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Looks pretty when it works, but is anyone else getting severe lag/stutter problems?  It seems like the same issue HL2 had when it first came out (before the first patch), but about 10x worse.  Like, every 10 seconds it'll lock up for 5.  Game's damn near unplayable.   :cry:

Disable multicore rendering. Have to do it every time you load the game as well, since it doesn't seem to retain that setting.

Oho, that does fix it.  I take it that's a common problem?

As always, works fine for me.  :awesome_for_real:

There's a good thread going on the Steam forums with all the issues. Looks like I have Win7 to thank for the smoothness. Whodathunk?

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1004089

And yeah, looks pretty common. Shockingly so.

Based on the first few minutes of the demo, I liked the dark places of the first L4D much more than the sunny ones here. Everything else tastes perfect.

So, L4D1 was a huge letdown for me.  Campaign mode was good, but it had little replay value, and versus mode I never liked.

I played the L4D2 demo and it struck me as basically an expansion of L4D1.  If you like L4D you'll like 2, but to me it isn't any better than the first.  I mean, its "more", but it isn't particularly better, at least as far as I can tell from the demo.  More maps, more characters, more guns, more zombies, but...eh.

Yeah, it's basically L4D with more everything.  It's a much bigger step than, say, a map pack, but it's not a fundamentally new game.

The demo has a lot of things the original should have had. Limited ammo capacity, a larger variety of items forcing players make choices, AI director changing the level layout, and a variety of special infected to counter boring cheese tactics. Again, it's what the original game should have been.

I never played the original (I generally don't play shooters because I am terrible at them) but I decided to try this anyway, since the demo was RIGHT THERE on my games screen in Steam. It was fun, I'll probably buy it now. :P

The question is if Ingmar will MAN UP and brave the scary scary zombies to play with me.  :grin:

Best new additions are the magnum pistol, the res kits, and the ability to hit a tank with boomer bile and watch every zombie within a half mile radius come running for the dinner bell.

Yeah, never played the original and tried the demo for this. I've now got it pre-ordered, god damn this is a fun game.

With a little fiddling you can even try out the infected with the demo. Simple plugin and a couple of console commands.

I begin to wonder if they're doing this on purpose. Happened with the original demo too.

Hmmm, looks like it should be unlocking on Steam in under 3 hours.

I've got mine all pre-loaded and ready to go.

Oh man, chargers and the spitter girls are fun.

What? How are you playing?  It still says unreleased for me.  Or are you doing the demo?

Are we there yet?

The page is no longer counting down but my game still says un-released.

...And almost on queue, the steam forums implode.

They'd probably be better off just turning off the forums and putting up a news page every time they release something.

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/Valve/members

Seems they are too busy playing L4D2 to fix it :P.

Decrypting now.

Opened steam, system crashed...

But... but... it lets you kill zombies with a frying pan!!!

I'd say it feels more like a whole game, L4D while awesome always felt more like just a really good mod. I think this just has enough new and extra to feel like a whole new game.

They did a lot more with this game than the demo would have you think. I've only played dead center thus far, but already its apparent that there are many, many new and interesting improvements to not only the engine - but to the game's design as a whole.

I :heart: the cricket bat!

I don't think my office is going to need a new lunchtime game for a while. We had something like 5 separate full games going at once today, some versus and some campaign. After people started clocking out, 3 more games started up and at least two were still running when I left, 90 minutes later.

It really is such a massive improvement over L4D1 that I just can't fathom going back.

Is it just me, or is this one a lot harder than the first?  Maybe I just got lucky with the people I played with online when the first game launched, but playing with random people on Normal I haven't finished either of the first two campaigns yet (only ones I've tried so far).  The climax of the first campaign in particular where you're getting the gas tanks for the car, requires a lot more coordination with your group than any of the climaxes from the first game.

Its much more difficult and way longer between "goal posts". I was doing expert with decent pugs with not much of a problem. While "hard" with pugs is largely not worth the effort in the sequel. The special infected spawn in multiples and attacked with co-ordination. Even a duo of two good players is at risk of being instantly taken out. But I stopped playing the original a few months after its release so im not certain if this was patched in previously.

