Left 4 Dead first review

[pcslookout]

Valve seems to be all over the place these days: they have their legendary Half-life series as the frontrunners of their legacy, as well as many other IPs such as the cartoonish Team Fortress and sterile but brain-challenging Portal. The bewildering thing is how good each of these franchises has become, despite their embracement of radically different ideas. Valve simply makes something for everyone, whether you be a lover of drama and new gameplay ideas, multiplayer fragging, or puzzle-solving. Consequently, it wasn't surprising to see the overly positive reaction to the announcement of Left 4 Dead (aka L4D), Valve's first entry into the crowded co-op genre. Does Left 4 Dead live up the hype? Oh, hell yes.

Full review link

 

[Maximilian]

Sexy :thumbsup:

 

[skace]

"Valve's first entry into the crowded co-op genre."

That better be some sort of sick sarcasm.

 

[Glavinsolo]

Originally posted by: skace
"Valve's first entry into the crowded co-op genre."

That better be some sort of sick sarcasm.

Anything but crowded coop genre.

WTB CO-OP RPG

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: skace
"Valve's first entry into the crowded co-op genre."

That better be some sort of sick sarcasm.

Indeed.

 

[Lonyo]

No mention of any bugs, which considering the 'demo' seems odd.
Also they seem to imply that playing the same levels doesn't get stale, but it really does. After maybe half a dozen plays you know pretty much what is likely to happen and where in the demo maps. Just because there are more maps to learn won't really make them less repetitive.

They also forgot to mention anything about the difficulty really (whether the full game actually has a hard difficulty) and what the survivor AI is like (if it's anything like the demo, it's terribly annoying).

 

[PingSpike]

I haven't played L4D yet (I'm on dialup so if I started downloading the demo at the beginning of the free play period I'd probably get it sometime next spring) but I'd imagine having some human zombies and clever level design both will increase replay value a lot.

 

[skace]

I'd say 20 maps can get stale, they should be shooting to get to 50 maps if they can, that would make for a real nice rotation that would never get old. They need to do a mall. I really hope the community makes some of their own maps (if they even can).

 

[PingSpike]

Community modding has always been a big part of valve games...HL2 seemed to be designed with it in mind as a feature. I'd be very surprised if L4D was any differen't.

 

[TridenT]

I'm calling BS on this review. I think this person just played the demo and said their part.

They didn't even mention the tank... -_- Yeah, this is a bad review. I could have wrote the same thing just from playing the demo. If you ever used any of the cvar commands in the demo early on you would have played the infected and known how it works.

 

[Polish3d]

Originally posted by: TridenTBoy3555
I'm calling BS on this review. I think this person just played the demo and said their part.

They didn't even mention the tank... -_- Yeah, this is a bad review. I could have wrote the same thing just from playing the demo. If you ever used any of the cvar commands in the demo early on you would have played the infected and known how it works.

How do you do that

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: skace
I'd say 20 maps can get stale, they should be shooting to get to 50 maps if they can, that would make for a real nice rotation that would never get old. They need to do a mall. I really hope the community makes some of their own maps (if they even can).

Already a work in progress.
Someone is doing the mall from dawn of the dead already.
I already started mapping as well.
mappers were all slow in starting because we didn't have much to work with in the demo, we did manage to extract the textures and models from the demo so that helped.
Otherwise its just like mapping for other HL games.

Only real holdup now is we need a complete entity list and what each does, format, etc.
It is already possible to load current maps from CSS into the demo.

 

[zerocool84]

I want a real damn review.

 

[LegioXIX]

MaximumPC gave it a 10/10. IGN gives it a 9: http://pc.ign.com/articles/930/930763p1.html

 

[ArmchairAthlete]

10/10? Seemed good, but not that good from playing. $50 feels steep for what seems more like a Source mod when I think about what I got for the same price with Orange Box a year ago. Then again, a deal that good is pretty damn rare.

I have a hard time convincing myself it could keep me interested nearly as long as TF2 did.

 

[geoffry]

Originally posted by: LegioXIX
MaximumPC gave it a 10/10. IGN gives it a 9: http://pc.ign.com/articles/930/930763p1.html

In the vid review the IGN guy asks whether people will be playing it in 3 months due to the fact that there are only 4 scenarios....

How can you give something that you think might die that fast a 9/10?

Hyped games + major review site = high grade no matter what

 

[LumbergTech]

Originally posted by: ArmchairAthlete
10/10? Seemed good, but not that good from playing. $50 feels steep for what seems more like a Source mod when I think about what I got for the same price with Orange Box a year ago. Then again, a deal that good is pretty damn rare.

