Left 4 Dead

[Dark0ne]

Who else is playing it? Awesome game full of fun and cheap jump-frights. Great for the people who like the idea of going through 28 Days Later with 3 other friends ;)

[maYuYang]

I played untill recently and am deleting it now. Yeah, it's great and really fun, but I'm not sure if I should buy it or not(played the demo). I think that after some matches(and I had severals), it becomes quite boring. I remember the last match I played, we were so bored that we went back to where you enter the subway and just killed as much zombies as possible(including a witch). Zombie Panic is offering a similar gameplay but is more interesting imo.

[Dark0ne]

I'd say it's worth it even if you play each campaign only once. After that there's always versus mode where up to 4 others can play the roles of the super-zombies, which should easily give you more play time than most modern games. I enjoy Zombie Panic (Source) a lot too, and like how much it has changed since it was first released. Version 1.0 was a very different game to the Zombie Panic now, and it has changed for the better I think.

[WrathOfDeadguy]

One of my AI survivors glitched playing through the first campaign- after calling the rescue chopper, he parked himself on top of a HVAC unit and refused to budge even after the chopper got there. I couldn't leave the chopper because it was being surrounded by Tanks, so I had to wait until a Smoker caused him to expire... by which time everyone but me was dead because only I had the presence of mind to stand on the opposite side of the chopper from all the bad nastiness. It was mildly annoying because I'd managed to get everyone through to that point unscathed- then lost all three of the others because one of them got stuck. Valve being Valve, I'm sure that sort of thing will be patched soon enough, and until then I can deal with it.

 

Other than that, I had a blast- but then again, I love pretty much any opportunity to commit zombicide. I also played and enjoyed Zombie Panic, but IMHO this captures the awesomeness of the zombie horde much, much better. I've already latched onto my two favorite weapons- the Hunting Rifle (modeled after the Ruger Mini-14, which I happen to own one of IRL) and the Pipe Bomb- but I'm fairly certain that the Pipe Bomb is destined to become one of almost everybody's favorite weapons; it's just too awesome not to.

 

One little detail I'm particularly fond of is reloading- it has bugged me for many, many years that reloading a partial magazine would cause the player character to chamber the weapon... not so here. Apparently somebody at Valve (possibly one of the people they absorbed from Turtle Rock) finally realized that, unless you've completely run dry, you still have a round in the chamber. The only time you'll see your character rack in a new round is when you actually empty the mag. That adds a nice touch of realism to the gunplay (despite the inherent unrealism of zombies, being able to take multiple bullets and not die, etc). Now if only they'd add in a ironsight-view for all of the non-scoped weapons, I'd be a very happy camper indeed.

[LHammonds]

A "Steam" game? Sorry, not interested.

 

Well, a zombie game sound interesting but as soon as I saw that it required a "Steam" account, the interest dropped off the charts.

 

EDIT: Yes, I know all about games delivered via the Steam system. I bought Half-Life 2 when it released. I did not appreciate that system whatsoever. I do NOT care to login to their server to let them watch me play a single-player game. Absurd.

 

LHammonds

[maYuYang]

A "Steam" game? Sorry, not interested.

 

Well, a zombie game sound interesting but as soon as I saw that it required a "Steam" account, the interest dropped off the charts.

 

LHammonds

 

 

lol, I got over it once a friend gave me the Orange Box as a present.

 

But I once read something about a game being developed called Zombie Island. It's the working title and afaik, the pc is a guy who crash landed on an island full of zombies. His wife was also in the plane and now he has to find her. Also, it's not by steam^^. But I didn't hear about it in ages...

 

...Ah, sorry, it's not Zombie Island, but Dead Island. Here a wiki

[Dark0ne]

To be honest Steam is something that grows on you with use. With the advent of "always on" broadband, and its quite wide-spread adoption in most of the UK it's really a non-issue. If you're always on, it really doesn't matter if you need to be on the internet or not. Half-Life 2 was a 2004 game, a lot has changed on Steam in that time. It's a much better platform now and is great if you have a lot of gaming friends.

[LHammonds]

Half-Life 2 was a 2004 game, a lot has changed on Steam in that time.

Do you still have to login to play single-player games? If so, that is still a DRM technology I won't support. It only takes one time for you to get burned by a company that employs this kind of DRM. There are several examples of companies shutting down their servers and letting their customers rot who purchased items that require those servers. It could be the best game in the entire world and I will have nothing to do with it if the company uses a DRM that requires "external" checks before it will work.

 

Sorry to put a damper on such a cool-looking game. I'll shut up and go away now. Just ignore this 'ol fart and fun. ;)

[maYuYang]

Half-Life 2 was a 2004 game, a lot has changed on Steam in that time.

Do you still have to login to play single-player games? If so, that is still a DRM technology I won't support. It only takes one time for you to get burned by a company that employs this kind of DRM. There are several examples of companies shutting down their servers and letting their customers rot who purchased items that require those servers. It could be the best game in the entire world and I will have nothing to do with it if the company uses a DRM that requires "external" checks before it will work.

 

Sorry to put a damper on such a cool-looking game. I'll shut up and go away now. Just ignore this 'ol fart and fun. ;)

 

 

Yes and no I'd say, you can save your login data, so you don't have to type your password over and over again. Also, steam game are also offline playable now. When logging in w/o internet connection, steam will ask you to retry or to stay offline.

[Dark0ne]

I have no idea Lon because I just got used to Steam automatically logging in on system startup and not having to worry about it, although I'm pretty sure it is possible even without "hax". I know there's plenty of "hax" you can use to play single-player without Steam, that I have no problem endorsing when you've actually paid for the product.

 

Left 4 Dead is mostly a multiplayer game anyway (4-player co-op), so you'll need to be online as it is. I mean, there is single-player, but I tend to think it defeats the point of the game if you play it single-player, especially when they do a great job of matching you up with 3 random people if you can't find 3 friends to play with.

 

Similarly, this game is great even on laggy internet connections due to its mindless indulgence of "spray and pray" shooting. I was playing with a 200ms ping last night with very little change in playing style, something I appreciate. Although I predict when I try and play some Counter-Strike now my aim will be terrible!