Ive seen dual tanks spawn as well as 2 special infected at once who all attack at the same time. And this was on normal or hard (cant recall which). They are also much more aggressive in where they will spawn, check a room move 15 feet and a special will be behind you etc. Im sure most of it is trying to play l4d2 like the original. Tanks also seem to be able to absorb WAY more damage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqyNS7ZdY1A

The bots in this game still need work.

Yeah, I  tried a quick singleplayer game last night, on normal. Even with the much lighter zombies and squishier bosses, the bots were almost painfully stupid in some sections. They're especially bad about smoker tongues, hunter pounces and gauntlet sections.

I tried Dark Carnival. There's one section where you have to run down a narrow corridor that constantly fills with an oncoming rush of zombies. The bots would just hang back and not do much while I had to be a one-man whirlwind slicing through the tides with an assault rifle. When that ran out of ammo, I was wishing I'd brought a katana instead of the fucking magnum.

Somehow I managed to limp into the saferoom with 13 pill-points of health left, after being incapped twice. The Dark Carnival finale was incredibly simple by comparison to that one gauntlet section, as the bots could just mow shit down and not have to move much.

I can't imagine trying to do the first campaign's finale with bots; I gave it a shot with 2 humans/2 bots last night on hard and we got utterly destroyed due to bot stupidity.

One thing I noticed about the bots that I don't recall ever seeing in the first game is that during a finale, if you're on the ground dying and the escape vehicle is there, they very well might just leave you behind.

Don't know if this has been posted yet but -

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832130243&cm_sp=DailyDeal-_-32-130-243-_-Product (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832130243&cm_sp=DailyDeal-_-32-130-243-_-Product)

L4D2 for $39.99

This amuses me greatly for some reason.

So does it look like its going to have a longer replay value than the original? I got bored within a month or two.

I only WISH I got that much gameplay out of the other video games I buy.

Heh, true. Just compared to RTCW:ET which I played for years, or TF2 which I'm still playing off and on, L4D didn't last long at all. I expect online games to have more replay value, personally.

Hard Rain is a really amazing level.

The storms that mask a horde is pretty awesome.

Gogo Valve marketing!

I'm down in south Florida for the weekend and I've seen 4-5 billboards for Left 4 Dead 2 randomly around (on highways and on random streets).

There's one on San Carlos right near my office in San Jose too.

They are all over the bay area.  Been seeing them a lot on BART trains as well.

Maybe I'm just a jaded cynical gamer (oh hey, I post on f13), but I can't really see an advertisement swaying me towards buying a game at all at this point in my life.

Has an advertisement ever swayed you towards buying anything ever?  I mean, other than the fact it lets you know the product in question actually exists.

If I'm buying a product anyways, having an advertisement that amuses me or at least doesn't make me /facepalm is more likely to get my money. At least, among competing products.

This game is:

A. Overrated.
B. Not worth $37 or Whatever.
C. Not really a sequel, just more of the same, an expansion at most.
D. Still not as good as a mod.
E. Boring.
F. All of the above.

There's been buses decked out in L4D2 adds down here too.

I'd go with C.

And you'd be wrong.

That wasn't an option.

Ye....


Oh, in that case no.

Actually, thats not true, I'm sure I bugged my parents to hell to buy me toys I saw on TV when I was little, but I suppose that doesn't count.

Downloaded it, played a bit of two of the missions. Seems pretty much like the exact same thing so far, with a little more gore, a couple of new infected and stuff like melee weapons. meh.

It's a lot of fun. Of course if you didn't like L4D, or tired of it, then this won't be for you.

It's alright (L4D1). A good game for short instense bursts rather than long play sessions. Like a Street Fighter or similar game. I guess it's because you just play (and re-play) the levels rather than having a campaign as such. Part 2 seems like more of the exact same thing. As said above, it feels like an expack - that's what an expack traditionally is, after all. A few new levels, new weapons, slight gameplay changes, etc.

I'm not butthurt about buying L4D2 since the steam sale made it cost a similar amount to buying an expack locally. It'd be an awesome co-op LAN game though.

