Doug:

miracleofsound:
Just played the demo and I have to admit I wasn't all that impressed.

This is coming from a huge Valve fan, by the way.

The gameplay was nothing new, felt just like the first one with the lights turned on.

Now I know graphics are not the most important part of a game, but man Valve need to either update or replace the Source engine.

The game looks like shit.

The buildings and character models are horrible, angular last gen atrocities that would look more at home in GTA San Andreas than on a 2009 mainstream release.

Objects are blocky and have no shadows, lighting effects look dated and blurry.

The very first vista was a badly implanted endless sea with an almost blank horizon. Half Life 2 had better graphic than this.

Animations and sounds are still very good, and the guns feel about right. The characters seem a bit more interesting than the last bunch too. The music was very cool and jazzy and helped with the setting.

But all in all I found the experience pretty underwhelming and won't be forking out my cash for it.

Especially not after playing Borderlands. Aussie friends, you're not missing all that much.

Anyone love it? Hate it? Feel indifferent to it?

To be honest, I'm amazed at this - it sounds as if you have bad settings or a computer problem. Maybe you need to update your driver? Or check your settings in the L4D2 menu...

It was on the 360. (awaits smart alec 'oh well there's your problem' answers...)

Oh, well there's your problem.

(Happy to help.)

I played it on my own for half an hour or so (first time playing L4D in any sense at all), and it was ok. I guess it would be more fun with people but due to my lack of playing the first one I fear going online and being shouted at.

Caliostro:

miracleofsound:

The game looks like shit.

The buildings and character models are horrible, angular last gen atrocities that would look more at home in GTA San Andreas than on a 2009 mainstream release.

Objects are blocky and have no shadows, lighting effects look dated and blurry.

Stop playing it on an old toaster.

The only thing I dislike about it is the lack of dynamic lightning/shadows. But considering each of the 4 characters is a constantly and quickly moving source of lightning nearly all the time, I get the feeling this would murder most computers and 360s. Specially considering the source engine isn't at it's best with dynamic lightning.

Having played Dead Space, Resi 5, Borderlands, F.E.A.R. 2 and Arkham Asylum on my 360 this year, all with far superior lighting and graphics to L4D2, I would disagree.

All of those games ran without a hitch for the most part, though Borderlands does make poor Old Man 360 wheeze in a manner that would drown out a giant mecha hoover sucking a jumbo jet out of the sky.

AdambotLive:
It was boring. 'Nuff said

This to a T

I think.. that I'm very angry at Valve, even if I didn't believe that possible until recently.
Even if I was as surprised as everyone by the announcement of L4D2 so soon after L4D1 and the scarses add-ons to the first game despite what was promised, I was nonetheless impatient to get my hands on the new infecteds, being an incurable optimist.

The demo is one day late ? It's ok, I'm waiting patiently.
Downloading a few gigas and restarting steam three times later, at last, the demo starts, looks fine even if a bit short (normal, it's a demo, it was the same thing with the L4D1 demo).

You'll notice at this point I was still a foolish happy gamer.

Next day, big update. A bit surprised, but ok. I start, the introduction movie is censored.
Worrying about a file download error, I re-download the whole. Same result.

After browsing the Steam forums, seems it happened to all people who are physically in Germany even if they got gifted the uncensored version from a civilized country.
At that point, I was already worried, but if it's the the intro movie, I don't really mind.

Today, another big update. Pearls of sweat appear on my forehead.
After sacrificing a console player to the autel of the mighty Cthulhu, I dare starting the demo and what I feared was true, the whole demo is censored !

...

So now, even if the game was bought by a US account, on a US IP, with a french card and gifted it to a french steam account registered on a french IP, you still end up with a **** censored version if you happen to play in Germany.
Given I'm stucked there for work for some more years, this is really depressing.

Not great for PC.
Decent on 360.

this game couldnt be
more average if it tryed
the gameplay offers nothing
new your doing the same crap
as what you did in the 1st one
its a complete waste of valves
time and everyone's money that
buys it

yer the 1st one was great
it was new and exiting but
this is bland and dull because
the only good thing about L4D1
was how fresh and different it was
and this is just the same dish
with a little bit of seasoning on
it

and even if you do find this fresh and
exiting you'll just get bored of it in
a week and regret buying it like allot
of people that had left for dead one
did

well atleast it took me a week to get
bored of the 1st one because this hunk
of junk got be bored after half way though
the demo

I think my only real issue with the demo is that it's laughably short considering the 3.6GB file size.

miracleofsound:

Dragonblade146:
It is a demo.
And not the final system.
Seriously.
Does no one read that?

