Left 4 Dead 2: Left For The Mods

I was initially planning to review Lollipop Chainsaw but since my only copy of the game is still on loan to a friend and despite the fact I have played dozens of times over, I’m still not confident about the idea of reviewing something without the subject not being there to double check so I’m doing the next best thing which L4D2 and if you are wondering how a gritty, somewhat realistic zombie apocalypse is even similar to the hack and slash glory fest that is Lollipop Chainsaw, Well one; there’s Zombies and two; you can mod the game to have Lollipop Chainsaw assets in it but enough about my love for chainsaws.

Left 4 Dead 2 is a game by Valve which you can purchase on any last gen console or PC (I will be covering the PC version) which places you as one of four survivors as you fight to one end of a map to another to reach a safe room until you escape and what you are fighting the undead and not of the Nazi kind. This is your general, fast running zombies with a couple variations chucked in of the normal zombie and couple mutations to spice the game play. You also have access to weapons because you aren’t about to fight the zombies with your fists because this isn’t Resident Evil 7 now (insert laugh track and money woes here). You always start with a pistol and access to a shotgun, a SMG, more pistols for dual wielding and a melee weapon if you are a sensible person. Later on, you can also get better weaponry like chainsaws, AKs, auto shotguns and even light machine guns if you get lucky. There is also throwables like pipe bombs, med kits and consumables like pills to help you survive and this makes life a breeze if you are being a pussy and playing standard mode with the easy difficulty. Yes, the game is a breeze when you play anything like easy or normal difficulty on the standard mode since everything pretty standard and you can enjoy the slaughter of the undead with ease with only annoyances being the special infected. I would also say the same for the Advanced and Expert modes once you have learnt the layout of the map and the standards for the AI’s actions and how to use your ammo and consumables appropriately and have proper teamwork but if you have been paying attention, I used certain words which is where I will use as my main points so let’s begin with the survivors.

I didn’t bother describing the survivors for a reason and that’s because each one is just bleh to me. I mean, we got the level headed woman, the redneck, the shady as hell con man and the fat guy who is also ironically a PE teacher (going by his name) but it doesn’t matter because all they do is change your voice over you hear because in a gameplay aspect, it doesn’t change anything at all. All the characters carry the same amount of ammo, can use all the weaponry options and have the same amount of health so there is no point in choosing a character and just go with a random option because they are all just variations of the same standard model and talking about variations, let’s talk special zombies because even though they are slightly different from each other, they actually have some change although it’s very minimal. Depending on the map, there is a variation of a zombie so for example, in “The Passing” campaign, we get riot zombies who can only be shot in the back and in “Dark Carnival”, there’s clowns with squeaky shoes that can attract hordes but yet again, none of them are major threats and serve to just be slightly more difficult cannon fodder to deal with and are ultimately gimmicks which is the same thing you can say about these campaign maps.

Each of the campaigns in these maps has a little gimmick to it which does help to not make them feel the same barring the aesthetic changes between each map. The first one, “Dead Centre” acts as your tutorial in a way as it lets you get comfortable with everything the game can throw at you and it nothing really special for a city level. It’s follow up, “The Passing” is a short filler campaign where you met the original survivors from the first game and does nothing much apart from introducing night levels. “Dark Carnival” is next and for me, this is the best one by far out of all the L4D2 campaigns. Yes, it doesn’t teach you anything new but it really takes its carnival aesthetic and run with it since we get to play carnival games, fighting zombies on attractions like coasters and end it with the survivors fighting off zombies on a stage as they signal a helicopter to pick them up with stages lightshow, all while we rocking out to the rock music that’s playing. It is followed by “Swamp Fever” which pretty much let’s fight zombies in a swamp and it’s nothing special. I mean, there is a special kind of zombies that can just crawl under the water as you wad through it which does prove as an annoyance but apart from that and the end area where you fight in a run down mansion waiting for a boat, it’s nothing spectacular. It’s followed by “Hard Rain” which is pretty much going back and forth from a gas station except in the second half, everything is flooded so it becomes an hassle on the way back. The final campaign is “The Parish” and it does nothing special. It feels like “Dead Centre” and it’s only redeeming part is the final chapter where you have to run non stop across a bridge to get to the heli. There is the “Cold Stream” campaign but it’s just set in a forest and it’s nothing special yet again. Apart from these aesthetic changes and new slight annoyances, they are just simply backdrops for shooting zombies which is great since that’s what it should be but when it comes to replayability, it doesn’t take long until you figure out all the spawn locations for items and zombies and you can only find replayability in either doing it with new players, going for the special achievements locked to those maps or doing it on a harder mode but that’s where I think it falls which is why I think you should get the PC version of the game and that’s because of glorious mods.

I mean, there is other benefits with the PC version such as getting all the DLC as well as the old campaigns from the original game for free but its biggest benefit is the addition of the Steam Workshop which means you can play the game with user made content (and they don’t charge money for it like Bestheda did) and this is both the metaphorical poison and cure that the game needs. On the bright side, this adds that much needed replayability from the addition of new campaigns and maps to play on which means you always have something new to play plus there is also mods that can change in game models and texture so you can make the game more suited for your tastes which is great for larger audience appeal but also has downsides. Let’s begin with quality of the mods. Yes, there is a large quantity of mods to use but yet again, many of them lack quality so it’s hard to get good stuff that doesn’t look like it’s been shat out of the unity engine. I mean, it’s hard to find a good original campaign which isn’t a remake of another game and a boring asset flip and this leads into another problem which is supporting your game on community made content. It doesn’t matter if that content is good or not, if you have to use community sourced content to add more to your game, you have no faith in that game to keep the audience entertained beyond the original experience. Yes, it is a fan’s way of showing their love for the game but it’s still a lack of self confidence which is unfortunate since these mods are the only way you can get past 20-30 hours of playing the game. I have ~280 hours in this game already and ~260 hours of that comes from mod usage so you can’t deny that mods adds replayability and is in fact, the only reason why I keep playing this game now. The game does have some fun as coop game and as a solo game if we were to look at the base game but without mods, it would not succeed past the 30 hour mark, yet alone 200 hours.

For me, this game is at least a 6/10 since it hard to find any enjoyment beyond the first 30 hours but even if it has to use mods to hold up now, it still a solid coop FPS and holds up with today’s standards and if you ask me, I think it’s still great to play. Just make sure to get the PC version since the console versions don’t have mod support or all the extra free DLC unless you want to fund more of EA’s micro transactions.