I think the gameplay is pretty different in L4D2 -- definitely enough to cough up the $40 if you liked the first one.  I mean sure, the core mechanic of pls2killzombeh is still the same, but it just feels different.  Twitchier and with more depth, maybe (if something can be those two things at the same time).

If you're not a fan of Vs., I guess I can understand why people might be put off, however - the game makes a great deal of fixes when it comes to vs. balancing... Unfortunately, the tank is still a joke 90% of the time. Also, if you haven't already done it, try scavenge mode. It's a lot more fun than it sounds.

So what's scavenge mode about?

Apparently realism mode removes the glow from around weapons, other players, pickups and ammo etc, and you can no longer see other PCs etc glowing through walls. Really haven't had time to explore the modes yet.

You run around and collect fuel cans to put into a car or ... ... some kind of riding mower with an antenna on the top.

I didn't think much of it when I saw the concept on paper, but it's actually very fun; and it manages to condense a vs game into easily playable chunks. You take turns as the survivors / infected just like normal vs - whoever can capture the most gas wins (either out of 3 or 5). If the score ends up being a tie, the winner is the one who collected the most cans in the shortest period of time.

It's basically a "quick" vs. mode.  You have a single map with a generator in the middle and gas cans scattered around.  The survivors have a clock they're trying to beat by gathering gas cans and pouring them into the generator.  Each one gives ~20 seconds more on the clock.  The infected are trying to kill/delay the survivors.  Each side gets three chances, and the best of three wins.  Score is determined by the number of gas cans gathered and poured into the generator.

It's pretty cool. :)

With the Steam business model, can we safely conclude they've just racked 80 millions minus development cost?

Probably not. Steam itself almost certainly is expensive to run, and that would fall under operating costs, not development. Of course, that's offset by what they're making from *all* games, so we're still talking quite a chunk of change.

That's two million im box sales. We have no clue what the Steam sales were. So yeah, money hats are probably in order.

It was already in the mail when L4D2 was announced.

Sorta makes me sad since they basically charged full price for a glorified expansion pack.

I'm never buying it. Sorry Valve, you don't stiff me on DLC and expect me to pay $50 for it.

The DLC for this game is straight up hilarity. I don't understand how someone can look at L4D and TF2 and think this qualifies as "a savvy business decision."

TF2 is fine outside of the glacial progress on the additional content. We actually GET new maps and weapons.

L4D got...a mode it probably should've had to begin with, and a 5 minute long campaign that almost says, "here's something, you faggots. P.S. buy L4D2"

Well considering that now L4D2 made a gazillion dollars they can finally finish the updating all the classes for tf2. L4D2 is a great game, we paid for sequels that did less, don't get all high and mighty because we are talking about the PC. So Valve grubbed for more money? So? They didn't give people turd in a box and said eat it please, like say *cough* DoW2 *cough*...

Have you played L4D2? It feels like little more than a reskin, so I'm not entirely sure what you're talking about.

I've played it quite a bit, and while the core mechanics are the same, there's enough different that I feel quite satisfied having paid the price I did for it.

Aye aye.

The additional bells and whistles really dont seem to justify it being a full priced sequel. It's so similar to l4d that I really haven't touched it beyond the initial week of release. Anyone has some insider knowledge about the DLC Valve has planned?

Insider? They've announced it. It's called The Passing (probably because The Crossing is taken by another game).

I meant more along the lines of if its intended to be free for the PC or not.

it's as similar to L4d1 as any other sequelled shooter is to its predecessor.  Granted, that IS similar, but it's as justified as, say, Gears of War 2.

Gears 2 added Horde mode, which began the recent trend of online co-op vs waves of bots; a much larger addition than anything in L4D2.

I would argue that Scavenge mode is at least as new an addition to L4D as Horde mode was in Gears 2.  It won't be copied much mostly because it doesn't have much in the way of applicability outside of L4D.

They still haven't even made L4D as good as the Zombie Survival mod, that's my big problem. Environments that mean NEARLY nothing. It's not about survival, it's about escape and I think that's where my problem lies.

I think you hit the nail on the head there - I also haven't touched L4D2 since the first week it came out.

