New video game releases of 2/13-2/19
Indie Jeff's Weekly Pick: Gunpoint
Daily Filter: Mass Effect 3, Alan Wake's American Nightmare
Blizzard files opposition to Valve's Dota trademark
Twisted Metal promotion blows up Sweet Tooth's truck
Shack PSA: Left 4 Dead Demo Released
by Nick Breckon and Chris Faylor, Nov 06, 2008 7:25am PSTUpdate: Right on time, the Left 4 Dead PC demo has been released via Steam and is now accessible to those that have pre-ordered the game. The demo will be provided to the non-pre-ordering public come November 11, with the game itself due November 18.
Original Story: Valve has announced that the early access demo for its co-op zombie shooter Left 4 Dead will begin tomorrow morning.
The company expects the demo to go live at 2 AM PST on Xbox 360, with the PC version hitting five hours later at 7 AM PST. The trial includes the first two levels of the hospital-themed No Mercy campaign, playable in both online and offline co-op mode.
Early access to the demo can only be gained by pre-ordering the title, either from Steam or GameStop/EB Games. The same pre-order promotion also offers a 10% discount on the game.
Comments
Long rant in reply.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 22 replies.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 25 replies.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 12 replies.
Things I liked:
- Command Rose, every multiplayer game should heartily rip of BF2 on this, once you know the layout its often quicker than physically talking for important things.
- Seeing your allies through walls. Seeing thier health and items. Often the hardest thing in a co-op game is keeping track of other players. Here its a doddle.
- Tutorial Text. To be fair, its not an amazingly complex game anyhows but I liked the way the hud gave help as you play it. It really saved me from noob syndrome. The interface in general works.
- I only played through the Demo 3 times in co-op so far but the AI Director works brilliantly from what I can tell.
Gripes, which you have read already in sure:
- 3.2 gig for 2 maps?! Am I missing something here or is that a huge size for what it is? Maybe its a hard game to shrink...hmm.
- Graphics are showing thier age quite alot though coming from Farcry 2 probably dont help. Not horrible, and some good animation. But just nothing to wow here in particular.
- Matchmaking. I see what its trying to do, I see why it should be the preferred way to play, it just doesnt work how I imagine it should. Plenty of other comments have covered this though so ill shh. but its definatly in the realm of "Fixable" though.
I guess my overriding thought is thus:
On my first run though with a bunch of randoms, We evolved from a reckless rabble to a well versed (for a bunch of noobs) fighting force. The genuine acts of mishaps, panic and selfless heroics at times was such that I actually developed an odd sense of comaraderie with them by the end. That feeling definatly either makes me emotionally dead inside in real life or that Valve/Turtle Rock has captured the essense of coop here better than most efforts.
Thumbs up.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 6 replies.
There have been lots of complaints about the matchmaking system. Personally, I don't mind using one, but their current system needs a lot more polish before the game is officially released. Fortunately, Valve patched in a server browser that can be accessed with a console command and got the matchmaking system working a bit more smoothly. I'm sure it will be working near-perfectly when the game is released.
The only thing I'm really concerned about is the difficulty. Easy is pointless unless you're a squad of 4-year-olds. Normal is the real easy. Advanced provides an adequate challenge, but Expert is where the real fun is at. Most people will end up forgetting about the other difficulty modes not long after the game is released, playing Expert exclusively. While Expert is challenging for the average pick up group, it becomes far less challenging when you have a group of smart and experienced players. Getting into a group full of these sorts of players will become far more common as people get good, which will happen fast. While the AI Director does shake things up a bit, it also has its limitations. There is a threshold of possibilities that the AI Director can trigger. The game will become a bit more predictable when people figure all these possibilities out and play cautiously based on what could happen, and Expert won't be so challenging anymore.
