Review: Left 4 Dead

smallharmlesskitten

Not David Bowie
Apr 3, 2008
2,645
0
0
The_root_of_all_evil said:
Well, I've played as Zoey versus two 'schwein' friends of mine and I managed the first 3 levels purely by running for the exit at all times.

They're far better shots than me, so they took their time to finish me off. The Hunter and the Tank are a mare to control at times, but nothing is better than a Boomer within a horde.

Any serious player should be able to drop a Smoker with ease, unless he gets some fool off on their own.

And the dirtiest trick of all: Get a Boomer or Smoker to stand behind the Witch. :)
Or get the Tank to throw a car with an alarm on... I hated that move. Happened to me twice
 

ElArabDeMagnifico

New member
Dec 20, 2007
3,775
0
0
milskidasith said:
Smoker's are too weak. They hit too slow and take forever to kill their opponent, and have a horrible recharge time on their toungue. If they did, like, double the damage of the hunter when they hit, I'd be OK with them, but hunters are NEVER worse than smokers except in areas with lots of rooftops and no branching paths (and even then, it's a tie at best).

To the above: There are dirtier tricks than standing near a witch... such as binding K to kill for boomers. You can explode without the survivors having a chance to push you away.

I like the smoker, just stay behind the group and get the last one in line while you are around a corner, they rush to get him/her, then a boomer or 2 hunters cause chaos.

OR

It's lovely when helping out a tank, or catching people before they go to the rescue vehicle, or pulling people through their molotovs (the dirtiest trick of all) but most importantly, if you can get them in an awkward position, then you can kill them without having to compromise yourself! The tounge recharge is pretty much the nerf of the smoker, but he's gotta grow a new one since they cut yours off anyway.
 

milskidasith

New member
Jul 4, 2008
531
0
0
ElArabDeMagnifico said:
milskidasith said:
Smoker's are too weak. They hit too slow and take forever to kill their opponent, and have a horrible recharge time on their toungue. If they did, like, double the damage of the hunter when they hit, I'd be OK with them, but hunters are NEVER worse than smokers except in areas with lots of rooftops and no branching paths (and even then, it's a tie at best).

To the above: There are dirtier tricks than standing near a witch... such as binding K to kill for boomers. You can explode without the survivors having a chance to push you away.

I like the smoker, just stay behind the group and get the last one in line while you are around a corner, they rush to get him/her, then a boomer or 2 hunters cause chaos.

OR

It's lovely when helping out a tank, or catching people before they go to the rescue vehicle, or pulling people through their molotovs (the dirtiest trick of all) but most importantly, if you can get them in an awkward position, then you can kill them without having to compromise yourself! The tounge recharge is pretty much the nerf of the smoker, but he's gotta grow a new one since they cut yours off anyway.
Except for dragging people into awkward positions, the hunter always outclasses the smoker. Even in places with many areas where you could drag a survivor from on a roof or down from where he is, it's always a tradeoff between damage and safety. I've seen smokers used to great effect, but I've never really thought "Damn, if only we had a smoker" or thought "that smoker is unquestionably the reason why we won, and it would have been worse with a hunter"
 

MyFiyaBePurged O_o

New member
Sep 21, 2008
10
0
0
ok i must say after reading the review and posts i opted to buy the game instead of paying bills...because im a responsible adult...and i swear after playing it...i joygasmed in my pants. First time I saw a tank come barreling around a corner i swear the neighbors heard me sh*t myself. This game will definitely be one of those things that gives me plenty of oh sh*t moments.
Only thing that pissed me off was this one kid was so excited about propane tanks that he would pick them up, run around, and boast about how white and smooth it was. So i shot it and blew him up. ^_^
 

ElArabDeMagnifico

New member
Dec 20, 2007
3,775
0
0
milskidasith said:
Except for dragging people into awkward positions, the hunter always outclasses the smoker. Even in places with many areas where you could drag a survivor from on a roof or down from where he is, it's always a tradeoff between damage and safety. I've seen smokers used to great effect, but I've never really thought "Damn, if only we had a smoker" or thought "that smoker is unquestionably the reason why we won, and it would have been worse with a hunter"
The tradeoff between the two is distance. While the hunter can pounce and fuck things up, he has to get up close, which makes him vulnerable, especially since melee is the bane of the hunter, and practically useless when the group is together - so many times have people just shot a hunter on someone while they were downed, but can't get a smoker because he's too far off. Smokers will pull them apart which will cause the group to run back or something, boomers will cause chaos and blind the other half of the group, then the hunters go in for the kill. Smoker was the spark that lit the fire!

That's just a scenario I had and it's a winning combo most of the time - outclassed or not, smokers are vital - and blood harvest is smoker heaven because of all the elevated positions and how easy it is to pull people out of the house in the finale, and heaven for the other 2 because of all the hiding spots.

I do think the hunter is better than the smoker in general, but I've definitely had those 2 thoughts you quoted come to my mind very often. I've also thought "That smoker is why we LOST" too.
 

milskidasith

New member
Jul 4, 2008
531
0
0
ElArabDeMagnifico said:
milskidasith said:
Except for dragging people into awkward positions, the hunter always outclasses the smoker. Even in places with many areas where you could drag a survivor from on a roof or down from where he is, it's always a tradeoff between damage and safety. I've seen smokers used to great effect, but I've never really thought "Damn, if only we had a smoker" or thought "that smoker is unquestionably the reason why we won, and it would have been worse with a hunter"
The tradeoff between the two is distance. While the hunter can pounce and fuck things up, he has to get up close, which makes him vulnerable, especially since melee is the bane of the hunter, and practically useless when the group is together - so many times have people just shot a hunter on someone while they were downed, but can't get a smoker because he's too far off. Smokers will pull them apart which will cause the group to run back or something, boomers will cause chaos and blind the other half of the group, then the hunters go in for the kill. Smoker was the spark that lit the fire!

