Left 4 Dead 2 Demo Now Available For All

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DigiQ8

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The Left 4 Dead 2 demo is now available for all users on Steam and Gold members on XBox Live.[br]

Steam Users click here to get the demo.
 
It's an awesome game but it feels like L4D was the beta or something. Everything has been improved and things such as more often horde spawns, less ammo piles, less health, and more diverse special infected are great. $45 though is asking a lot so I will wait for the Christmas sale.
 
Beyond the insanely awesome gore and buckets of blood (holy SHIT the splashing sounds when a guitar splatters a zombie's head is beautiful) I'm not digging it. 'course maybe worth a rental.
 
The demos for these games don't really do them enough justice, didn't for the first one.
 
I wasn't too keen on it. Maybe i'm just used to the music etc of L4D.

Also lag sucks, i assume this only arrived today? I hit a zombie with a frying pan and it took 5 seconds to register the hit! 5000ms ping FTW, this was 360 version though.

I may get this on the PC depending on the specs, i'm due some upgrades though so this and MW2 could be the perfect excuse.
 
Specs are exactly the same as L4D, so if you can play the first, you should be fine with this.

You have to play this demo on the higher difficulties a couple of times to get the real feel for it.

Especially the way it changes routes--where there might have been a door in one play through, is now suddenly boarded up in another. There's even this one alleyway that was suddenly bricked up and cut off that threw me off during a horde attack.

Also weapon placements and selections get constantly switched around, and I've gone a couple of play throughs without ever seeing a specific weapon spawn, like the Desert Eagle or a couple of the rifles.

All-in-all, should be a new and grand experience in the full game. I do think the new director seems smarter--the Special were spawning together and working together in some crazy ways--one game we got a three way assault from a Jockey, Boomer, and Smoker that finally ended in tragedy when a Spitter entered the picture. Ouch.

Love the machete. Can't wait for the other melees!
 
The demo was fun, but too short.

After watching, and reading the news for this game and the advertising Valve has put out to speak on specifics.
Supposedly the game is longer, bigger, better. I could agree that the game is feeling more polished, but if "The Parish" campagin was only 3 maps. This game is by far shorter, and extends itself in other maps longer than it probably should. (Unless there is 3 campagins to be told when the game arrives to make up that bad impression.)

The weapons are nice in variety, but none of them feel like they offer something better over one from the other. I like that there is variety, but none do themselves justice in speaking in terms of more accuracy, stopping power, ect. Just a big visual fedelity piece.

The special infected look neat in this game. I like the changes they've added and made for the "Hunter and Smoker".

But to reflect a $45-50.00 price on a game that is to be "longer & larger". It certaintly doesn't speak that much of a price to me. Especially when knowing "No Mercy" in Nov of 2008 was 5 maps long for that single campagin as a demo.
 
Feels like L4D with a new coat of paint, which is what I figured. Oh well, can't really expect much given less than a year of development time.
 
Holy shit, I'm so glad I tried the demo before even thinking of buying this.
How the **** could they possibly ask for $50 for what is basically just L4D with a new coat of paint?

Just saved myself $50 that I probably would've regretted spending for the rest of my days.
 
Lucid said:
Holy shit, I'm so glad I tried the demo before even thinking of buying this.
How the **** could they possibly ask for $50 for what is basically just L4D with a new coat of paint?

Just saved myself $50 that I probably would've regretted spending for the rest of my days.
Click to expand...
It's interesting to see the various reactions from people, some like yourself don't see much difference between L4D and L4D2, while others are on the waay other end of the scale in that they they feel Valve took what they liked from L4D1 and removed it or replaced it with something worse.

Personally I think its worth the $35 I paid for it. L4D1 was great fun but it had both major and minor flaws that just got to me more and more over time, I'm at the point now where I just can't play and enjoy it 'cus they piss me off so much. L4D2 restores my enjoyment and excitement in the franchise with a number of additions, changes and improvements that, in my eyes, make it a worthwhile sequel.
 