Demos are meant to be a way to experience the best the game has to offer, so people will then go and buy it.

They should function as well as the finished game.

And developers should be perfect, find every bug long before it comes out, max out the game engine to the full capabilities of the hardware, and have the entire game in mint condition weeks before release. That way they can release a demo that's just cutting out the majority of the content. Who would dare release a demo that's put together from an unfinished product, taking time from that product which is being stressfully worked on already, just to satisfy and entice potential consumers?

miracleofsound:

mydogisblue:
"Terrible graphics"? Are you sure you and I played the same game? I played it on my 360 and I thought it looked remarkably better than the first one.

Yes, I am sure. The first one looked pretty bad too, though due to being mainly in darkness the flaws weren't as glaringly obvious.

You can see the texture separations on the Tank and other character models from 20 or 30 yards away. They're horrible.

What? I played L4D with all settings on high, and I never had those issues, and played L4D2 with low and never had those issues. Maybe there's something wrong with your computer, because on my low-grade laptop, it still looks just as good as most of my 360 games.

miracleofsound:

Doug:

miracleofsound:
Just played the demo and I have to admit I wasn't all that impressed.

This is coming from a huge Valve fan, by the way.

The gameplay was nothing new, felt just like the first one with the lights turned on.

Now I know graphics are not the most important part of a game, but man Valve need to either update or replace the Source engine.

The game looks like shit.

The buildings and character models are horrible, angular last gen atrocities that would look more at home in GTA San Andreas than on a 2009 mainstream release.

Objects are blocky and have no shadows, lighting effects look dated and blurry.

The very first vista was a badly implanted endless sea with an almost blank horizon. Half Life 2 had better graphic than this.

Animations and sounds are still very good, and the guns feel about right. The characters seem a bit more interesting than the last bunch too. The music was very cool and jazzy and helped with the setting.

But all in all I found the experience pretty underwhelming and won't be forking out my cash for it.

Especially not after playing Borderlands. Aussie friends, you're not missing all that much.

Anyone love it? Hate it? Feel indifferent to it?

To be honest, I'm amazed at this - it sounds as if you have bad settings or a computer problem. Maybe you need to update your driver? Or check your settings in the L4D2 menu...

It was on the 360. (awaits smart alec 'oh well there's your problem' answers...)

*puts on his best smart alec voice* oh well there's your problem!

Though honestly, I've not see the XBox 360 version - I have heard that the source engine doesn't port too well to it.

I had fun with the demo. The melee weapons were nice, I liked the new weapons(more varied now, also adrenaline shots(!)) and everything else. Overall it was fun, more of the same but bigger and better. I'll buy it durinh Christmas or hope for a New Year sale over steam and buy buckets of games with 50%-75% discount.

RossyB:

Vanguard_Ex:

Fucking love it to tiny fragments.

This. There's something sooo satisfying about killing loads of zombie with nothing but a guitar. It has a much better feel to it than L4D 1

this again.. Why dont you like it.. makes no sense..

The demo was...well...nothing special...Not something I'm gonna write home about. I liked the original L4D when I first got it. As of recently the game has just been getting on my nerves though. But anyways, they didn't change the game enough to actually justify a sequel. New zombies and weapons could have both been added in through DLC. And of course, the whole lighting issue. I liked the dark..it worked for L4D. OP isn't the only one who had issues with the game looking like crap, my graphics seemed really bad as well...and my computer ran it on max settings. I'm sure it's just an individual issue because..well Valve wouldn't release something that looked like that to the public...The combat seemed very buggy and difficult. The melee weapons didn't seem to hit anything that was a few inches off of the center of the screen. The zombie AI seems to have gotten even worse...in the fact that I had zombies that ran towards me, climbed a street-light, jumped off, turned around and climbed it again. There was a good chance that I wasn't going to buy it anyways but after actually playing it I'm definitely not going to.

I think this is pretty polar camps at the moment. I didn't like it.

It just felt like Valve were trying too hard. Everything that should be easily apparent wasn't, and the characters didn't really feel different apart from a few lines.

Ellis is annoying as hell, Rochelle is a squeaker and Nick is bland. Only Coach stands out and that's because of the Worf/Teal'c motif.

I understand it's only part of a bigger thing, but I kept thinking to myself while playing it, "Oh..." rather than "WHOA!".

And the armoured zombies are a pain in the ass; and not in a good way.

L4D sold me on the opening movie, L4D2 still has to and I've clocked the demo on Expert.