That's just a scenario I had and it's a winning combo most of the time - outclassed or not, smokers are vital - and blood harvest is smoker heaven because of all the elevated positions and how easy it is to pull people out of the house in the finale, and heaven for the other 2 because of all the hiding spots.

I do think the hunter is better than the smoker in general, but I've definitely had those 2 thoughts you quoted come to my mind very often. I've also thought "That smoker is why we LOST" too.
To your first example: Grouped together people are the bane of smokers far more than hunters. Here's the scenario whenever I see people close together.

Smoker: Tangles up somebody, the tangled guy gets meleed by friends, they fire a few autoshotty rounds in the direction of the tongue.

Hunter: Not counting pounce damage, which can, by simply angling it high, deal 10 damage even to a perfectly spread out (no pounce knockback) group, but you can also get three guaranteed hits in if everybody gets pounce knockbacked.

Hunters die in close range, true, but they deal a good amount of damage, while smokers against tight knit groups can't do much except maybe drag the guy covering their six a few feet away to a range where there is no pounce knockback and hunters are worse because of it.

Also, if somebody is in the house on Blood Harvest, they are doing it wrong. Barn is way better, and there is enough time between the big waves and the tanks to run into the house, heal, and get outside where you can best fight the tank.
 

ElArabDeMagnifico

New member
Dec 20, 2007
3,775
0
0
Oh, good tip with Blood Harvest, have no idea why I didn't think of that, but then again, a smoker could be the one to pull someone out and at least distract them long enough to get some hunters and a boomer in. I also usually use the smoker tongue when together with a boomer, and hunter knockback like you said (I forgot about that, they use to not have a knockback effect), but I guess that goes to show that the smoker on his own is pretty much useless. Then again, it isn't his purpose.

Actually now that you mention it I just remembered how much I hate that damn knockback effect. The smoker needs to make a cloud of smoke on whoever he tangles or something, he needs an annoyance too!

EDIT: Hunter knockback in action [http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=1054#Left4Dead]
 

SlayerGhede

New member
Jan 13, 2008
31
0
0
I wish you had mentioned some of the issues surrounding versus mode.

The AI director is unpredictable, while one team gets a swarm halfway through the level, another could get it right at the beginning. While one team can get a tank in a strategically advantageous position, another can get it while the survivors are in a prime defensive position, or worse, not at all. With distance being the goal for survivors, this severely unbalances the gameplay. A close match is not so much a test of skill as the mood of the capricious director.

*edit* Just noticed there were two pages, and someone already mentioned that. I'm still keeping it. I spent a lot of time wording that to make me sound a lot more intelligent than I actually am. Lack of sleep helps, for some reason I use more of my vocabulary when I can't keep my eyes open.

The PC server experience is dismal at best. With the privately owned dedicated servers running nearly whatever rulesets they desire, and lobbies having no way of deciding what server side variables are kosher, gameplay can be unpredictable at best, exploitable at worst. Password locked private servers are a pain-in-the-ass and a half to join, and experience numerous glitches and bugs (random difficulty/mode changes if they are preset, lack of lobby for rematch, unjoinable on friends list etc.) not seen in dedicated servers. They essentially developed multiplayer for the 360 and copied that 'feature' for 'feature' over to the PC, a move which has upset many core PC gamers.

All issues which I hope will eventually be addressed, but it's not the best way to show support for your main market. Knowing them it will be patched shortly... valve time.
 

Hendar23

New member
Feb 25, 2008
19
0
0
"Valve has created the first game truly worthy of the word "cooperative,""

Games journalists should check their facts.

www.coopordie.com
 

ElArabDeMagnifico

New member
Dec 20, 2007
3,775
0
0
SlayerGhede said:
All issues which I hope will eventually be addressed, but it's not the best way to show support for your main market. Knowing them it will be patched shortly... valve time.
Yeah they are changing the matchmaking for the PC version.
 

Proto Cloud

New member
Jun 25, 2008
145
0
0
Loving this game so far, but the only problem I have is that in the final chapter of each movie! Everytime I get into one of those standoffs, something ALWAYS goes horribly wrong (friends leave me to die, just as rescue comes in we get swarmed, team mates fail to gel). Another problem I have is that the difficulty curve between Normal and Advanced is a bit ridiculous. It's between too damn hard (you need some SERIOUS cooperation or you're done!) and too damn easy (little to no assistance needed).

Besides that it's great and you gotta love using the "TAKE A BREAK" function. Excellent for food and bathroom breaks!
 

BillBarilko

New member
May 6, 2008
109
0
0
I'm thinking about getting this on PC, but I'd like to know how easy it is to get into games in multiplayer - not very many of my friends are gamers, and the ones who are play on consoles. Is the maximum number of players limited to 8 (4 Survivors, 4 Zombies)? Sorry if that's a dumb question, but that's the impression I've gotten from what I've read so far.