It's still a ton of fun, no doubt about that, but I'm unsure as to whether I will buy this or not.
 
For some reason, the SI and everyones heads are invisible or just barely visible.

See that hunter? Yeah, neither did I.


c5m1_waterfront0006.jpg


Also, stealthtank.

c5m1_waterfront0011.jpg
 
Hm that's bizarre.. Never happened to me.
Anyways, I love the demo. They took what I loved of L4D1 and made it better.
 
Decent game, as expected. I have a few gripes with it though. The melee weapons are a nice addition but are situational, if not gimmicky. I expected them to get their own weapon slot tbh. You end up wasting your main weapon's ammo for ranged combat and ammo is sparse compared to the original. In the end, you are better off with the pistols. The hud and weapons look rather clunky. I Am running the game at 1400x900 and they still look ****ing huge to me. Poor scaling from what i can tell. The new uncommon infected and bosses are definitely a nice addition. They add to the challenge and keep you constantly on your toes. Camping will be a thing of the past from what i can tell. Good because i hated camping even when playing Campaign mode. Camping induces repetition and boredom for me. It's the main reason why i rarely even play the game any more. There's always some asshole on pub servers, telling you what to do, where to stand and eventually starts raging when you ignore 'em.
All in all, it's definitely an improvement over the previous installment.

That said.
I still think that this should have been an expansion pack, fused together with the current game but let's not start that discussion again. I will eventually buy the game once the price drops considerably.
Until then, have fun playing the game guys.
 
Can't get enough of the Katana, I get hit a lot by teammates though.

Also, minor animation glitch after reviving someone (goes away when you shoot):

l4dct.jpg
 
One good thing about melee weps is when ur in a corner with a million of them on you, the 'melee'/push of the regular weps gets exhausted, and while the actual melee weps have some delay, used in alteration can be a life saver.
 
Demo is very good but for me is "been there, done that".
 
It's a machete not a katana. I personally think L4D2 is an improvement in every way over the original. Better gore, better guns, better (more) special infected, and judging from the previews, better set pieces.

I wish you could mod in new characters though, I'd love to play with a team of Bill, Francis, Coach and Ellis.
 
Ennui said:
It's a machete not a katana. I personally think L4D2 is an improvement in every way over the original. Better gore, better guns, better (more) special infected, and judging from the previews, better set pieces.

I wish you could mod in new characters though, I'd love to play with a team of Bill, Francis, Coach and Ellis.
Click to expand...

Some news page had "Now go slash some zombies with a katana" so I got confused but yeah now that you mention it it doesn't look like a katana.
 
Machete is only in the demo, but there is a katana in the game too which I used all day when I played scavenge mode. It's deadly fun.
 
i don't post often, but i'm going to chime in with the others who say that it should have been an expansion pack. the demo is definitely fun, but it feels like vanilla l4d with few new bells and whistles + more maps.

it does not feel like like a full new game though. i hope this is not a repeating trend to get more money out of us.
 
hool10 said:
It's an awesome game but it feels like L4D was the beta or something.
Click to expand...

Though not siding with the boycotters by any means, I would have to agree with this. Left 4 Dead was certainly good, but it did feel incomplete, at least by Valve's standards. Left 4 Dead 2 obviously consolidates this with how much more fleshed out and polished it is in comparison.

Liking the demo, but the size of the weapons is horrendous.
 
Same goes for me. I'm not at all convinced yet. The daytime setting did actually disappoint me; it didn't leave a desolate and desperate impression at all. While L4D1 got too familiar for the scare factor to occur anymore (No Mercy even starts to feel all cozy & familiar nowadays), this daytime setting didn't do anything to re-create that atmosphere. It kinda felt like shopping at the supermarket: I can do that any day. Shouldn't be what the zombie apocalypse is like, IMO...

