Want to smash the Infected in the face with a baseball bat? As the first Left 4 Dead 2 TV spot shows, the power of the home run comes with restrictions – namely, where you get the game.
When the Left 4 Dead 2 trailer showed up on YouTube last week, the general consensus seemed to be “yeah, Valve makes some pretty awesome cinematics.” That’s also the case with the brand-new TV ad for next month’s Left 4 Dead 2, which offers some easy humor by presenting the fight against the vicious not-quite-undead in the context of a baseball game.
The video is as much an ad for L4D2 as it is an ad for GameStop, because it reminds people that if you want to make like Coach and treat zombie heads like your own personal home-run derby, you need to preorder the game with them, and with them alone. Which means that everyone who has already pre-bought the game via Steam in hopes of getting an early demo is S.O.L. in this case. (Edit: I have been informed that this isn’t the case and that Steam preorders get the baseball bat too. Well, no worries then.)
Of course, it’s just a baseball bat – it isn’t like we won’t be able to get our hands on classic zombie-slaughtering weaponry like a chainsaw (or, Valve willing, a crowbar). I’m curious, though: The tail end of the video clearly specifies that this is an “American Baseball Bat.” Is there… any other kind of baseball? I could understand “American Football,” but “American Baseball”?
Hell, “American Cricket” might have made more sense. Though, interestingly enough, the News Team’s resident Canadian, Andy Chalk, informs me that “Sam Bat, the company that created and developed the maple bat, is based in Ottawa, Ontario.” So that’s not American, either.
Maybe I’m getting a bit hung up on a minor detail. There are zombies, survivors, and survivors beating up zombies with baseball bats. Go watch.
This is why I’m planning on playing as Coach, by the way.
