By Adrian Pascua / Staff Writer
By Adrian Pascua / Staff Writer
Imagine a world where a disease that causes the dead to rise again has run rampant. You and three other survivors are the only ones left alive who are immune to the disease, what do you do?
Short answer: cure the disease one bullet at a time.
“Left 4 Dead 2” puts the player in the middle of a Zombie apocalypse where the player has no choice but to take out the infected as best as they can.
Valve has nailed it with this game. Teamwork is essential for survival, and it’s crucial that you keep your teammates alive.
As your numbers start to dwindle down, survival starts becoming a big issue.
In the campaign co-op modes this becomes extremely crucial since beating a scenario becomes extremely dependentt on how well the team can work together.
So that means there’s no room for show boating. The fewer team mates you have to watch your back, the more likely you are to get picked off by a horde of zombies.
Each scenario is tied in together unlike the original “Left 4 Dead.”
In the original, the player could pick any scenario and it would play like its own storyline.
In “Left 4 Dead 2” the player still has the option of picking the scenario, but if they play in order there is a more complete story than the original game had.
If a player feels the game isn’t hard enough, they can try the new realism mode. A mode where team work is the most essential in survival and dying is not an option.
In realism mode, players will play through the campaign scenarios, but once a member of the team dies, they stay dead.
So, staying alive is extremely reliant on how well you keep each other alive.
The newest feature is the use of melee weapons.
Players have the chance to use everything from frying pans to chains as their choice of weapon instead of just a regular hand gun that must be reloaded only after so many shots.
Things like swords and machetes are completely ammoless and have no need to be reloaded, so feel free to cut down as many of the infected as you see fit.
After you put some of the undead back in their graves via melee, players will notice how much more colorful their screens can get after killing 10 or 20 zombies by hand.
Not only do players get the chance to do things like bash in zombie brains, but Valve has added several new weapons to the arsenal of zombie butt kicking.
Such weapons like semi automatic sniper rifles to replace the single shot bolt action rifles, when translated means that mowing down the dead at longer range can happen a lot faster and is a lot more accurate at a closer range.
There are AK- 47’s for those more panicked moments where you just have to kill a zombie.
A tactical shotgun was also added for the times when players become constantly surrounded with hordes of enemies.
The crown jewel of all these weapons is the grenade launcher.
It may be slow and have a single round, but taking out large groups are what this bad boy is good for.
Since Valve decided to upgrade all the new features on the game, they also decided to add more “specialized” zombies.
The original cast of zombies has invited new friends, such as the Charger, who can plow through your team and send them flying while effectively pounding one team member to death.
The Spitter discharges burning goo through the mouth that can cause damage to any of the survivors that touch it.
Finally, the Jockey, who jumps on a team member’s back, takes control of them and separates them from the rest of the team.
“Left 4 Dead” has become one of the hit games of Valve’s since “Counter-Strike.”
With the release of “Left 4 Dead 2” gamers are not to be left hungry for action, as this game is the nail in the coffin for most zombie games out right now.