Also, the increased blood & gore didn't feel like an addition at all. Sure, ripping open the occasional body when waving your machete around is all gross and stuff, but that's about it. So right now, when in an intense battle my monitor kind of radiates a brightish red glow overall, but it's nothing more than a gimmick which I wouldn't have missed should the ketchup factor not have been increased. Also, the common infected models didn't seem that much better to me, compared to L4D1 (SI models are cool, though - man, has the Boomer become ugly ;)).

Loved the music, though. Especially the main menu theme tune. Also, mixing in jazz influences was a great touch, IMO. Absolutely not what I feared it would be. Apart from the odd tune when a Spitter just spitted, though, that felt like some Fisher Price kind of thing.

Gauntlet-style crescendos (is that what you call them? I forgot) are cool, and add a lot of tension. The turn-the-alarm-off-thing got old quickly though; just be sure to have a pipe bomb, make a run for it and you're all set. Even in Expert, after a few tries it's not that hard (apart from the Tank which spawned afterwards...). So I do hope for a number of extended length gauntlet-style crescendos.

Also, I'm fond of the Charger! Man, does he have some powerful attacks. Battles got quite a lot more intense when I saw a Charger somewhere in the corner of my eyes. Or when he appeared in the distance, for that matter; the Charger appears to have this one quick-sprint-shoulder-smash attack which is quite surprising. Probably a lot of fun in Versus!

Anyway, even though the additions to the original L4D concept are OK, I'm absolutely not sure whether I'm buying this or not. Especially since I want the boxed version, and Valve isn't known for their Christmas-alike real-life shop actions...
 
Yes I would like to add a few more comments. The "dynamic weather" which is in some Valve games since 1999 starting with CS, was not in the demo. It appears that it's only used in the Hard Rain campaign which is pretty sad and gimmicky. The whole alternate path thing or more varied weapon spawn spots is also non-existent in my experience. It has always been the same path for me , I know there will be med kits under a tent before entering that alley way. The weapons though are changed every time though. Also somebody mentioned about the shortness of the demo. It was 2 levels and they went rather fast. I put it on advanced mode and managed to get beat it in 10min. I even died but I still made it within 10min.
 
CS didn't have dynamic weather.
 
hool10 said:
The "dynamic weather" which is in some Valve games since 1999 starting with CS, was not in the demo. It appears that it's only used in the Hard Rain campaign which is pretty sad and gimmicky.
Click to expand...
Wasn't dynamic weather supposed to be an all new feature for L4D2? Also, it's a little hard to judge the entire game from 2 levels only. The entire rest of this episode might well include all kinds of effects we didn't see in the demo (which, IMO, definitely isn't a plus for the demo).
hool10 said:
I put it on advanced mode and managed to get beat it in 10min. I even died but I still made it within 10min.
Click to expand...
Admitted, I'm not a pro, and I definitely wasn't playing with people I (somewhat) knew, which you should when playing on Expert, but I found it definitely not easy on Expert. There's still a lot of infected and a lot of hordes.
 
I agree that the weapon models are way too damn huge.
Almost feels like they ported it straight from the consoles.
 
Damn, Steam just updated and the game crashes after loading a map. Worked fine yesterday :(
 
I like them big. They remind me SOF2.
 
Wow, what a half-arsed job from Valve. It feels like an EA game. It reeks of mediocrity.
 
Just finished my first playthrough and I'm not dissapointed but not blown away either.

Thing I liked:

- All the zombies are great - even the common ones and especially the new SI.
- Finally some variety in weapons. So tired of only five options in L4D.
- Melee weapons are fun and very useful.
- Added gore is so much better. Adds a new level of immersion to the game. My jaw dropped when I blew out the back of a zombies head.
- Gauntlet crescendos are much more frantic, and exciting then corner camping.
- I think zombies in the daytime are just as awesome as zombies at night. Maybe even better because it feels more realistic.

Things I disliked:

- The HUD is annoying, the weapons are too close and I can no longer see my characters legs. In general it just feels clunky.
- The new characters have yet to prove themselves as likable. Sad because they seemed so charismatic in the cinematic trailer.
- Shooting just feels weird. I don't why but it doesn't feel as good as in L4D.

