As most of you know, the L4D demo just went online for the people that preordered it. I’ve been gobbling up every morsel of info about that game up until now, so it figures that I downloaded the demo and played it as soon as Valve unlocked it. I figured a bunch of people won’t be able to play the demo right off the bat due to various reasons, so I’ll describe the first few hours of gameplay. I won’t be talking much about the gameplay, since there’s plenty of videos that show you that.
The first thing you’ll notice when entering the demo – besides the drunken zombies in the background – is a pretty different interface from what you’ve seen so far on Valve style games. You can only find the good ‘ol Steam type window when editing your keys. This is understandable since L4D is released on the consoles, as well on the PC, but it still feels weird if you’ve played every Source engine game up until now.
Oh wait, there we go.
Not sure if I want...
In this demo, you are only limited to a couple of maps, and playstyles. Sadly there is no Versus mode included in the demo. The campaign in question is called No Mercy. You start up on a rooftop, and must make your way to a nearby hospital. You can play this campaign alone, or with friends/random people. The only difference between those modes is that in single player bots will take over your three teammates instead of actual people. This also works the other way around in the middle of the game. If someone decides to quit, a bot takes over without a hitch, and another player can join the game later, overriding the bot. The bots aren’t bad, they know what to do, what to shoot, who to rescue, however they never seem to take the lead. In an online match, lagging behind pretty much means you can kiss your legs goodbye.
Not again...
If you’ve been playing only shooters on the PC for quite some time, you’ll be slightly annoyed at the lobby system. Instead of you choosing from a list of servers, you click a button and the game does the searching for you. I can understand this, as server lists with such a low amount of players is a bit impractical, but at the moment the search is kind of buggy, sending you to servers that do not respond, and so on. I also kept hosting lobbies yet finding out all the friends that had connected mysteriously disappeared, even with properly configured router settings and such. These problems will probably be fixed by the time the full game comes out. I have to admit though, the ‘Friends playing’ main menu part is quite a nice touch.
When you join a lobby, there’s four player slots waiting to be filled. You can choose your character if someone else hasn’t gotten to them first. Voice communication can also be established, though always-on isn’t too nice for the people that have a noisy mic/environment.
The weapons available in the demo are a pump-action shotgun, an uzi, an assault rifle, an auto-shotgun, a hunting rifle, a molotov cocktail, a beeping pipebomb that attracts zombies, and single or dual wielded pistols that have infinite ammo. There is also a minigun emplacement in the second level which is rather useless since there is a zombie spawn right behind you. You also have the godlike weapon butt attack where you wildly flail your weapon in front of you and any zombies in the vicinity get blown away and stunned for several seconds by the sheer awesomeness of your display. Okay it’s just a melee attack, but I swear you could probably get through a chapter using only the aforementioned attack. It gets kind of silly when you realize that you can reload the shotgun fully while meleeing constantly and the only disadvantage is that your flashlight doesn’t stay on screen the whole time.
You can usually find weapons lying around the level in randomized spawn spots. Weapons do stay, so multiple people can pick up the same gun, but items are a one-time use only pickup. Accuracy is also increased by crouching, which can help teammates behind you get a clear shot.
Your mobility depends on how much health you have, and if you’re getting hit by zombies. One hit will cut your speed down by half as if you suddenly stepped in a big sticky pile of something, while getting mobbed basically means you can’t move.
Who sent all these babies to fight?
The gameplay is basically you against a horde of rather fragile zombies that run towards you with less than nice intent, and a few boss zombies. Depending on the difficulty level, zombies have varying hp. The usual ones go down in a couple of pistol shots on Normal, while on Expert you need at least a couple of assault rifle bullets (At least I think it’s that way, I’ve received word that it isn’t like that). Difficulty also determines how often you see boss zombies. On Expert I actually think they coordinated their attacks on us. It’s hard to find the teammate that’s getting strangled while you’re covered in rather disorienting boomer gunk. Then a tank comes and sends you all back to the start of the level.
