Left 4 Dead 2 Demo review

Ok lets just get this review right to the point. I will answer the question posed by this site earlier this month. Yes this game is better than the first. Not only better but balanced and much greater. The special infected are more common and more varied owing to the fact that there are a few new additions to the zombie horde. As far as special infected the jockey is fantastic. He has a distinct growl and laugh that is pure mischievious hilarity. When he pounces the survivor and begins whiping him, ok not literally, like a horse all over the map, it is terror and a blast in equal parts.

Giving some air time to the blubber but boomer is worthy because now there are lady boomers. But the no nonesense add ons are the Charger, who will quite clearly pound your ass into the ground, and the spitter, who is more of a acid burn than a mating call to other zombies like that of the boomer bile. Which is another new feature. If you wan to intentionally confuse the horde by making them attack a spot you can now pick up viles of boomer bile and throw them at the location where you want the mayham to ensue. Also as far as the items in this game. There are alot. First there are melee weapons which if picked up replace your pistol. The frying pan is for quick humor and the night stick is not that great but the hackfest of the machete is just plain awesome. But there are many not playable in the demo. The chainsaw, axe, katana or samuri sword, and others are not to be found yet. Which brings me to guns. In just the demo there are the original hunting rifle and a very nice true sniper rifle with higher power kills as its long distance pleasure center. Also there are three shotguns playable in the demo alone. There is a very high power shredder in the Spas shoty and the silver plated shoty is a sligtly faster shot than the also present basic shotgun from the first game. The handgun is slightly better than before and to add to the M16 assualt rifle, there is now a AK47 to enjoy your 47 shot cartrigde and your 10 available cartridge payload keeps the fun up a lot better than the last games 360 bullets and your out rule.

This is just the beginning though. The demo level is the New Orleans "The Parish" level and the playable portion features 2 chapters and brings some splatter, shatter, and crumble to the fun. In this game the hordes are not only smarter but they respawn better. If you hang out to long a boomer or spitter is definately going to come put an end to your picnic.

Alright seriously now, the regular zombies have gotten some major attention. There are alot more types. And there are many different iterations instead of the 5 basic zombies from last time. The heavy or swat gear packing zombie will reign some hell on you in a bad moment. You can not just fire away or you will waste bullets. He will fall to the ground and get back up only to pound your ass for being to lazy or pansy assed to finish him proper.

The joy of seeing so many zombies is matched by the new pipe bomb which eplodes with much more gore. It will sever many limbs from the gathering hord and send them to the sky and splatter the area with the rest.

Also items seem to be placed according to where a survivor might actually need to look in case of an event such as a zombie apocalypse. Items are very useful because now there are adrenaline spikes, shock paddles to bring back your survivor pals from the dead, and the usual cocktail of fire we all love. There is still propane tanks and gas tanks as well so they won't be missed.

The demo brings alot of replay before the full game releases which is nice because as we have all learned by now, Crash Course is the worst content Valve has ever released.

There looks to be none of that in this game. Menus have been streamlined and now you can choose to play host server or dedicated server matches for online games. This should stop some of us bitching at least as much as we already have to.

Graphically there are some fixes and nicer images to gaze at while being a zombie killing master. Backgrounds are much less glitchy and seem to be better set up for versus matches. The demo features campaign of coarse, no versus, survivor, or the new salvage mode to play until the full game is released. But that matters not. This will be a better gaming experience as long as the other game modes play like the campaign.

Oh and if you happen to be pounced by a special infected, especially if its a hunter, someone should use a melee weapon to one shot kill his ass instead of wasting bullets. Also it is very pleasurable to watch the bastard fly off like a rag doll. Watch out though the smokers are better at hiding in key location to get their pulls. Attacks seem very well planned at times even on normal difficulty. Also there is a hint on the demo to things to come. A realism menu is found on the demo which only makes one wonder. What could possibly be entailed? I hope its like this. If you get pounced gravity hurts more and if friendly fire is a problem, someone will very quickly need those shock paddles. About those new paddles, they are one time use and replace your health pack spot on your inventory. So choose wisely. I can't wait to see how this affects game strategy in versus mode matches.

Long story short I reluctantly give this beast a score of 4.89 out of 5. Lets hope I am not mistaken in doing so. The changes that valve made to the first game have caused more trouble than good and ruined the best aspects of the game. Which is why there likely is no versus on this demo. I just hope that they are saving the best for last. Also just in case your wondering. Witches no longer just sit and wait for you to come along and piss them off. They bring the pms and instant incap to mobile dimensions. They wander around and will come for you with a vengence.

Enjoy people. And for everyone out there that is a fanboy of this game or those who believe valve will only make more garbage. Your both mistaken. This is a similar but very different game. Where gamers used to be able to joyride through levels they have multiple paths to choose and each allows the enemy to strike in different ways. This change alone means that versus will definately have much more interesting scores for those of us whores who know how to really play the game. Chargers are badass and by the way we haven't seen mud men or the special clown zombie from this demo either. And tanks will surely benefit from the amazing variety of help they will get in pounding survivors to pulps. Good Luck!