Neonbob:
I loved every second.
It was gory, fun, and I got to blast at zombies.
Sadly, I do not have the money to spare for it, so I have to pass at this time...sigh.

And I do not know where you're finding issues with the graphics...I played it on the default settings and it still looked markedly better than the first game when I played it on high.

I'll try and explain what I mean.

See how everything is angular?

This game has more right angles than the companion cube factory.

Look at the texture clash between the balcony and the wall below it... they look badly pasted together, it's too obvious. The balcony just floats next to the wall. Nothing seems to fit together well in the world.

The guns are definately better looking than in L4D 1 though. Finding an AK47 was pretty cool.

The character models are kind of blocky and 'gamey'. The survivors look ok, I mainly refer to the infected.

Compare this to say, Dead Space, now almost a year old, as an example of a game that makes good use of the current gen's lighting and graphical power:

The graphics are not the biggest concern anyway, though anyone who says they are not important I would disagree, graphics enhance a player's immerison within a game when done correctly, therefore enhancing thier enjoyment of it.

I never was a fan of the series. L4D got stale to me and this game was fun for a bit, but now it's just to repetitive.

miracleofsound:

Neonbob:
I loved every second.
It was gory, fun, and I got to blast at zombies.
Sadly, I do not have the money to spare for it, so I have to pass at this time...sigh.

And I do not know where you're finding issues with the graphics...I played it on the default settings and it still looked markedly better than the first game when I played it on high.

I'll try and explain what I mean.

See how everything is angular?

This game has more right angles than the companion cube factory.

Look at the texture clash between the balcony and the wall below it... they look badly pasted together, it's too obvious. The balcony just floats next to the wall. Nothing seems to fit together well in the world.

The guns are definately better looking than in L4D 1 though. Finding an AK47 was pretty cool.

The character models are kind of blocky and 'gamey'. The survivors look ok, I mainly refer to the infected.

Compare this to say, Dead Space, now almost a year old, as an example of a game that makes good use of the current gen's lighting and graphical power:

The graphics are not the biggest concern anyway, though anyone who says they are not important I would disagree, graphics enhance a player's immerison within a game when done correctly, therefore enhancing thier enjoyment of it.

Umm...I played it on the PC and it looks a shit ton different from that screenshot...just saying. The graphics looked very smooth to me. Or is that just the 360 version?

I just played it on my 360 and absolutely loved it. I'm guessing the graphics problem so many of you are complaining about must be a computer thing because I thought it looked awesome. The new characters are really cool (did anyone else notice that, at a distance, Ellis looks quite a bit like the scout? Give him a blue shirt and a bat and there you go), the new weapons are great (my favorite is the guitar), and the new infected are pretty cool as well (the spitters are quite annoying though). Overall, I liked it, and it made me want to get this game (currently 3rd on my list behind Borderlands and MW2).

I honestly loved every moment of that demo. From the moment I picked up a machete in the beginning and slashed a zombie's face clean off, I was hooked.

I feel the exact opposite about everything except your opinion of Mike Patton. He does rock.

The graphics didn't bother me at all.

The music did bother me (sometimes), and I still find the original 4 survivors more interesting (especially Francis), but overall, I am impressed. Mostly with the new infected (including uncommon common).

It is nothing compared to Left 4 Dead 1

The characters are annoying, the game has a boring feel to it. It doesn't even try to be scary. Melee weapons are pretty lame, I much prefer two pistols.

I have to say very meh, i have friends who loved this game and i just dont see it. its fun but nothing that couldnt have been added with left 4 dead 1 dlc and it hasnt swayed me to buying it.

Caveat: using Boomer Bile on the Tank/Witch never gets old, and the flames are nicer.

L4D is better imho.

miracleofsound:

Neonbob:
I loved every second.
It was gory, fun, and I got to blast at zombies.
Sadly, I do not have the money to spare for it, so I have to pass at this time...sigh.

And I do not know where you're finding issues with the graphics...I played it on the default settings and it still looked markedly better than the first game when I played it on high.

L4D2 screen

I'll try and explain what I mean.

See how everything is angular?

This game has more right angles than the companion cube factory.

Look at the texture clash between the balcony and the wall below it... they look badly pasted together, it's too obvious. The balcony just floats next to the wall. Nothing seems to fit together well in the world.

I can see that.
But that's immediately followed by "why are you looking at the walls? Zombie! Shoot!"
...yeah, I'm not that good at taking the time to stop and look more closely.
I really noticed that the lighting seemed better(or at least more present), and the splatters were nicer.
*shrugs*
I'll admit I turned my brain off while playing it.