If you haven't been playing L4D2 in Versus, I can see why you'd complain. In Versus, it's far, far more balanced when you have two skilled teams facing off; L4D1, it was more down to the architecture of specific levels and tank spawns. L4D2, Versus is more dynamic and interesting thanks to the new boss infected; enough so that it's more than worth the price of entry.

You mean special infected instead of boss infected, because that's what they're called.

I'll be straightforward, can I block a door with a couch?

You can do that with ZS these days? I haven't played it for ages. (If it's even the one I'm remembering).

Now you're just being an obtuse dick. Barricade mechanics are more for a Tower-Defense style zombie game, whereas L4D is more of an action-oriented run-the-gauntlet game, where your major strategic choice is advancement pace rather than resource placement.

And yes, if you're a tank, you can block a door with a car or dumpster if you're good.

By calling me an obtuse dick, you obviously haven't played ZS. I have to assume that at least.

For those who haven't played ZS, it's a little like the most boring parts of L4D (like the parts where everyone is stacked in a corner) distilled and refined into an entire game.

 :why_so_serious:

I haven't played ZS, no, and I had to scroll back up in the thread to figure out what you meant.

I called you an obtuse dick because you're basically complaining that they didn't take L4D and turn it into an entirely different kind of game. And then blaming them for that.

You might as well say something like "Well, Diablo 2 lacked a deep story and the ability to control multiple characters, so fuck it since it's not Planescape: Torment". It's just as valid a complaint as this.

Anyone still playing this? Phire and me need 2 more. Filling up the car with gas was a god damn pain with 2 AI around.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSZTI4W8xts

It's good to hear francis' voice again. I hate the new cast.

And here I thought I was the only one. I am actually rooting for the Zombies in part 2.  :awesome_for_real:

They were okay, but I did prefer the original cast better.  Hee Haw and Nick had some good dialog.

After ten minutes of playing the DLC I quickly realized why I stopped bothering in the first place.  :uhrr:

L4D2 is $20 right now and I still don't think I want to buy it.

Here's a rundown of what happened thus far:

1st game - Room fills up, game starts; we have one of those stoner douche bag types who are more abundant on X-box live. Oh joy. Upon telling my team to leave one guy behind who obviously had no intention of following us: I'm then told to "shut the fuck up, faggot" and then teamkilled. Wee.

2nd game - I get into a room with a guy who will not shut the fuck up about how hard the new campaign is. We do ok until the first wedding area, I get a phone call; so I take off my headset to answer the phone and play while I'm taking the short call. After it's resolved I put on my headset to discover that I'm "being vote kicked bro" One guy voted yes, two guys voted yes, the last guy didn't do anything OH WELLS VOTE KICKED!

3rd game - Pings of 200+, teammates werent complete tossers, opposing team seemed at least mildly competent. Got to the second level where one guy dropped, another guy decided to run to the otherside of the map for no reason; and the last guy gets promptly killed as he was black and white. I left feeling completely indifferent at this point.


I really loved the first installment in the series to the point where I still actively played it well after release... that is until they announced the "hey trust us" sequel. It's hard to describe, but the first game just felt right, it had some issues (that could have been resolved with patches), but it felt like a labor of love rather than some piece of shit slapped together in 9 months.  Now, well after the point we were told to "trust them", we just have a sequel still littered with bugs and balance issues, and a DLC that makes me wonder "why did this take so long?".

Wow, I couldn't disagree more.  L4D2 is superior to the first one in virtually every way.

I'm with Val on this one. In fact, everything you described in your 3 points above has happened numerous times to me and my friends in the first one. Its the internet. Assholes inhabit it. Welcome.

Man, if you think the L4D2 players are bad don't ever play LoL; they'll eat you alive.

Good summary of precisely why I don't even bother with online multiplayer outside of the EQ2 broker or a very rare PUG. I just don't have time to wade through the masses in search of a good gaming experience.

BF2 was a great introduction to internet gaming for my fiancee, she was shocked at how people (don't) behave. She kept asking "But why would they do that?" I don't know, dear. I don't know.

