First Impressions: Left4Dead 2

If the enormous amount of lag was anything to go by, I wasn't the only one to download the Left4Dead 2 playable demo today. While 30,000 boycotters may still be keeping up the pretense that they're not going to play the game, the magically vanishing, twitching, reappearing state of play today suggested that a heavy load was being placed on the game by everyone who did want a go.

Personally, I've never been particularly bothered by Valve's decision to go for a sequel rather than DLC for the original game. Yes, the four campaigns in the original installment can't help but become overfamiliar very swiftly, despite the best efforts of the AI director.The recent addition of an extra DLC map didn't do much to compensate, as it's hard not to cast a grudging eye at the PC players downloading stacks of user generated maps such as the brilliant Coal'd Blood and feel that the console version is looking a little tired. More DLC would have been nice, but a sequel is just as good, its not like we haven't had a year to save up for it. The fear for me was never that L4D would be abandoned, but that the sequel wouldn't be able to create the same cinematic excitement offered by the first installment.

So, based on the demo, how's it looking? Well, the addition of melee combat has brought the expected mild whiff of Dead Rising, as you trade in your second pistol for frying pans, machetes or even a guitar. It works, and provides a comedic, ammo-conserving alternative to firepower, but it doesn't really seem to add that much to the game. Explosive bullets, on the other hand? They look pretty handy, not that I managed to lay hands on any today. The new special infected are pitch perfect, with Jockeys,acid phlegm and Chargers all providing new varieties of peril and creating new flavours of havoc, without being powerful enough to detract from the games uber-threat, the Tank. Yes, you'll still get dreadbelly when that distinctive roar and ominous music kick in.

Best of all, the environments seem to be greatly improved. While there were lots of side paths and rooms to explore in the original, they were always just bolt ons, you never lost sight of where you were going. In Left 4 Dead 2, however, it's easy to stray off the correct path, and should a team member become seperated and incapacitated, you'll embark on a heart-in-mouth trackback through lengthy, meandering maps to rescue them, expecting the horde at any second. It was at times like this that I began to feel like L4D2 might even surpass it's predecessors ability to crank up the tension. Having only had 'The Parish' to play so far, it's to soon to tell, but if the other levels are as good at forcing splits in the group, then L4D2 is going to exceed it's predecessor.

Follow diversion

I used to follow an excellent blog called Dave's Long Box, and loved every hilarious post, especially his attempts to turn 80s chopper-combat show Airwolf into an adjective. But do you know what I didn't like? I didn't like it when he left the Long Box unattended for lenngthy spells to write for other blogs.

Anyway, I've just written a head 2 head battle between Grand Theft Auto IV and Fallout 3 for Megabits of Gaming. Check it out, it's totally Airwolf!

Fallout falls to Fight Night 4!

Well, it was bound to happen eventually, Fallout 3 has been knocked off the top of my playlist.

What could topple the huge and addictive RPG? Well, partly it’s the arrival of EA’s excellent Fight Night Round 4, but mainly, it’s the presence of a really ill judged piece of DLC.

Now to be fair to Bethesda, they’ve come a long way since cheekily trying to get gamers to part with their money for horse armour in Oblivion. In general, the Fallout 3 DLC has been well worth the money, with the Pitt offering new weapons and a compelling story, Brokent Steel offering new weapons and an increased level cap, and Point Lookout offering new weapons and new environments. But Operation Anchorage? Well, it offers new weapons. Alas, it also offers an incredibly dull gameplay that feels at odds with the general Fallout 3 experience.

Heavily combat oriented and almost entirely linear, Operation Anchorage has you playing what is essentially an FPS with Fallout’s VATS system, placing you in a virtual reality historical simulation of the war that led to the devastation you see everywhere in the main game. Alas, the snowy wastelands, prescribed paths and lack of any real exploration or gameplay choices are completely at odds with the rest of Fallout, and even the addition of the excellent Gauss Gun can’t compensate for the way Operation Anchorage wrenches you out of the Fallout experience.

