Update: Left 4 Dead 2 Is Free On Steam, Merry Christmas!

[Steven Bogos]

Update: Left 4 Dead 2 Is Free On Steam, Merry Christmas!

Valve is getting into the holiday spirit by making its zombie shooter, Left 4 Dead 2, completely free to download on Steam.

Merry Christmas everyone! To help you get into the holiday spirit, the Left 4 Dead 2 team have a very special announcement. For a limited time only, you can download and add Left 4 Dead 2 to your Steam library [http://store.steampowered.com/app/550/] for the low, low price of $0. That's right, Left 4 Dead 2 is now completely free for all Steam users, and as long as you install the game before 10AM PST 12/26, it's yours forever. After this time, it goes back to its regular price of $19.99.

"But what if I already own Left 4 Dead 2, Steven?" You may be asking. Well, all current players can earn the achievement - Ghost of Christmas Present - Spread cheer by helping a free holiday player survive a campaign. Don't be a Grinch on Christmas and help a newbie out!

The team also offers a few quick tips for new players:

Before the game: HOOK UP YOUR MICROPHONE! Communication is important in L4D2. Make sure you can keep in contact with your teammates.

In Game: stay with your teammates. L4D2 is all about teamwork and leaving your dentist friend behind to go off on your own will only get you killed. It doesn't matter that you glow!

Post Game: Make friends. If you are having fun with a group, send them friend invites or join a common group.

There's not really much more to say, here's a free game for Christmas! Even if you already have it, be sure to tell all your friends who don't.

Source: Left 4 Dead 2 blog [http://www.l4d.com/blog/post.php?id=12152]

Update: That's all folks! The free deal is over and Left 4 Dead 2 has returned to its discounted price of $9.99.

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[Jadak]

Not really a L4D fan, but haven't tried it since the original and hard to object to owning the sequel for free. Will give it a shot later.

 

[Urgh76]

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Merry Christmas to all

 

[Metalrocks]

does it mean i will get my money back

anyway, thats really nice of them. even when i have payed for it when it came out.

 

[Psychobabble]

Thanks for the heads up Steven. Would have missed this otherwise.

 

[Rad Party God]

Perfect gift for my nephew, I own(ed) the retail disc, I created a new account for him with L4D2 on it and I gave him my retail disk, plus I bought him Magicka and Natural Selection 2.

He liked my gift ^.^

 

[Sarge034]

You know what would really be cool? If they gave out L4D for free. You know, the GOOD one.

Anyway, it is cool that Valve is doing something for the holidays.

 

[Bindal]

Less "Merry Christmas" and more "F*ck you, guys!" in my opinion, as L4D1 Fan.

You know what would really be cool? If they gave out L4D for free. You know, the GOOD one.

But that would mean they had to admit it existed - and they obviously try constantly to ignore it whenever they can.

 

[Falterfire]

You know what would really be cool? If they gave out L4D for free. You know, the GOOD one.

As somebody who isn't the hugest fan of the series, why is the first one regarded as so much better than the second? I though they even added all the original campaigns to the second as DLC? What makes the first one better?

 

[weirdee]

install = press the button in the store. don't actually have to install it, it'll just register as you "owning" it.

 

[Xan Krieger]

So Valve gives me nothing for Christmas, already own left 4 dead 1 and 2. Don't play them often but I got them cheap. My problem was that I had a guy on my team who shouted YOLO and ran ahead of everyone which meant we only had 3 effective players instead of 4. Players like that take all the fun out of multiplayer games.

 

[Something Amyss]

You know what would really be cool? If they gave out L4D for free. You know, the GOOD one.

Anyway, it is cool that Valve is doing something for the holidays.

Why would they do that when they can charge 20 bucks for it most of the year?

I suppose it's nice that they're giving away a four year old game, though.

 

[Erttheking]

*looks up* there's something wrong when a company can give something away for free and people criticize them about it.

 

[AuronFtw]

For people who didn't play L4D at the time, there was a fairly big list of bugfixes and balance issues people wanted implemented. Valve started tackling this list, editing various maps to prevent some of the more egregious cheese tactics, but after a very short time, announced L4D2 and almost immediately stopped updating 1. A full price standalone game instead of bugfixes for their current (and not old by any stretch of the imagination) game was a pretty eyebrow-raising move, especially since this is valve "we hate releasing games" corp.