(http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/215499488_8pSZr-L-2.jpg)

I had my first experience of that last night with two guys who had obviously gone through The Passing before since they were racing towards the end the whole time. Near the final bit they started trading black jokes on voice chat (two very obviously white Americans) and I quit because the jokes weren't even fucking funny just bad, offensive jokes the two of them were cackling about.

The Sacrifice DLC drops tomorrow for both L4D games (L4D2 also gets No Mercy from the first game).  Been playing L4D2 pretty frequently in the last few months and have never had any problems with the community.

66% price reduction on L4D games. Yes please.

I finally picked up the second one with the sale.  I forgot how much these games scare the hell out of me, I can only play them in short bursts.

L4D scares you? You really shouldn't play games like FEAR or the like, now that is a scary game.

Yeah I played FEAR, and Dead Space.  Both scare me.  I enjoy being scared, but I can only take it in games in short bursts in that it gets too intense and I need a break.

That's funny. I've never played dead space, but I've played l4d 1 and 2, neither of them really scare me (maybe the occasional scare because I stumble into somone I didn't expect), but FEAR creeped me the fuck out. It seriously got under my skin, and I have to applaud monolith for that.

Another game you might want to look at if you like being scared, is Amnesia: The Dark Descent. http://store.steampowered.com/app/57300/

Yeah, I think there is a difference between startle and scare.  FEAR got into your head a little so you were literally sneaking around a little afraid of what might be around the next corner.   L4D seems more in the "BOO! AHA GOT YA" category, which isn't really "scare" to me.

I'm on edge the whole time I play l4d, I don't know how anyone can be relaxed. Screaming hordes of sprinting zombies coming out of everywhere then some huge abomination bursts out and charges.  No place is safe, they just keep on coming and your ammo dwindles away, great stuff.

I've been meaning to check out that Amnesia game but I've already got a big back catalogue of games to get through and minecraft/civ 5 own my soul at the moment.

I think I'm too old to play games like that now.  My heart's liable to give out.

Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners was a good game in the same vein.  I still remember the "attack of the fishmen" scene where you're barricading doors behind you and can hear them smashing through one after another as you try to find a way out of the building.   :ye_gods:

Same goes with Doom3, that too is a BOO SCARED YOU kind of scary, which works for a while, but then you just get used to it and stop being startled.

I've really no idea what it was monolith did, but I wish more companies knew how to replicate how to get so thoroughly under your skin. Doom3 could've been a seriously scary game if it had been done right.

Sounds like a proper nightmare situation to be in to get your blood pumping.

What happened if they caught you? An intimate chat with mr :cthulu: himself?

I think they just beat you to death and you reloaded from quicksave.  The sequence was pretty unforgiving, so this actually happened a lot until you figured out the optimal path to safety that would let you stay just ahead of your pursuers.  On the plus side, you never got that sense of "oh, it's all scripted so the monsters will wait to smash through until I'm moving on to the next room," but on the minus side, the reloading and retrying was a little immersion-breaking.

It was still terrifying. It was scripted so they break through JUST as you shut the door and barricade it against them, then have to run over and sloowwwllly slide this bookcase/dresser thing out of the way, while you hear splintering wood behind you...

Probably the best sequence in any game I've played. It was that good.

The scripting wasn't triggered off you shutting the door, though, it was all timed.  It was set up so that you had just enough time to do everything you needed to do to get away, but if you were even a little slow, they came through anyway and you were fucked.  On my repeated attempts to get it right I could get a sense of how well I was doing by how close behind me the fishmen were, since their speed remained constant regardless.

Fucking Hell. I went and tried to buy a 4-pack for my other 3 accounts and a friend but Steam has closed the loophole that let Australians buy the non-gutted version.

Anyone out there in the US oir UK want to drop a $20 for a 4-pack to gift to the accounts while the big sale is on? I can reimburse immediately.

I went and bought this in the L4D Bundle during the recent Halloween sale.

Why is the AI in single player so fucking dumb? I want to play through the single player campaign just once, so I can take it slow and enjoy the ambiance and get used to the levels. But the AI just makes me want to strangle them. It's like I'm playing ICO except I have to drag around some rednecks with guns behind me instead of a girl. Ugh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqyNS7ZdY1A (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqyNS7ZdY1A)

Sadly, they already patched the ai.