E3: Left 4 Dead 2 (Xbox 360, PC) Preview
Posted by John De Large on 06.12.2009
Hands-on: Does the game open up a whole new world or is it just a tarted up expansion pack?
These guys are playing for keeps!
Thanks to Ramon, I got an appointment with the one true gaming company that owns: Valve. I thought about playing Left 4 Dead 2 on the first day, but when I saw the insane line, I figured I'd just wait for my appointment to get hands on time.
To those of you at E3 who accused this of being an expansion pack, you're wrong, there's a lot more than a simple change of venue and new guns here:
New enemies include The Charger and the Wandering Witch, the former is comparable to a brick wall on roller skates, while the latter is like a blind time bomb. The Charger possesses much more speed than the (already fast) Tank and more power. There's also his signature move where he and lifts and slams you repeatedly against the ground, as if he were trying to liberate a creamy nougat filling from your sternum. The Witch is still.... The Witch, but with her new ability to blindly wander into your flight plan, she doesn't need to rely on you to bump into her so she can tear your face off.
There's new meele weapons like the gruesome fire axe and the hilarious fry pan. I prefer the axe which swings from right to left, taking out more than one zombie at a time. Waves of the undead get shredded by this little beauty, so find it and hang onto it!
Last but not least, there's new Survivors!
You get Nick who just got back from the 80's, Ellis who came from the trailer park to shoot some zombies, Rochelle, a small black woman and Coach, whose father was Ving Rhames and his mother was Moses Gunn. This difference is purely cosmetic, but zombie movie buffs will appreciate the cliched heroes making their debut in L4D2, I know I do.
The game drops for PC and Xbox 360 on November 17th, just two days away from my birthday ;)
