Is it just me, or does Left 4 Dead seem like more a demo for an awesome, incredible game that will revolutionize the survivor-horror genre forever. Rather than a complete game? Don't get me wrong, I love the game, but is it really worth as much hype as it's gotten?
I have to ask this, because the game seems like a stripped down demo, with all the good stuff disabled to make you want to buy this amazing game when it's finally release in a year or two. I don't like to rock the boat, and you all know I've gladly recommended this game to every person that's asked about it, but the final game seems more like the sad, moping, ugly step child's shadowy reflection, rather than the gleaming masterpiece of beauty and awesomeness that we were promised, which makes men cry and woman do whatever the fuck it is they do.
I started getting these feelings quite a while ago, but it wasn't until I read this description of the game on rlslog that I was pushed over the edge.
Quote:
Setting out to do for co-op gaming what Counter-Strike did for team combat, Left 4 Dead is an ambitious survival horror game. Running on the Source engine, Left 4 Dead leaves four armed survivors of a world overrun with zombies, and they must fight their way out to escape the outbreak.
Designed for co-op play, the four players must work together to finish each stage of the game, lending each other artillery support, sharing ammo and rescuing each other when zombies are on top of them. In addition to the standard four players as humans, another four players can be amongst the masses of assaulting zombies, seeking to take down the other players. Zombie players might even find themselves become one of the four mutant “boss” zombies, who have unique powers that can be used to devastate, injure, tie up, mark and track, confuse, or even humiliate the gun-toting human survivors.
Now I don't know about you but my first reaction was "I want that game, fuck this limp and flaccid thing that steam managed to convince everyone was the real deal, I want the actual game that Valve must be hiding in a vault somewhere so that they can use it to every once in a while update the game closer to the true thing and say they did extra work and therefor deserve more cash for it.
Think about it, this game has no real melee attacks other than shoving zombies around with a weak backhand that wouldn't harm a newborn baby, there's ammo and weapons every 5 feet, and after you've played through a campaign once or twice, you throw all attempts at true cooperative teamwork and tactical game play. At which point the game turns into the simple process of using the exact same weapons to shoot everything that moves, avoid every witch you can, shoot more things that move, and if a tank shows up; shoot, scream, shoot, scream, shoot, swear obscenities at the screen, and finally shoot some more while screaming and swearing obscenities at the screen.
That basically sums up the game play after the first two or three times of playing a campaign. Which leaves me wondering, when does the real game release? Or am I going to have to buy Left 4 Dead Again, Stop Leaving Me For Dead, and finally *BOOM* I TOLD YOU NOT TO LEAVE ME FOR DEAD MOTHER FUCKER! Before I actually get to play the game I was promised, by which time I'll be in my thirties and if I still want to play the damn thing I'll probably shoot myself. (And yes, I put a sound effect in the title of the game, I figure that at Valves normal release rate, they're probably have found a way to incorporate sound into words you read so that the sound effects get beamed directly into your head)
I don't know about you, but I want a game in which their aren't shotguns and assault rifles around every corner, or the ability to hold more rounds of ammo than their are actually zombies in the whole game. I want to be able to pick up every conceivable object in the game to protect myself with, I want sneaking around zombies and running for my life to be normal not pointless, I want to actually need teammates in order to traverse zombie infested streets. I think ammo should be about as hard to find as it would be in real life, cause I don't know about you, but I've never ran into magical piles of bullets that never run out. Basically, my point is that I want to play the game I was promised, one where cooperation is required and where strategy takes precedent over running and gunning almost every time.
Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2009 5:30 pm 
