Left 4 Dead 2 Review [360] Page 2

17 Nov 2009 at 14:45:55 by Tim McDonald
Systems used to review this title: (360)

There are plenty of changes and additions – horde-summoning bile bombs, explosive and incendiary ammo packs, speed-boosting adrenaline – but it's the little things that really build up the game. Realism mode is one such “little thing” which makes the game exponentially more terrifying, and functions on any difficulty. Common infected take far, far less damage from everything but headshots. The lovely glows showing you where your party members are disappear completely, making it much harder to tell where your party is, and when they're being mauled by errant Hunters. Witches instantly kill you, which has the effect of making them as heart-stoppingly terrifying as they were the first few times they were encountered in Left 4 Dead. Realism forces you to work together and pay close attention to what everyone is doing, or you will die. It's easily, easily my favourite part of Left 4 Dead 2, and Expert Realism is probably going to consume my free time this week once I get a chance to play it on Steam.

Ah. Yes, I said play it on Steam. That's because, good as Left 4 Dead 2 is, the 360 version has problems. First and foremost is the controller, which is serviceable enough but rather imprecise on higher difficulties, particularly when friendly fire gets involved. Another large problem are the occasional framerate drops, which really bring the game down in some of the bigger events. The most noticeable drop is on the very final part of the very final campaign – the bridge crossing in The Parish – when the hundreds of Infected rushing at you drop the framerate to a single digit number. It's not a game-breaker, by any means, but you wish it wasn't there, because without it that level would potentially challenge Hard Rain's cruel, cruel weather as one of the best things in the game.

Split-screen on the 360 seems to lower graphical quality by a disappointing amount in addition to causing some framerate issues, but unless you were planning on picking this up solely for that it's not a huge problem. The other problem, really, carries across both platforms: the friendly AI is utterly hopeless, particularly with the new running crescendos that batter you with constant swarms of Infected until you reach a certain point, because it will stand stock-still and shoot at the infinite hordes rather than hurry along with you.

And, really, that's everything bad I can say about the game, and it's worthwhile on either system. Whether you like the new characters and new settings – I personally miss the old crew, although Nick and Coach are solid replacements, at least - this is a better game on almost every level. Blunt melee weapons have an impact that, thanks to excellent sound design, feels physical, while sharper ones hack off limbs and faces with abandon. The campaigns are tied together wonderfully and feel both more varied and more organic than those of the original, and the little bottlenecks and cheap tricks that worked in the first game will tend to get you brutally killed here. The more varied weapons have uncomfortable trade-offs, forcing you to work carefully with allies who have different preferences for firepower – the chainsaw might mince everything in its path, but it will attract attention, has limited fuel, and an uncomfortable start-up time if you keep switching to a ranged weapon. The beef-up given to the AI Director, which can now re-arrange levels and seems much, much smarter and more sadistic than before, makes it feel like an omnipotent threat that will give you no respite. Don't worry that the AI Director's re-arranged levels will feel out of place, either; they feel so organic that my first few times through each campaign, it was hard to spot the differences. Potentially because I was running from Witches and Tanks.

Left 4 Dead 2 is a brilliant and compelling slice of co-op gameplay with better writing than most story-focused games, and smart design decisions right the way through. It's a much more complete package than the first game, and it feels it; it's almost frightening to contemplate what could have been added to the game if Valve had taken its trademark six millennia developing this. As a solo player it's not worth it, but this was never meant as a solo experience. If you've got a few friends who have their own systems to play it on then load the shotguns, fuel up the chainsaw, and dive into the apocalypse.

The end of the world has never been this good.

Comment