Left 4 Dead 2 for the PC

I'll add pretty pictures later.

Concept: 2/5

So Left 4 Dead 2 has a really simple concept really. It's the Zombie apocalypse and four people have banded together to try and survive it. Nice and simple. Sound familiar? That's cause this is the concept for Left 4 Dead 1. So Valve decided to try and take the best selling game of last November and do it again. I know a lot of people complained about how L4D2 didn't do anything new... but I find most of the people that complained about that and thought that everything in L4D2 could be released as Downloadable content or patches for L4D1 haven't actually played it. Not to say that there are things that couldn't have been included in L4D1 it's just that if they had it would have stolen some of the thunder from L4D2 where there were things that couldn't have been done in the first game.

Graphics: 3/5

The graphics aren't bad. They decided to go in a different direction than the first game. This time around the zombies are a bit more stylized especially the special zombies. But it's not a bad move. Overall I can't really say that the graphics are any better or worse than the first one they're just different. And when not comparing the game to the first just in general, the graphics are OK. There's nothing to say good or bad... not really.

Sound: 2/5

Nothing special to report here. I mean the sound is the sound. It does what it's expected to do. I really dislike Rochelle's scream when she gets knocked down and needs to be helped up though. She screams at the top of her lungs in a high pitched wail and while I'm sure it lets all the other player's know she was knocked down it made me want to hold my head in pain. Otherwise the sound went unnoticed. Ignoring some beautiful voice acting work from the guy that plays Nick and the other two were so southern I was turned off from playing them because I couldn't relate.

Entertainment: 4/5

If you've played the first L4D and enjoyed it you'll enjoy this one too. It definitely got me excited to be a Zombie killer again. There's nothing quite like rolling into an area with a bunch of your friends and slaying untold numbers of undead. Especially when the undead are really cool/don't sparkle in sunlight. Actually thanks to their normal mapping they might sparkle... Oh well I'm shooting them anyway. Plus some of the new finales and horde alert moments in this game a lot more intense than the first one because you have to keep moving and can't just hold up in one corner and slay they while you wait for a timer to tick down.

Playability: 4/5

A lot can be said for the playability of this game. But I'll try to be brief. Each level has a different feel or theme or specific challenge to it. My favorite has you start in one spot go to a certain location and then make your way back through the areas you passed through before. This means you have to ration some of the supplies you take as you're making your way to the target because when you come back through you may not have needed supplies if you took them all the first time. Plus there are witches EVERYWHERE in that level. Witches are a type of zombie that are passive until you get too close or shine a flashlight on them, then they get angry and will attack you and at the very least knock you down if you're not careful. Playing through this area with my friends I had so much fun especially since during the second half a huge rain storm blows in and reduces your visibility. It was probably the most epic time I had playing the game. But while I preferred this mission they're all pretty epic and I'm sure some people liked the other ones more.

X-factor: 2/5

The game is missing a bit of it's X-factor though. I mean once you've played the first one you've played the second one really. There were definitely things that this game added to the franchise. The fact that there is a bit of cohesion to the individual campaigns is nice. The fact that there are now uncommon common zombies are great. More special infected like the Jockey, Spitter, and Charger are AWESOME it makes the versus mode actually feel a lot more flushed out. But other than those things the major differences are underneath the hood of the engine. The section of the programing that decides how difficult or easy certain sections of a map are was overhauled and it definitely helped. The melee's cool too but it only adds so much.

Overall 17/30 Average

In the end the things that they could have added to the original through patches and such. I feel they should have and taken another year or two to release this game. There were definite improvements but they were so small compared to what they were trying to release it really felt like they were just trying to add a 2 to the end of their title since most of their franchises' greatest hits are the sequels not the originals, i.e. Half-Life 2 and Team Fortress 2. I really wish it was better and it's still a solid game if you liked the original pick this one up. If you think you might like playing either of the L4Ds I say pick this one up too. The first one was nice but compared to the second one it's night and day from how intense and epic this one will make you feel.