Topic: Left 4 Dead

[gpw11]

Yeah, they're easier to sneak up behind and fuck that way.




What?  WHAT?!

[PyroMenace]

I worry you because I like shambly zombies?  I hated 28 Days Later.  I like my zombies to shamble.  SHAMBLE.

Your worrying me because your sounding more and more like your not picking it up, Im not playing this game by myself!

[Quemaqua]

I'm probably going to pick it up.  I was being a naysayer about it at first, but it looks too fun to pass up.  I'm not sure if I'll get it day one just because I might want to see how much value is in the package, but if it turns out to be worth it, I'll probably get it pretty fast so I can play with you guys.

[Xessive]

That was a pretty cool vid. I'd love to play this mostly because I'm starved for coop play.

[Pugnate]

Yeah, they're easier to sneak up behind and fuck that way.




What?  WHAT?!

That would be like the worst STD ever.

[MysterD]

Some L4D Demo impressions here

[gpw11]

The whole pre-order demo thing is kind of a stupid idea.  I mean, I know why they do it and it does make sense, but I was going to go download it last night and couldn't.  It doesn't do much to convince me to buy the game.

[Quemaqua]

Yeah, that's just stupid.  They can get away with it in this case just because the game is already so popular and has so much buzz... it'll convince a lot of people to preorder to get the demo.  Most games couldn't really do that so well.  Though the demo will eventually come out for everyone, right?  Just exclusive to preorders for a week or some shit?

[idolminds]

The worst part about the demo is it EXPIRES on the 18th. So once it releases to the public  (the 11th) you only get a week to download and try it. After that, its full version or nothing.

Short of not releasing a demo at all, this is about the most fucked up thing I've seen.

[Quemaqua]

Yay Valve!  Let's all praise almighty Valve for their wisdom!  Let's ignore the fact that they're fucking totalitarian douchebags.

[gpw11]

Damn, that is some bullshit. 

[Xessive]

Wow, that is pretty retarded.

My guess on the new gaming market direction: Demos are not free! They'll cost around $5 just to give you a taste of the game they you can pay the difference to get the full game.

That would suck so much ass.

[PyroMenace]

A week is more than enough time I think to check out a demo, I can pretty much make the decision of purchasing a game with a demo within hours.

[Quemaqua]

And if you don't download and play it that week, you don't get to.  What if you're on vacation?  What if you were planning on downloading the demo, I don't know... the next week?  Even if for no better reason than because you wanted to?  Why should a demo be time-sensitive?  How does that benefit the consumer in any way, shape, or form?

[PyroMenace]

I dont know, I barely play demos anymore in the first place. Its always been impressions and word of mouth thats been the deciding factor. I honestly dont think its that big of a deal.

[Quemaqua]

No, I agree with you kinda'.  I mean, I'm like you and I generally know stuff before I've even played a demo.  I'm sure you don't need to play a demo for this to know if you're going to dig it, just from the buzz that's been around.  I just don't understand why exactly they'd do this.  I mean, why go to the trouble of making a demo if you're only going to let a few people play it for a single week?

I am actually a bit interested in a demo for this, though normally I don't care so much about demos anymore.  This is a bit of an unknown for me.  I know people are totally into it, and I'm definitely interested, but I just want to know how much I'm going to dig it.  It could very well end up being something that isn't worth $50 to me, especially when I'm so strapped for cash lately.  With my finances the way they are right now, I can basically buy one full priced game a month.  And that's it.  And that's... not something I'm used to.

[PyroMenace]

Im not really looking at Valve from this perspective of being a tease by releasing a demo for a week only. We get a demo, not every game does this, can we not be happy with that instead of raising pitchforks and torches and wanting to burn the place down.

[Quemaqua]

I see nothing unreasonable about being annoyed with it.  It's a perfectly backward situation contrary to what most developers normally do with a demo.  Sure, they can release it for just a week, but it's really obvious how hard they're pushing for getting orders right out of the gate.  Get the thing early or you only get a week for the demo, make sure you get the demo that week or you'll never get it, make sure everybody gets on board before they have time to scrutinize the game since even the most positive journalists have questioned whether or not there will actually be enough content to sustain the price.