I have a hard time convincing myself it could keep me interested nearly as long as TF2 did.

i dont think its a 10/10 ..but..

i think that people are sort of unfairly judging the game, i mean sure its all subjective and i respect others opinions

but look at what valve DID accomplish, i see this as a first iteration of a very good idea

i can see much larger games spawned from the concepts in this game..

if i were to complain i would say A: they should have made the scenarios that come up even more varied, not just in the pressure you feel from the zombies, but i'd like to see the zombies employ more than just a couple strategies..the most common thing i see is boomer/smoker or hunter smoker..or sometimes even all 3

cool and all, but to me it seems like just a couple strategies that should have had about 10 others complimenting them..

 

[tailes151]

I believe valve already stated they would be adding additional campaigns over on their forums.

 

[Jschmuck2]

Originally posted by: Lonyo
No mention of any bugs, which considering the 'demo' seems odd.
Also they seem to imply that playing the same levels doesn't get stale, but it really does. After maybe half a dozen plays you know pretty much what is likely to happen and where in the demo maps. Just because there are more maps to learn won't really make them less repetitive.

They also forgot to mention anything about the difficulty really (whether the full game actually has a hard difficulty) and what the survivor AI is like (if it's anything like the demo, it's terribly annoying).

You don't find expert difficult huh?

 

[tailes151]

Originally posted by: Jschmuck2

Originally posted by: Lonyo
No mention of any bugs, which considering the 'demo' seems odd.
Also they seem to imply that playing the same levels doesn't get stale, but it really does. After maybe half a dozen plays you know pretty much what is likely to happen and where in the demo maps. Just because there are more maps to learn won't really make them less repetitive.

They also forgot to mention anything about the difficulty really (whether the full game actually has a hard difficulty) and what the survivor AI is like (if it's anything like the demo, it's terribly annoying).

You don't find expert difficult huh?

If he doesn't I'd agree with him. Well, somewhat. Expert can be difficult if you're playing with a bunch of people you don't know, or the less than stellar AI. But if you're playing with 1 or 2 buddies you know fairly well it's a little too easy.

 

[Jschmuck2]

Wow, you guys must be better than I am. I don't think dealing with a Horde + a tank is ever easy.

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: tailes151

Originally posted by: Jschmuck2

Originally posted by: Lonyo
No mention of any bugs, which considering the 'demo' seems odd.
Also they seem to imply that playing the same levels doesn't get stale, but it really does. After maybe half a dozen plays you know pretty much what is likely to happen and where in the demo maps. Just because there are more maps to learn won't really make them less repetitive.

They also forgot to mention anything about the difficulty really (whether the full game actually has a hard difficulty) and what the survivor AI is like (if it's anything like the demo, it's terribly annoying).

You don't find expert difficult huh?

If he doesn't I'd agree with him. Well, somewhat. Expert can be difficult if you're playing with a bunch of people you don't know, or the less than stellar AI. But if you're playing with 1 or 2 buddies you know fairly well it's a little too easy.

Playing with 3 guys I know using voice comms, expert = easy.
Playing on a random server with people I don't know and not using voice, advanced = difficult.

 

[43st]

Playing on Expert can go either way, with the same group of guys. Sometimes you make it through on the first go and other times you just get a bad hand. I've been burned, pounced, tongued, vomited on, all within the span of 15 seconds. No one is walking away from that on expert.

Our group, of veteran gamers, makes it through Expert on the first try 1 out of 3-4 attempts. We could probably do a little better, but some of the freak spawns we've seen could really take any team out. It's the small stuff really, like being the last person standing and getting tongued away from a teammate you're helping, 2 seconds before they stand up, and no one being able to see him to get a pistol solution on him. The small ways the game gets you are sometimes just eerie.

 

[baddogg19901990]

Does any1 know if they are adding more content for L4D? If so this game should get the score it does because of the fact they will add more stuff and if valve don't, there will always be mods out for this which adds hours after hours of game play

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: baddogg19901990
Does any1 know if they are adding more content for L4D? If so this game should get the score it does because of the fact they will add more stuff and if valve don't, there will always be mods out for this which adds hours after hours of game play

You shouldn't buy a game based on mods or future potential content IMO, that's just a bad idea. And rating a game based on that content is even more stupid.
I don't play a single HL2 mod, and have only tried a few for a short while but none really grabbed me, but one thing I was excited about with HL2 was the fact that HL1 had some nice mods. Turns out HL2 didn't really get the same from my perspective.
That's not to say there aren't HL2 mods that some people enjoy, but just because one thing has good mods doesn't mean another will.

And yes, Valve has released content for previous titles, but some of them were woefully down on content in the first place (DoD:S), and for others the content has been quite slow to come and delayed for other things (such as any further TF2 updates, delayed due to... L4D).

So no, the game shouldn't get a score reflecting potential extra content or mods, it should get a score based on what's in the box.