When l4d2 DID come out, in addition to featuring shittier maps, it had 4 characters all competing with sliced bread for the blandest thing in the entire universe award. Their dialog wasn't funny, it wasn't witty, they had zero memorable inter-character bickering or commentary, and after L4D 1 was packed to the gills with amusing one-liners and comments you'd only hear occasionally but would crack you up, it felt like a massive step down. Then, to piss on the whole thing some more, you encounter the original (much more fun) team in a mission only to see one of the members

Spoiler

bite the dust off-screen.

The fans were pretty outraged. As penance for releasing such a shitty half-finished half-assed product, they tried to appease anyone still playing that shlock by porting over the good maps to 2.

But that still leaves the biggest problem; the entire melee mechanic was changed. In 1, melee attacks (the pushback) could be mashed to reliably keep zombies from reaching you, at the cost of, yknow, not being able to shoot and having to keep looking at them hampering your ability to move around the map. In 2, they added a forced cooldown period on melee swings, aka "the characters in l4d2 all have asthma in addition to being bland and forgettable," which was a big enough change to fuck up longtime players and it didn't really make combat more difficult, just more annoying (especially multiplayer, when meleeing at the "right time" could run into lag and you'd swing early or late, leaving you waiting on a cooldown to swing again and hope this time it actually connects with a zombie).

The tldr version? Shitty boring characters, shitty maps (fixed with dlc, woo?), shitty melee asthma attacks, shitty too-soon cash grab, and all at the cost of the original game's planned updates and bugfixes. Oh, and another full price game.

Free is what this game should have been to begin with. A free "hey, did you like playing L4D but would like a more mediocre version with worse VAs and writing? Check out this DLC!" DLC pack.

I can't be all negative though; one of the best additions in 2 was the spitter. A common cheese tactic in l4d1 expert was holing up in a room or behind/under some crates with all 4 people and just slaughtering a horde as they walked into line of sight. Spitters exploded into AoE clouds upon death, which forced players to get out of their cubby hole and actually put some effort into killing zombies. +1 for that change.

 

[Sarge034]

As somebody who isn't the hugest fan of the series, why is the first one regarded as so much better than the second? I though they even added all the original campaigns to the second as DLC? What makes the first one better?

L4D is "the good one"? ...Considering that the entirety of L4D exists in L4D2, then how the fuck does that even work?

The big thing is that they added too many new infected and broke the balance. In L4D you could have at the most 2 insta-incap and one delayed incap infected while playing. In L4D2 you could have a full team of 4 insta-incap infected. The spitter, that projects an acid AOE, completely destroyed the only working tactics for surviving expert mode. Everything else is personal taste including; music, character personality, level design, and aesthetics. In short, it was skill that determined winners in L4D. The infected win in L4D2.

Why would they do that when they can charge 20 bucks for it most of the year?

I suppose it's nice that they're giving away a four year old game, though.

I see. Bait people in with the shit one and charge people for the better one...

 

[SomebodyNowhere]

I deserved the achievement I got after taking some brand new people through one of the campaigns. It was much more difficult than I expected(and I was doing crash course, I couldn't imagine how taxing it would have felt doing a full length campaign)

regarding which game is better, I personally don't care. I liked both. They both had things about them that I enjoyed and I am happy with the time I've spent playing them and wouldn't give up that time if I could.

 

[Skeleon]

Well, sure, I'll take that for free, thanks. Even if it is the "low violence version" because I'm located in Germany and apparently not allowed to play uncut imports according to Steam. Another reason why I dislike it, by the way: I can easily import boxed games from the UK with amazon or whatever, but Steam seems to think it's my mother. Back when I was 15 years younger. And not living in my own home.

By the way, are the other campaigns automatically in there or are they separate DLC? Because I can't find the usual DLC-button in my game library where you can see the DLC that's available. So I have to assume it's all included?!

 

[Bindal]

You know what would really be cool? If they gave out L4D for free. You know, the GOOD one.

Less "Merry Christmas" and more "F*ck you, guys!" in my opinion, as L4D1 Fan.

L4D is "the good one"? ...Considering that the entirety of L4D exists in L4D2, then how the fuck does that even work?

Entirely different gameplay? Maps and Characters alone don't make "the entire content", you know? And L4D2 has pretty much the opposite gameplay than L4D1.

 

[Mr.Fable]

You know what would really be cool? If they gave out L4D for free. You know, the GOOD one.

Less "Merry Christmas" and more "F*ck you, guys!" in my opinion, as L4D1 Fan.

L4D is "the good one"? ...Considering that the entirety of L4D exists in L4D2, then how the fuck does that even work?

Entirely different gameplay? Maps and Characters alone don't make "the entire content", you know? And L4D2 has pretty much the opposite gameplay than L4D1.

Care to explain how they are opposites? They really don't feel that different,IMO, of course.