L4D in France.

[hool10]

A L4D411 member went to the event so far:

Today, the video game festival was taking place in Paris and i knew L4d was being showed off, so at 10am, and i knew i had to do something for the community as others have already done before so i woke up, i went to a store to buy a 20$ camera ( i cant' aford more) and took the subway and was on my way.
Actually as i was entering the place i just realised that the camera i had bought was not that good and may be the video would not be good at all....But you ll see for yourself it's almost good.....almost
I headed up to the EA booth and took a ticket to be able to play, and the girld told me that 3 others guys and me would be able to play for 20 minutes....Of course i went to see the girl 4 time and managed to play for 1 hour and 20 minutes and i must say that there were not that many people waiting to play as most people were actually at shcool or at work and today i didn t work

While i was waiting, i managed to record 1 gameplay video which i will edit and put on line later, i got about 12 minutes of gameplay, but when it was my turn to play i gave the camera to guy who looked cool and who didn t appear to be a thief, he seemed to be a fan of the game too and i think he's still over there as i am typing this, anyway, i asked him to film me while i was playing for the first time and he said yes and here is the video: http://www.gamevee.com/viewVideo/Left_4_Dead/PC/Me_playing_L4D/957006

When i sat down the first thing is did was to go through the menus and options, and i even tried to click on achievments but i got a "you have to be connected to steam to see the achievments" message.
So i went through the option tab and in "keyboard" i found out that you can bind a key to " pick new zombie class" interesting.....

I also find a interesting tab which allows you to fully customize your cross hair , i lloks very much like the "DOD" cross hair customization tab.

As i was playing something annoying but also interesting ( once again) happened, the power went off in the booth, i started to panick as i though that i may be unable to play L4D after all.....However after afew minutes the power came back and managed to get some nice information first as the compuer restarted i saw that the game was running on a 9800gt and that there was only 1Go of ram:

and the thing is that i can't tell you how much the game felt smooth i mean i don t know exactly how many fps i got while playing but i m sure it's above 90 as this is what i get when i play TF2 but the difference is that here i NEVER got any frame drop which is exellent news as the game was running in 1920*1200 but i forget to check if all gfx settings were on high but i suppose they were. and the good news is that the game runs great and that loadings times are shorts even with 1Go of ram!!!!!!!!
So windows xp started and i managed to see what L4d shortcut looks like :

And then the loading screen:

Then the guy from EA arrived, and actually he arrived right at the moment when i had to choose the difficulty setting, and you ll see on the video that i asked him if i have to choose "normal difficulty" and he answered yes, but the guy seemed really cool but i could see that he didn t know much about the game, i was tempted to choose impossible but as you ve seen on the video "normal" is good for a start but i can confirm there are 4 difficulty levels:

HE asked me to create a game so my fellows survivors could join me and it looks like this:i know pic quality sucks it says "campaing lobby" "waiting for players to join" and "player slot available"

I got a video of all this steps with the game introduction, don t hesitate to use fast forward button but i just wanted you to see for yourself

http://www.gamevee.com/viewVideo/Left_4_Dead/PC/computer_starting/957146

Ok so here are my impressions about the game:

-The thing is that, before playing i never really understood what was really difficult when playing this game and the boss infected are not as hard as i though but the normal infected are much harder that i though as when they get all around you and start hiting you, you are kinded of blocked, you can not move as much and as fast as you want , of course you can turn as much and as fast as you want but you can't go forward or stafe easily, you're slowed down in your movments, and each time you loose some healt you loose a little bit of walking speed, and they try to encircle you most of the time.

-I didn t realize before playing that normal infected ARE FASTER THAN YOU whne they run so that means that when they 're trying to encircle you you can not do something which you can do in others fps, like running somewhere else, and shoot enemies cominng toward you, you just have to shoot them, but you have something that you don t have in other fps which is a VERY effective melee attack, actually it s not an attack as you already know it's more a defensive move, but you have kind of "unlimited ammo" you can melee all the time if you want.

-The tank almost has no chance is the environment is a little bit open as he is slower that i though, but i had the chance to never meet him in a tight corridor.

-The problem with the witch was that, we didn t hear her crying as the sound was too low and there was too much noise around, so you do not recognise her in the heat of the action, this is why the one who shoots her will pay but she is easy to kill if all survivor shoot at her.