This means you'll have to go to Versus mode for a real challenge, but I'm sure that some of us would rather stick with the basic Campaign mode. In summary, it would be nice to have a difficulty mode beyond Expert that's nearly impossible, even for experienced players. Hell, they could even call it "Impossible". All they'd really have to do to accomplish this is keep all the qualities that Expert mode currently has, but make the zombies do significantly more damage. Unfortunately, I don't foresee "Impossible" mode happening anytime soon. Excellent game regardless. Nov 18th can't come soon enough.
http://www.left4dead411.com/news/2008/11/server-browser-available/
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 2 replies.
However, console style auto-matchmaking for the PC is **********FUCKING********** STUPID********!!! I don't think I can emphasize how utterly retarted it is. They try to make it easy for a downs kid to click one button and play but the system ends up horridly failing.
Half the time there aren't enough dedicated servers. Half the time those servers ping 200+. Half the time I'm being matched up with people from Europe and Asia. I spend more time searching for games with the autojoin than playing.
There's no server list. There's no way to host a dedicated server. No way to see pings except when you actually join the game, enable dev console and type "ping".
Versus mode will never take off with 8 people connected to some kid's 56k in China. WHAT THE FUCK VALVE THIS IS HORSESHIT FIX IT
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 14 replies.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 5 replies.
Just like TF2. Just like all of Valve's products since HL2.
Come on.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 7 replies.
Run the left4dead.exe
Supposedly you can play the demo through that :)
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 4 replies.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 11 replies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRFBWQU_yJ0 - the Witch .. if startled
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0KdiB8OrYc - zombies + tank
Can select High Quality on both.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 2 replies.
Pro
- The graphics are phenomenal. I am a Crysis graphics whore, the worst kind. I think these are as good as CoD4 or thereabouts. I'm running maxed out with AA at 1920x1200 and it looks great. No complaints. Maybe it could look better, but I like the art. Kind of how I think Max Payne 1 still looks great.
- The game is fun and gets funner when you work with the same people and those people are good at the game. A proper team with a proper leader will be able to beat expert mode with work.
- Basic gameplay is alot of fun. No wandering around looking for ammo like zombie panic. Lots of zombies. The AI director provides for unique powerup locations and zombie patterns.
- Controls feel good. Not as good as CS:S but still good. Teamwork mechanics work very well and everything inside the actual game is well polished.
Con
- The game is not really fun to me at normal difficulty or below.
- The matchmaking system is a disaster. There are not enough dedicated servers, so lots of people are falling back to hosting their own.... which falls to my next point
- No one has a connection or CPU powerful enough to host their own game. No one. WTF
- The lack of a server browser is more than annoying, it's obnoxious
- Buggy as fuck. If you vote for "go back to lobby" your entire party gets booted to the main menu. The game crashed to desktop twice for me in 6 hours of playing.
- Poor integration between lobby system and steam in some cases. "invite players to game" from within the game brings up a steam friends list, but you cant tell which of your friends are already involved in other games, and sometimes there is no option to actually invite your friends to the server you are on, which begs the question: why is the menu option labelled "invite friends" when steam wont let me do it
- You can't see from the friends matchmaking area who else is in your friend's game
- You can't edit your controls or options from within a lobby
- Seriously the matchmaking is completely half assed and buggy. It's not as though there isn't an example of perfection in this territory (Halo 3). All valve had to do was copy Halo 3. But its like no one is there to really do the polish. If you ask me, this is completely uncharacteristic of valve, as their stuff is usually extremely polished.
- Lots of dropped connections, probably because no one can find a server and their "host your own" fallback is garbage
Summary:
The game itself is the best example yet of zombie coop play. It is a phenomenal coop game, easily up there with Gears of War 2 in my opinion. The game itself is great and has very few bugs. But the backend greatly suffers. Matchmaking is poorly done and lacking in polish, as well as buggy. Terrible server efficiency means you cannot host a game and play a game on the same computer, which is currently a serious problem due to the lack of dedicated servers. And there may not ever be many servers because the matchmaking system kind of takes the motivation from server admins to run servers for this game.
