Now let’s take a closer look at our four survivors and the different sorts of cat-and-mouse games they can feature in, shall we? You can select which guy or gal you wish to control at the start of a game, but it doesn’t really make a difference in terms of mechanics, which is a little weird, but at the same time, makes sense on the multiplayer side of things, as the developers would have wanted to keep it all balanced. Anyhow…all the characters exhibit very decent behaviour in the heat of battle, and they also talk about the deep shit they’re in when taking a breather in a safe house. In short, all the characters are believable and do a good job of conveying how they’re feeling or what they’re thinking in different situations.
Coming to the game modes, there’s a good variety on offer. You can play the campaigns solo in offline mode, or play them with friends via Xbox Live or local split-screen. Whilst the campaign will provide some good, intense fun on its own, it’s the ‘Versus’ mode that will really deliver a solid experience if you’ve got some skilled players on both sides. In this mode, a total of eight players hit it off on any one of the campaign locations, with four survivors and four uncommon Infected. The survivors are tasked with getting from one point to the other alive, whilst the Infected are to do everything in their power to prevent this from happening. Aiding the human-controlled uncommon Infected are small hordes of common Infected bots, which mainly end up as cannon fodder, but still manage to provide a good distraction so that players can coordinate and plan their attacks against the survivors. Teamwork is the key element required to win in L4D2, and this is even more evident for players taking on the role of the Infected, as they succumb to firepower rather quickly.
There’s also the ‘Scavenge’ and ‘Survival’ modes to jump into, which involve hunting for and collecting gas cans, and fighting to stay alive for a set amount of time, respectively.Irrespective of what mode you happen to be playing, the core mechanics that drive gameplay are very well implemented, and this results in some real crazy moments and extremely fun times if you’re dishing out the goods with other human players.
Half the fun of blowing up zombies and watching their innards explode would be lost if the visuals weren’t up to the mark, and it’s safe to say that L4D2 does deliver quite well in this department. I say ‘quite’ because it isn’t exactly perfect on the X360. The framerate does tend to stutter in certain cases when there’s a lot of fireworks going on, and even more so if you’re playing local split-screen. The overall quality of the graphics won’t have you screaming for joy either, but they’re far from being bad or average. The environments are well detailed, the Infected animate rather smoothly, and there’s plenty of fire, water, and particle effects to keep you happy. Weapon models are nicely done, too.
Aurally, the game hits all the right notes, with some good background tracks complementing the look and feel of your surroundings. Voiceovers are well done for all of the survivors, and the gurgles, screams, grunts, and squeals of the Infected do a great job of both, giving you the shivers and hinting at which direction you should be pointing your weapon.
L4D2 is quite the redefinition of the whole zombie apocalypse scenario in games, as it takes a standard formula that everyone loves and fleshes it out in a unique way that is both, fun and engaging, by adding in the various co-op features. Campaign mode out of the way, there’s loads of fun and replay value to be had online with folks from around the world, and the fact that it looks pretty good (read that as plenty of blood and guts) and sounds great doesn’t hurt either. You’ll probably hate the game if you’re the shy/anti-social/introvert type, but if you’re up for some good, no-brainer co-op action featuring plenty of zombies with a very high hemoglobin count, then look no further – this is definitely your game.
Hitman Absolution joining the gargantuan game releases this fall