I'm not saying they can't do all this.  It's probably smart, *especially* if the game turns out to be short on content.  And I'm not saying I think it will or won't be, as I'm more positive about this game than I have been about anything Valve has released in the history of the company since the first Half-life.  I'm just saying that as a consumer, this shit annoys me.

[gpw11]

So, I've played through the demo a couple of times.  I don't think I'm going to buy it - especially not for $45.  It'd be fun to play with 3 other peeps from here or something, but it gets pretty boring (for me at least).  I guess that's why the demo expires after a week.

[MysterD]

If the game is relatively short, lots of free DLC might be a good way for Valve to go...

[gpw11]

I don't think that it's really short, it's just that it gets a bit repetitive.  Obviously some people are going to be into that a lot more than I am, and it's not a bad game by any means, I just don't think I'm personally going to pay full price for it.

[gpw11]

The other thing about this is the difficulty.  It just seems way too easy on the basic one, and the harder difficulty I played on was pretty much the same - just a bit cheaper in that it took a shitload more bullets to take guys down.  While that isn't really cheap, it's kind of a cop out when what would actually make it way more difficult would be if they threw like three times as many zombies at you (although there were more),  I can't say if that was the hardest mode, as it was someone else's game but I kind of hope not.

[PyroMenace]

Hmm... those are interesting impressions. I'll have to wait and see how it stacks up on release.

[MysterD]

L4D is GOLDEN.
For the PC version, through Steam it's available for Pre-Load.
Official release date -- Nov. 18th on Steam and retail outlets.

[gpw11]

You know, the retail version is the exact same price as the STEAM version.  What the fuck?

[Pugnate]

Retailer's rules...

[gpw11]

I....i don't know what that means.

[Xessive]

You know, the retail version is the exact same price as the STEAM version.  What the fuck?

That's almost always the case.

A while back we were all complaining about how digitally distributed stuff should be a lot cheaper since there's no packaging or shipping. Yet we see no drop in prices at all, at least nothing different from traditional retail copies.

I think digitally distributed stuff should be at least $5 cheaper than retail.

[Pugnate]

I....i don't know what that means.

Well I asked about this a while back myself, because like yourself, I was wondering why I had to pay the same price for an online version that I had to download etc. What I was told was that retailers won't stock these titles if they are being sold cheaper at launch online.

[MysterD]

Well I asked about this a while back myself, because like yourself, I was wondering why I had to pay the same price for an online version that I had to download etc. What I was told was that retailers won't stock these titles if they are being sold cheaper at launch online.

I guess retailers are afraid they'd be wasting valuable shelf-space if their prices were more than the online distributors from the get-go. But, retail boxes should be more costly anyways -- b/c they come w/ printed physical manuals, game on a physical disc, and other physical stuff.

I guess if retailers didn't have their way, it would mean was retailers would have to lower their price to beat or compete with the online store prices, to get people into their stores.

But truth be told, games are often cheaper (during sales and stuff) in the retail store, anyways. I do online distribution as a last resort -- if a game is MUCH cheaper, if I can't find a game I'm looking for anywhere else, if Steam's DRM is more acceptable than the retail game disc's version, etc etc, and other things of that nature.

EDIT:
Speaking of L4D, there's a rumor flipping that the game has a cereal box item that you can find, which hints that there might be a 10th TF2 class coming.

I saw a trailer on TV other day for L4D -- damn, it looks like it could be a blast.

[MysterD]

Valve is selling their Valve Complete Pack for $100 over Steam.

It comes w/ everything made by Valve -- and yes, it will include Left 4 Dead!

So, here's the entire list of Valve Complete Pack:
Deathmatch Classic
Half-Life
HL: Blue Shift, HL: Source
HL: Opposing Force
Half-Life 2
HL2: Episode 1, HL2: Ep 2, HL2: Lost Coast
CS, CS: Source, CS: Condition Zero
DOD, DOD: Source.
Portal
TF Classic, TF2
Ricochet

So, if you've missed a few Valve games and am looking to get L4D, looks like a good deal.
Hell, could be a good deal if you're looking to gift games to people over Steam, too.
If you missed a great deal of Valve's game catalog, looks like a great deal there.

[gpw11]

Yeah, that's a pretty good deal if you don't own a lot of those games.  As for the tenth class, I think people might be reading into that a bit much but who knows.

