L4D2

[Samwise]

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.   

[TheWalrus]

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

[Samwise]

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

[Prospero]

As always, works fine for me.  

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.

[Falconeer]

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.

[Malakili]

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.

[Samwise]

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.

[Nightblade]

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.

[Sjofn]

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. 

[Falwell]

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.

[NowhereMan]

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.

[gryeyes]

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

[NiX]

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.

[Velorath]

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

[Amaron]

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

[Strazos]

Oh man, chargers and the spitter girls are fun.

[Amaron]

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?

[Nonentity]

Are we there yet?

[Amaron]

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

[Nightblade]

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

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

[Amaron]

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.

[Amaron]

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

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

[Velorath]

Decrypting now.

[gryeyes]

Opened steam, system crashed...

[Xuri]

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.

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

[NowhereMan]

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.

[Nightblade]

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.

[NowhereMan]

I the cricket bat!

[Yoru]

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.

[Velorath]

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.

[gryeyes]

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.

[Nightblade]

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

The bots in this game still need work.

[Yoru]

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.

[Velorath]

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.

[Thrawn]

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

L4D2 for $39.99