To be honest, much had been made of the Operation Anchorage’s weknesses before now, which is why I’d gone for all the other DLC first, but when Anchorage appeared with a 35% reduction, I assumed it would be worth it. Don’t make the same mistake-get the later DLC, but steer clear of Operation Anchorage.

The other part of Fallout 3’s temporary removal from my must play list? Fight Night Round 4. It’s a wonderfully nuanced and speedy simulation of the sweet science, one that uses authentic physics, realistic fighting styles and varied fighter to produce an utterly addictive gaming experience, and that’s before you’ve even taken it online, where it really starts to excel. Check out my full Fight NightRound 4 review here.

Because the internet is a bit obsessive...

I’ve got Fight Night Round 4, Indiana Jones and The Staff of Kings and Overlord II reviews on the way, but they’re all in need of a little more play and polish. In the meantime, I’m curious to know what people think of the standard reviewer’s chestnut ‘Worth a rental’?

I’ve heard a lot of people complain about that as being a cop out from hacks who don’t have to pay for their games and can’t understand the need to help purchasers make a decision about what to do with their money, and also that it displays a lack of gumption, an unwillingness to actually say whether a game is worth having or not.

I don’t get it.

The fact is, for every game I get free from a PR company, I buy two or three more. Getting the occasional review sample doesn’t mean that I buy fewer games than most people, it means I play slightly more.

The fact is, I do rent games and I do look for bargains. I have a three disc LoveFilm account that I queue stacks of games in, and while there are some that I play for an hour and send straight back, and others that I enjoy so much that I buy them, the bulk of my rentals are exactly that, rentals. I rent them, I play them, I send them back and think no more about them and as long as I turn them around in period that covers only one LoveFilm payment then they’ve cost me about £7 to play. So I suppose if you wanted to be really picky you could say that when I claim that something is worth a rental I mean that its worth £7 and up to a month of your time, but not worth £39 retail. That’s not bad is it?

What's in a game?

So, having outlined what I think a game has to do to get a particular score, I suppose I should list a few notable games and what score I’d give (or have given) them so you can get a feel for what Robo-thumbs review scores mean.

One Star Games:
Ok, howsabout Iron Man? Not quite broken, but it’s hard to think of a more utterly pointless gaming experience, with the possible exception of that worthless DS game that asked for £20 to allow you to send trivia questions to another DS…which you could do with the stylus and send button for free.

Two Star Games:
Did you ever play Baroque? A great story concept and incredibly evocative character design, ruined by one simple conceit - dying and replaying was part of the game, and vital to unfolding the story. Add to that an annoying rogue-like tendency to re-create each level randomly so you couldn’t even speed through your repetition, coupled with an incessant grinding guitar soundtrack and a berk who kept yelling ‘Goddamn’ every third word…gah.

Three Star Games:
Now here it gets interesting, and potentially controversial. The rest of the internet seems to be giving Red Faction Guerrilla the four or five star treatment, but to me, it's simply a three star game. Great fun, no major flaws, but it just doesn’t quite grab me enough. Also in the three star category would be something like, say, Call of Duty 3. So, can you guess where call of Duty 4 and 5 would place?

Four Star Games:
That’s right, Call of Duty: World at War is a four star game; it’s just that little bit too absorbing to be played casually. Arguably, it’s even more visceral than CoD4, if not quite as polished or dramatic. Also in the four star camp I’d put something like Gun - I know a lot of people hated it, but for me, I just had to keep playing more and more. Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil 4, and Fable II all belong here as well.

Five Star Games:
The biggies, these are the games that make you call in sick to work and stay up all night, the games that simply don’t let you consider the possibility of playing anything else. In here you’ll find the likes of Civilisation III, Fallout 3, Resident Evil 2, Call of Duty 4, Bioshock, Syndicate Wars and Championship Manager.