I flat out disagree. The core gameplay being the same is not a bad thing at all, but having many more weapons and three new Specials makes the game more varied than the original. It also makes the game harder (try backing into a tight alleyway now - my entire team got owned by a Charger), giving back that tense feeling you had when first playing Left 4 Dead, before you realised so long as you stayed in a corner everything would work out fine.

And I'm one of those people who doesn't give a shit about graphics, so the age of the Source engine means nothing to me. I can play Tomb Raider II on my laptop and it looks pretty bad when stretched to an 18 inch widescreen but I don't let it affect the fun I have playing the game.

So basically I like it a lot.

i enjoyed the only to things that i was disapointed with are that i think the l4d survivors are more better than the new ones and because its now in the daylight you rarely get that "oh shit which direction are they coming" from moment.

Other than that a good game the new infected and weapons are awesome.Also you would rather better graphics than gameplay?.As the game play in deadspace was terrible also so was the story thinking about it.

Half the stuff you said seems to be just like what the boycotters said when the first trailer was released... anyway, I loved it... was too distracted by, you know, actually killing zombies to look around and think about what was wrong with it...

Neonbob:

miracleofsound:

Neonbob:
I loved every second.
It was gory, fun, and I got to blast at zombies.
Sadly, I do not have the money to spare for it, so I have to pass at this time...sigh.

And I do not know where you're finding issues with the graphics...I played it on the default settings and it still looked markedly better than the first game when I played it on high.

L4D2 screen

I'll try and explain what I mean.

See how everything is angular?

This game has more right angles than the companion cube factory.

Look at the texture clash between the balcony and the wall below it... they look badly pasted together, it's too obvious. The balcony just floats next to the wall. Nothing seems to fit together well in the world.

I can see that.
But that's immediately followed by "why are you looking at the walls? Zombie! Shoot!"
...yeah, I'm not that good at taking the time to stop and look more closely.
I really noticed that the lighting seemed better(or at least more present), and the splatters were nicer.
*shrugs*
I'll admit I turned my brain off while playing it.

Which is, of course, not a bad thing.

I guess I'm a different kind of gamer, a lot of times I like to wander around the areas and admire the view, taking my time to see everything up close. I get really immersed in gameworlds, hence why I love Fallout 3 and Half Life 2 so much.

It drives my friends mad though. Hehe. Played L4D with No More Sanity and he spent the entire game about a mile ahead of me...

Spygon:
i enjoyed the only to things that i was disapointed with are that i think the l4d survivors are more better than the new ones and because its now in the daylight you rarely get that "oh shit which direction are they coming" from moment.

Other than that a good game the new infected and weapons are awesome.Also you would rather better graphics than gameplay?.As the game play in deadspace was terrible also so was the story thinking about it.

How about nice graphics AND gameplay?

We should expect nothing less from developers of mainstream games.

Personally I loved the gameplay in Dead Space, it is one of my favorite games. It reminded me of Resi 4.

What was it you didn't like about it?

miracleofsound:

Neonbob:

I can see that.
But that's immediately followed by "why are you looking at the walls? Zombie! Shoot!"
...yeah, I'm not that good at taking the time to stop and look more closely.
I really noticed that the lighting seemed better(or at least more present), and the splatters were nicer.
*shrugs*
I'll admit I turned my brain off while playing it.

Which is, of course, not a bad thing.

I guess I'm a different kind of gamer, a lot of times I like to wander around the areas and admire the view, taking my time to see everything up close. I get really immersed in gameworlds, hence why I love Fallout 3 and Half Life 2 so much.

It drives my friends mad though. Hehe. Played L4D with No More Sanity and he spent the entire game about a mile ahead of me...

Wait...you played with him and lived through it?
I've only heard horror stories about sessions with NMS X-D

2 words: Australian censorship >.< !!!

I'm not sure what happened with this one...I mean, yeah it was more gory and there was a larger variety of weapons (guitar and axe are pretty awesome) but there was something about it...I don't know, it just didn't have the L4D feel. But maybe with a campaign larger than 2 stages, my mind might change. I'm getting it regardless, there is more to this one and having loved L4D so much, I'm willing 2 give L4D2 a chance at least. Hop I don't regret it.

its just l4d1 with more content, everything in l4d2 should have been in l4d1, im not paying 50 dollars for more of the same.

I miss Bill and Francis.

Aside from that, everything is better. Love the "utility" items, like the Boomer Bile and the Adrenaline. Couldn't get enough of the machete and the combat shotgun.

And the daytime setting is a very welcome change.