Conclusion:

Despite some problems, this is the game L4D should have been when it was first released. It feels much more up to Valve standards then the original. Regardless, I certainly won't be shelling out $40 but I'll probably pick it up during a Christmas sale.
 
Frits said:
Wasn't dynamic weather supposed to be an all new feature for L4D2? Also, it's a little hard to judge the entire game from 2 levels only. The entire rest of this episode might well include all kinds of effects we didn't see in the demo (which, IMO, definitely isn't a plus for the demo).
Click to expand...

The next chapter of this campaign--The Cementary--is supposed to feature a maze-like level that the AI directly can shuffle around in different and random ways, so you're forced through new route configurations each play.

You might have noticed some if it happening in the demo--the door in the Cafe near the jukebox can be boarded up and impassable; there's a nearby alleyway that can be bricked up on certain play-through; and the last alley near where the Desert Eagle usually spawns can sometimes have a gate blocking it.

The Cementary chapter sounds like it takes it to the extreme, forcing you through entirely new route configs each time, not just blocking one alleyway leading to the same place. We'll see how it turns out, but it if it works it could be really cool; you won't be able to plan your route ahead of time to the spots you like, or you could get forced into tight areas more often than open ones, and you'll never know which way you'll be taking--even after a wipe, the level will change.

I think the 2 map things does work for the demo, however. If they gave us a full campaign, it would become the least played campaign for weeks after the launch as anyone who got the demo would probably be sick of it by release. I'm sure a lot of people might even skip the first two maps and start from the third.

Doesn't help that The Parish is supposed to be the last level in the storyline of the game, so giving us the ending of the story like that is bad idea. From what they said, The Parish levels were chosen because these maps were the two smallest in the game (like the No Mercy levels in the L4D demo), and because it included that running event feature they wanted to demonstrate.

I do think they could release one Scavenger map and one Survival map, however. Maybe even open up The Parish levels to Versus, just so we can get a feel for the new Infected. Activate realism mode, too.
 
Just played the demo, the feelings that come to mind are expected.

Overall, at this point, I am not impressed. There are some neat features the game brings to the table, but nothing fantastic. I do understand it is a demo, however I recall thinking the L4D demo was very good and it got me very excited to play the full game.
I definitely want to play the full L4D2 game, but not at the expense of 50 dollars.

There are a lot of "neat" little things in L4D2 as I can see. -But that is exactly it, it's full of "neat" little things, but the overall game does not feel polished.
There are new infected which I like, especially those SWAT team infected. The original infected are more disgusting and mutated, which I also like. They've changed a lot of the infected skin tones to yellow/white to fit the daylight maps hue, which I personally like because it's much more realistic than the grey/green colors of L4D's infected.

What I am really, really, really curious about is Realism mode. I am praying that Realism Mode might be, well... more realistic zombie survival, IE: Headshots needed to kill infected, more dispersed infected, having to do objectives, getting bitten kills you unless you treat it, etc. (L4D removes the fear of being bitten, which I always thought was kind of boring)

However, I am sure that is not exactly how it is.
 
Realism mode removes the outlines from players and items, aswell as changing the damage done to zombies, headshots kill instantly, body shots will eventully kill but they take a lot more of them. It is also a modifier not a skill mode, so you can play Easy + Realism or Expert + Realism.
 
Im downloading. Hoping it will work. I want to pre-purchase. If not for the sweet ass TF2 hats.
 
Lobster said:
Realism mode removes the outlines from players and items, aswell as changing the damage done to zombies, headshots kill instantly, body shots will eventully kill but they take a lot more of them. It is also a modifier not a skill mode, so you can play Easy + Realism or Expert + Realism.
Click to expand...

Where did you get this info? I couldn't find it, just kept reading that they were not saying anything about it yet.

Anyways, that's extremely unfortunate.
 
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