So, that’s an idea of where I’d place certain games. Now I suppose I’d better go and do some reviews. What’s next? Prototype? Fight Night? No…Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings. Alas.

What does it all mean?

Ok, with reviews of Star Ocean, Prototype and Fight Night imminent, I figure that I’d better lay out what my scores mean. Shortly after, I’ll give you an idea of what score I’d give to certain games, so you can have an idea of how I mark.

1/5: Pretty much has to be a broken game or at least so poor that you wish it was. In the vague hope that it will provide half an hour or an hour of diversion before you realise that, and because the case might come in handy, it gets one star.

2/5: Not actually broken, but no fun either. Dull, repetitive, hamstrung by difficulty issues or just lacking in any real enjoyment or point.

3/5: A perfectly acceptable game, nothing notably wrong with it, but nothing to stand it out above the crowd either. Sometimes, niche games will make it in here as well, by dint of being ideal for their target audience, but having a target audience so small that giving it a higher score would risk misleading the majority of uninterested gamers.

4/5: An excellent game, one that eliminates all other spare time possibilities. If your usual leisure time options are a trip to the pub, or picking up a good book, or watching a film, then forget it. In my opinion, a four star game will be enough fun that all your spare time will be spent on it.

5/5: Perfection is unattainable and I’m not going to pretend otherwise, but a five star game can at least be counted on to provide you with an all-consuming game experience. Forget taking over your existing free time, a five star game is one that forces you to create extra free time - cancel all your plans, forget about sleeping, phone in sick for work. If it earns five stars it will be as addictive as crack, or even really good Stilton.

What's the plan?

Ok, so the great thing about this being my blog is that I can say what I want. If my first thought about UFC Undisputed is that it contains a disturbing amount of sweaty redneck manwrestling, then I don’t have to convert that into a comment on the ‘complexities of the ground game’.

I can also offer partial opinions and reviews in progress. Frankly, there are entire forums full of professional game reviewers making trumped-up claims to how much of a game they play before writing the review - the baseline is always ‘the whole story mode’, after which the assembled hacks attempt to trump each other by adding ‘several hours of multiplayer’, ‘several hours on all the maps’ or ‘playing the story mode on a higher difficulty, completing all the mini-games and collecting all the special items’. Frankly, I’m waiting for one of those berks to claim that a review isn’t done until they’ve got a full DNA sequence of the lead programmer.

Aside from the fact that I think they’re all lying, there’s a hell of a difference between what I have to do for work and what I have to do for fun, and this blog is for my own amusement. There’s not a chance in hell that I’m going to write a review based on all three discs and 40 hours of play in Star Ocean: The Last Hope when I’ve got Prototype and Fight Night Round 4 sitting next to the Xbox and Conduit on its way for the Wii.

On top of that, it’s my blog, not a news blog, so I don’t have to be timely. When Resident Evil 5 came out, I went on a retro binge and played through Resi 1, 2, 3, 4 and 0 for nostalgia value. I intended to then jump into Resi 5 at the end of it, but strangely enough I was all zombied out, so it just sits in my pile. In any case, I can write about my enjoyment of those decade old games rather than having to worry about whether Killzone 2 being the best looking game I’ve ever seen makes up for the fact that I was a little bit bored by it.

So… you can expect unvarnished opinions that may wander off topic, but will hopefully be useful simply by dint of their honesty. You can expect reviews that might not take into account the annoying fetch quest which happens eight hours in because, hey, I got bored and something better came along, alright? And you can expect opinions, digressions and meanderings based on whatever games I happen to have loved or hated in the past that just happen to have bubbled back up to the forefront of my thoughts right now.

Essentially, this will be a blog on which a professional game reviewer behaves like an ordinary fan, and has a great deal more fun because of it.

While I work out what to do with this site, why not check out my Red Faction Guerilla review? Really, you might as well do something while you wait, because I've not had enough coffee yet to get any fresh content on here straight away.





Ooh, tough pose.