-At some point something almost funny happened, at the end of the first map, i was still outside and all survivors were in the safe room, but a boomer got in the safe room and vomited on one of them, at this moment, may be it was a coincidence but swarms of zombies came from the streets, and came toward me as i was neras the stairs near the "alarm" car you know where it is so infected run to me , and as i was sure i was gonna die as i had been dumb enought to stay alone even for a few seconds, NONE of the zombiesattacked me!!! They just ran to the "vomited on" suirvivor", it could almost be a tactical thing in certain situations.....almost....

-The fov is actually not as wide as i though watching videos, i d say it's around 90 which is just enought to make you feel claustrophobic most of the time, besides the flash light is not as powerfull as i thought, in really dark areas, even with flash light on you don t see shit, and you fell very vulnerable and unsecure most of the time...Which is great

-To pick up an item or wepaon you don t have to use the "use" key you just look at the item or weapon, the the character automatickly expend is hand and you have to press fire to effectively take the item/weapon

-I'ts really really easy to friendly fire someone, i mean zombies come from everywhere and actually sometimes you have to force yoursefl not to shoot as you know the guy in front of you is gonna get in you line of fire.

-The shotgun has a huuugge spread, i meain don t expect the shotgun to behave like TF2 shotgun

-When you re really hurt you get really really slow, it's like moving with the "walk" key permanantly pressed in and i't s very frustrating.

-When you re dead, and that you start spectating other players, you can spectate whoever you like of course but you can swith to 3rd or 1st person view.

-In some of the game i played, if a plyers died he respawned like a few minutes later, he was kind of locked somewhere but he was outlined in red telling us exactly where he was.

-It s not as easy as i thought to keep an eye on other people's health as you really have to keep you eyes on whas s happening around you ALL THE TIME.

-I didn t understood before how a single map could take mre than 5 minutes to finish but actually you have to look around for any health pills or grenades which actullaly takes some time.

-Right before a cresendo moment we got swarmed.......And yes of course got swarmed again as soon as i switched the button to open the door which called the cresendo moment.
Right before the cresendo we all got ready, i mean Francis was at the machine gun, and i protected

(part 2) and i protected him, i though it would be a piece of cake.......But as i was trying to cover Francis, i had to defend my self at the same time, and just as i started to defend myself a smoker got him and took him away, and things got much more complicated for everyone, what i mean is that you never domintae any situation especially when you think you do......And THIS IS GREAT!!!!!

-I think, that face animation was implemented in the version i played but i'm not sure as i had so many things to look after
It s really not easy to keep an eye on other people health as you have to permanetly keep an eye on what is going in front of you but more important about what is going on being you, and everywhere in between

-The shotgun has a hhhuuggge spread, dont expect it to behave like a TF2 shotgun.....

-The sniper rifle is much usefull that i though, rate of fire is high, it is effective at short range too, and it kills in one shoot, and it blows head evryy time and i love it!!!! however use your pistols instead if your encircled with it.

-To conclude, i d say that now i know, that i will be addicted and honestly i think i ll be playing 8 hours a day with no problem, and i certainly will, having a game that plays different everytime is awesome, and i didn t tried versus mode or infected play.....Make no mistake, ONCE YOU VE TRIED IT, YOU RE ADDICTED.......And this no joke.


4 newbs playing video (11 minutes)

http://www.gamevee.com/viewVideo/Left_4_Dead/PC/4_guys_playing_l4d/957456

 

[taviow]

Looks awesome.

And just one thing, I think that 1gb is just the video card memory, not the system RAM.

 

[Operational]

Nice review.

I haven't watched a L4D since well before the new look survivors were added. It looks terrific the animations of the zombies, the blood and explosion effects from the pipe bomb, the flashlight's contrast, the dark CS style grittiness, etc. And Luis running around with dual pistols jumping on police cars look good, even if his run animation looked a little odd at times.

Gameplay looks awesome as it has for some time now. Although the part where he drops a bomb right next to him and survives the explosion was a little, "wtf?".

 

[hool10]

Looks awesome.

And just one thing, I think that 1gb is just the video card memory, not the system RAM.

No, he meant the system RAM. Just shows that you can be lax on the hardware end and still have a good game.

 

[Operational]

No, he meant the system RAM. Just shows that you can be lax on the hardware end and still have a good game.

"game was running on a 9800gt and that there was only 1Go of ram"

The image clearly shows 1GB video ram. I suppose it could of then went on to show 1GB system ram as well, but with max details @ 1920x1200 I doubt it. Besides when you are showing off a game you might as well give the best possible impression.

 

[Lobster]

Interesting thing in that video, the guys playing didnt realise where the exit was, so kept leaving the saferoom and exploring the map and things kept on spawning, untill they were on low health that is, then it kinda left em alone lol.