now. The game plays out very much like the cinema which establishes the story, as zombies are literally everywhere. Just when you think you’ve killed them all, one (or some) will pop up from behind you, burst through a glass window, or wrap its super long tongue around the neck of one of your teammates (or you!) and start dragging them off—seemingly from completely out of the blue. Sometimes, a zombie mob will come running out from areas you have just come from, meaning there’s no safe angle to turn your back to. On top of all that, these aren’t the slow ass Romero shuffling zombies either, these fuckers run, and climb and jump so you’re really going to need to be on the look out at all times.

Along with the mad amounts of zombies, there are a couple specialized types of undead, like the giant tongue ones previously mentioned. There are orca-fat zombies who will explode if you get too close, spewing zombie-horde-attracting goo all over you, leaving you and your team to be pretty much fucked. However, these fat bastards can be taken out with a single shot from a distance, providing another incentive to proceed carefully. There are also guys called “Hunters” who can jump very high and come at you very fast and ferociously. And don’t be fooled by the cries of what sound like a sad little girl sobbing… The swarms of undead themselves can be a lot to tackle at times too; get too far away from your group and you could be surrounded, with several teeth gnashing at every side of you.

That’s where teamwork comes into play. Again, I was only playing the single player mode with my teammates all computer controlled. Their AI was pretty good though, as they stuck together in a tight knit group unless I boldly led them forward, and would cover my back and each others’ quite well. Having four people on your team means you can fend off the seemingly endless waves of zombies pretty well as long as you work together and cover different sides. It also means you can heal each other after particularly intense fights or give out pain pills that temporarily boost health. I presume there are opportunities to switch weapons with your cohorts as well. Any time you get too far away from the group, you’re asking for trouble; Left 4 Dead is definitely a game that requires you to progress slowly and cohesively as a team if you’re going to do it safely.

The graphics are really excellent (even without having an HDTV you can see the immense detail that went into this game), and depict the action very well. Music is minimal, jarring notes, which is perfect. Gameplay is spot on, as there isn’t just killing undead, there’s times when you want to avoid them, by turning off your flashlight or being careful not to set off car alarms. It’s a really good FPS and I can only imagine it gets four times as sweet once you get a crew together to play. If I’m able to do that soon, I’ll definitely post impressions.

Bottom Line: I didn’t need to play this to want this game. Now that I have, I at least I know the money will be very well spent. It is awesome and exceeds my expectations, despite the fact I’ve only played single player so far. I can see my friends and I playing this one a ton in the coming weeks and months.

Max

Taking Zombies out Co-op Style!

With Halloween not too far behind us and me just having finished the Max Brooks’ masterpieces The Zombie Survival Guide and its pseudo-sequel, World War Z, I’ve had zombies on the brain. Since the original Resident Evil and House of the Dead games, zombies have been antagonists and cannon fodder in many a video game since, with gamers having satisfying results killing swarms of undead. (My brother is playing Fallout 3 and tells me one of the cool things about the game is that the mutant enemies look a lot like zombies). And so, with new games coming at us from all sides, it’s inevitable that some of them feature shambling corpses out to eat our brains.

However, this time around, there are a couple offerings that capitalize on what makes zombie movies so awesome: co-operation. What’s cooler than seeing a group of survivors working together to hold their own against onslaught after onslaught of undead? Both Left 4 Dead and Resident Evil 5 will feature online co-op for their main games, and I couldn’t be more excited about it.

Left 4 Dead

In Left 4 Dead you control one of four survivors. Each one has a specialty and team work is desperately needed if you plan to survive the attacks of the undead. You’ll need all the teamwork you can muster, as the zombies in the game are anywhere but in pre-determined locations, allowing you to get used to the scares. No, in Left 4 Dead, zombies manifest randomly in the levels, meaning you’ll never know where or when you’ll be attacked. This is worth the price of admission alone for me. Not only that, zombies are everywhere and can come at you at any minute. Because of this, it’s not a good idea to run and gun carelessly ahead of the group. In L4D, you’ll have to establish team tactics to work through each fight, all the while being careful not to accidentally shoot a fellow survivor. This gets tricky when quarters get tight, like crossing a rope bridge or working your way through derailed subway cars. Teamwork also comes in handy for rescuing beleaguered teammates who are overrun by zombies, or being dragged away by certain members of the undead with enormously long, snakelike tails. You’ll also have to rely on team members for healing, or the occasional pick-me-up. It looks like making it through the game is anything but easy, so it’ll be good to have not only one person watching your back, but three.

Resident Evil 5

While we won’t be seeing RE5 until the middle of March of next year, I know it’s on the top of just about everyone’s “Must Have Games in 2009” list. One of the things that makes RE5 so exciting is that it features online co-op via a partner for Chris Redfield, a woman named Sheva, who can be controlled by another player online. The two will work together in fighting off the “not-quite-zombie” infected townspeople that fill the game. They can do a co-operative attack moves if players can pull off the timing, and also both players will be able to keep track of one another at all times, so if things get too hectic for one of them, coming to help won’t be a scavenger hunt. Keeping each other alive will be essential, as if one of the characters dies, it’s Game Over. Another important aspect of the co-operative play in the game will involve sending one character off to accomplish something to continue progress through the game. For example, there is a part where Chris boosts Sheva across a roof so she can go down and unlock a door from the other side. All the while of course, infected townsfolk are out for blood and the two characters will have to fight them off to succeed, one from a distance, and one up close and personal.

It’s really great to see teamwork aspect of zombie-crisis movies make its way to the interactive medium. The zombie apocalypse is something we definitely shouldn’t face alone, but something friends should join forces to combat, to kill, strategize, and scream with one another!

By the by, the Left 4 Dead demo has just become available online now on Xbox Live, and includes multiplayer. Booyah!

Max