The boss AI isn’t bad at all, they make excellent use of their strengths, and attack you when you’re not looking. Boomers like to camp around corners, and lurch towards you when you come crossing. Shoot them and you’re swarmed in zombies. You rarely see hunters before they strike, though they don’t always choose the best time to attack. Smokers like to strangle people from rooftops, sometimes from unhittable spots, yet the teammate they’re attacking is easily freed. Tanks…well, they just charge in and pound the ground with you like angry gorillas. You can usually tell what’s coming up next by listening. This is very noticeable when you come up against a witch, if you aren’t listening to your teammates. Hunters also like to emit a distinct growl when they are stalking you.
The interface is pretty intuitive though, the teammate aura you see through walls changes color depending on what they’re doing. Normal is blue, while yellow usually means they’re unable to fend for themselves. Pickups are highlighted in a blue aura when you see them, though the on-screen indicator is at the same time helpful but a bit confusing. You get alerted there’s an item nearby, but the indicator takes a bit of time to get used to.
A nice touch is how the zombies behave when they’re not doing their usual ‘run towards you with my best angry face’ routine. The zombie virus seems to have symptoms similar to recovering from one hell of a hangover as every one of them is either drunkenly stumbling around, banging on a door, or having a nice look at what they ate last night. The animation blending is very nice though. Shoot a zombie while they’re running and they’ll recoil while losing their momentum, then nicely fall into a ragdoll state. You can also dismember them or pop their heads if you’re not on one of those censored versions I keep hearing about.
As with any demo, the game has it’s bugs. A tank once ripped a chunk of concrete from the floor and threw it at me. Except that we were in a train cart, so the concrete block that was magically pulled through the cart’s floor exploded right as it left his arms. But I couldn’t dwell on that as he cornered me and thoroughly ripped me a new asshole. The matchmaking system is buggy, there’s disconnects and lag more than you’d expect, but hopefully it will get fixed.
In my opinion there isn’t that much you’re missing out on. Then again, I really wanted to play L4D for the boss zombie gameplay in versus. In any case, the free demo is coming out in a week or so for people without preorders, so there’s no reason to avoid trying the game.
This is the equivalent of incessantly batting teammates on the head in TF2.
Just like CoD4 except the grenades and people have switched places.
The way they almost break down doors and angrily gawk at you is funny.
This is before the zombies attack. Just imagine a big green blurry screen filled with shapes that are dancing about.
You rarely see your own legs in games these days.
November 6th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
FYI zombie health is NOT changed by difficulty level, nor is the amount of zombies
the only thing that changes is the amount of damage that enemy attacks do to you, how often you find health items, whether or not there are any medkits in the level (on expert there are not) and how many bosses you’ll face at a given time – Bosses get nasty when you’re hit by multiples
November 6th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Hey Evil, Awesome that you are getting this game.
I used to play TF2 with you a ways back.. This game is sick, thanks for the review.
See ya in game.
November 6th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
another glitch i noticed was when playing in single player (kept disconnecting in online mode) was when a bot woke up the witch and i was in the train, i waited for her to come through, and about 15 seconds later she came. however, she was running in circles inside the train while the entire team shot her down in a few seconds, i was expecting more…death in my first witch encounter xD
November 6th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
“As with any demo, the game has it’s bugs.” That seems weird, it’s like equating demo with beta, where you’d expect a demo to be the showcase of a game.
November 6th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Thanks for the review.
The whole ‘pre-order now to play the demo early’ thing seems to be a marketing trick. I’ll wait until the free demo comes out, try that and if I like it buy it from Amazon (which seems to be cheaper than Steam).
November 6th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
@ Azz
A lot of demos have bugs that get patched up before the release of the full game. The way Valve updates their games allows them to use the preorder demo as a sort of open beta.
November 15th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
GamerAndy is wrong, the amount of Zombies changes depending on difficulty. In fact, the number of Zombies, their location, the type, etc. changes every time, it’s never the same. The Director spawns them wherever it wants, whenever it wants. Basically, it’s Schroedinger’s Cat, with Zombies. They aren’t there until you look at them.
November 19th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
nice review lulz
December 6th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
So Daed – are you a Zoey person? Or do you just go with who you’re assigned with? Just out of curiosity you understand – I’m a Bill person myself…