[Pugnate]

The whole achievement thing had the opposite affect on me, in that I just stopped playing. I always planned to come back, but never did. When I saw the first achievement package being loaded out, I realized everything would be chaotic for a while, so I decided to come back after a few weeks. Unfortunately they kept releasing packages for every class, and I kept delaying my return until I sorta lost motivation. I'll go back at some point.

Also, is L4D really worth full price, when TF2 was sold for $20 at launch? I am too lazy to download and experience the demo.

[gpw11]

The whole achievement thing had the opposite affect on me, in that I just stopped playing. I always planned to come back, but never did. When I saw the first achievement package being loaded out, I realized everything would be chaotic for a while, so I decided to come back after a few weeks. Unfortunately they kept releasing packages for every class, and I kept delaying my return until I sorta lost motivation. I'll go back at some point.

Yeah, it kind of did that to me as well.  I was playing it a lot and for some reason the achievement thing kind of killed it. A lot of it was that most seem impossible to get without outside help.

Also, is L4D really worth full price, when TF2 was sold for $20 at launch? I am too lazy to download and experience the demo.

Going off of what I've played of the demo, I'd say no.

[MysterD]

Also, is L4D really worth full price, when TF2 was sold for $20 at launch? I am too lazy to download and experience the demo.

I'd DL the demo, if it wasn't a limited time affair.

[gpw11]

I went back into this for about 30-45 min last night.  Now, I don't know if there is an option for a traditional server browser, but I certainly haven't found it.   The good news, however, is that whatever game I got dumped into had an insanely fun difficulty.  We died A LOT.  It was actually a lot more fun this way, although it did get frustrating as we had no chance of making it to any of the safe houses.  I don't know if this was an official difficulty level or someone fucked around with something in the console (which is what the other three people thought and they'd know more about it than me), but it was like one hit and you lost most of your health.  Any friendly fire and you hit the ground, and boss zombies were popping up like once every 30 seconds.  If they could find a good middle ground between this and the other levels the game would be pretty awesome.  Still not $40 awesome, but at least closer.

[MysterD]

GameSpy Review
4½ stars from GameSpy

9.0 from IGN
Video review
Written review

Now, if there's a ding against Left 4 Dead, it's that the fact that there are only four scenarios, which is a small number to wrap your head around, and you can play through a scenario in 20 or 30 minutes on the normal difficulty setting. On higher difficulty settings, it'll take longer. Granted, the four scenarios are highly replayable; you could play them over and over again and events unfold differently. There are two reasons for that. The first is the built-in "director" system that manages the action. If you're doing well, it will throw more zombies, like a sadistic dungeon master in a game of Dungeons & Dragons. If you're doing badly, it might decide to ease up on you a bit by providing health kits and ammunition. The second reason is simple human nature. It's a blast to play with others, but it can also be a hilarious experience, as well as a slightly frustrating one at times.

The value proposition also takes a slight ding when you discover that the Versus mode that lets you play as the zombies against other humans is only available in two of the campaigns (No Mercy and Blood Harvest). Please note that versus mode is an absolute hoot, especially in a LAN setting, but I had a lot of fun playing online as well. In Versus, one team controls the human players (you need at least a single player on the human side; the rest of the characters can be driven by bots) while up to four others play as the special zombies. If you're on the side of the undead, the game picks your special zombie class for you; all classes are available save for the witch.

[Pugnate]

I was a bit taken back to find a well written to the point review on IGN, that didn't take 6 pages to get its thoughts across... then I saw it was by Ocampo.

Anyway, I just can't see myself paying so much money for a game that is multiplayer only, and is about the size of TF2 in scope.

[gpw11]

I started to have a lot more fun with it on higher difficulties in the later days, but I still can't justify the price.  That shit needs to drop.

[MysterD]

I started to have a lot more fun with it on higher difficulties in the later days, but I still can't justify the price.  That shit needs to drop.

Whether SP or MP...
Playing as humans, where each scenario is 30 mins a pop -- and we have 4 scenarios total here -- sounds VERY short.
Playing as the zombies, you can only do that in TWO scenarios (out of the 4).
 
How is this game $40-60 everywhere? 

It should be at least half that. $20 sounds fair.

If this game is gonna stay that price, this game needs some official and free DLC -- and fast.