8/10, needs more cooking in the oven (and i was MEGA hyped for this game)
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 4 replies.
lo-fucking-l, infact.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 2 replies.
http://www.shacknews.com/laryn.x?id=18394769
No code and it sounds like I might not even get one at this point.
EB sucks because they can't set up an automated system to send out the keys.
Valve sucks because Steam wouldn't let me pre-order the game and they didn't just print out cards to give to retailers.
ugh, I still love Valve, I just want to love Left 4 Dead :(
Does anyone know if it affects LAN play? Is there the ability to setup LAN games?
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 5 replies.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 11 replies.
With Left 4 Dead, and its matchmaking service, you can do that even easier. If your favourite server is full, you don't have to mess around giving your friends IPs or alt tabbing out or whatever. You just select your friends and select play and you don't have to think about anything else. It's so damn easy, and once we get past the first few technical issues I'm sure people won't miss the server browser at all.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 7 replies.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 16 replies.
then click the custom tab.
No idea if it works that was pulled from the L4D steampowerd forum.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 4 replies.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 2 replies.
... :(
I was expecting more maybe? I know the shackhype is through the roof, myself included, but it just didn't seem, all that great.... I only got to play an hour on my lunch break... I dunno... I'll give it some more play later but... graphics maxed it looked... not even as good as hl2.... andddd... I dunno theres not much variety. I have it preordered and I'm just excited as the rest of you, but... damn I dunno it just wasn't as good as I thought it would be...
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 23 replies.
Despite my comments about the demo's appearance, I still really enjoyed playing it as it is exactly what I expected gameplay-wise (the versus mode should rock). I'm definitely going to hold out until I can try it on my PC to decide.
Not stop bitching everyone and let's get some dedicated servers up for me to play on!
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 6 replies.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 2 replies.
I'm at work, but I believe you can just bust open a console:
connect 64.72.82.16
Come join the Shacknews community channel if you need help. Anyway, enough slacking off, back to work for me! (I'll slap this in the latest chatty too I guess)
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 3 replies.
I have to admit, for a Steam game, this seems overly expensive. Even games like Half-Life 2 Complete are only $35. Team Fortress 2 is only $20.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 3 replies.
These aren't valve servers, these are servers hosted by you and the rest of the dedicated server community which has provided, at their own expense, places for me to play games for the last 20 years.
World in Conflict has a quick server join feature too, and it pairs you with friends too. But there is also a button for the traditional server browser, with which you can find your private server, or servers where your friends are, or servers with a particular ping or region, or servers with a particular game setting or mod.
Adding quick matches is good, but downgrading from the status quo by removing a staple feature is bad. I think it disrespects the server operators as well as the players.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 12 replies.
Really though. PC games give you so much more control over every aspect of playing a computer game, that is the upside. I am saddened by this move and baffled that there are actually 3 people out there that would defend it.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 2 replies.
The last few days and still today Steam will not let me add L4D to my cart to pre-order. So I gave up and want to hit up EB to pre-order. Now, it says I can play the demo today if I pre-order through EB/Gamestop. Anyone know how that works? Do I get a code that I enter into Steam and get to download the demo?
Please help Shack, you are my only hope.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 9 replies.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 3 replies.
http://www.gamestop.com/gs/landing/l4dearly/default.aspx
Thanks to reznory for the info.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 5 replies.
i mean its fun the first time.. but im not sure about the replay value of this game
it seems to be just some zombie mod that you randomly shoot easy moving NPCs.. save your friend here.. and there..
reminds me of that Serious Sam game.. fun a few times.. but gets super old fast
i pre-ordered.. so i guess i will find out in the full version with the other 19 maps, weapons, user controlled zombies etc..
i think it would be better if the zombies were player controlled too.. zombies vs. good guys...
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 2 replies.
You know u DA man!!
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 2 replies.