| Left 4 Dead 2 "Tweaked" AU Release. My Thoughts. |
[Oct. 30th, 2009|08:35 pm] |
Can't talk now. Shooting zombies.
I cannot overstate how much difference playing the uncencored version makes.
Interestingly
a) The graphics are better. I'm assuming it's because the models and animations are expecting blood and gore to 'filter' the players view.
b) It's harder. Much harder. For starters taking away the riot-not-a-cop zombie takes away the impunity of just mowing down the hoard on full-auto. (He's bullet-proofish, thereby providing cover to those behind him). But the difficulty increase is mainly due to...
c) The frentic, panicked struggle for survival is back. The blood (not just theirs), the red mist of close quarters combat. You actually have to try. It's not _actually_ harder (aside from the riot-not-a-cops, but that balances with the ability to visually confirm ranged kills) it just feels harder because the blood invokes the ingraned survival instinct. |
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| Left 4 Dead 2 AU Release. My Thoughts. |
[Oct. 30th, 2009|11:07 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | l4d2 | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Work | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | Unimpressed | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Wumpscut. | ] |
For starters I'm officially renaming it Left 4 Disneyland.
Additionally, it's fun but... meh? It brings nothing interesting. From the Demo, L4D1 is better (and not just because of the censorship). Hopefully the full game will bring more niftyness.
Melee weapons are either overpowered (I played through the demo using only the machete (once I found one in the kitchen) and the only reason I fell was attacking a witch with it :P) or useless (The guitar sounds cool when you hit something with it but the swing time is... well... fairly accurate), hence it make a fairly useless weapon.
Different Characters? Don't care. I miss Bill though. He was the only one (inc L4D2) I identified with at all. Hands up who's surprised.
Level design was fine, but short (I'll give them benefit of the doubt on this one - it's a demo after all).
Was it just me, or is there way too much ammo?
The graphics are absurdly outdated. The source engine needs a major overhaul. Even with everything on maximum it looks tired. Like I've installed on old game for nostalgia. A quick googling shows the source engine still being DX9 (with a few tweaks), which makes sense because that's the horrid past the 360 is stuck in along with, and I quote, "wawawawaaaaaVistaistehshitz0rzmyfreindsayssosoitsgay" so with such a (relatively) small install base of DX10 users, Valve haven't had much incentive to improve. Here's hoping the cock-slapping Win7 is giving the xp holdouts fixes this before L4D3.
Adrenaline, Chest Paddles, Boomer-Bile? *shrugs* The bile was kinda fun the first time. Still prefer pipe-bombs though.
Different special infected? The spitty-green-shit one is one of the best examples of how bad the graphics look. Mmm... Angular puddles... The jockey would have been better if he was actually dressed as one. I like that the witches walk around now.
The censorship. ... ....... ... Fuck.
For starters it makes it really hard to tell if your long range head-shot has actually hit them in the head without the splatter, Slowing down sniper rate of fire while they wait for the drop animation.
Additionally, and here's the fun bit - it's worked exactly as intended. Th 'infected' are completely dehumanized. Taking away the corpses, and the dismemberment, and even the blood (wtf, seriously?) has turned it from frantic "Survive the oncoming hoard" - to "click that sprite otherwise the bar on the bottom of the screen with reduce slightly." Even when swarmed with zombies, wait sorry I mean Humans infected with a rabies like virus, there's no urgency. It's like they're utterly irrelevant obstacles while you look for the exit to the level.
As a result the whole thing feels utterly consequence free. In every other game I shoot someone, it's (was) a person. I'm aware of that, and what it means. That doesn't stop me giggling like a maniac in UT3, but that's because I'm also aware it's a game.
And that's what the censors are concerned about. Apparently little Timmy can't separate games from reality, so if he thinks killing people in video games is OK, he'll kill people in real-life too. Or something. So by dehumanizing the video-game opponents it means Timmy wont kill in real life, right? Just like (proper) Military training. Dehumanize the opponent so you don't think twice about shooting them. There's no consequences. Isn't that right Timmy?
As a result it is my conclusion that the AU(German) censorship of L4D2 will inevitably lead to mass violence by children who shouldn't have been playing the game in the first place - and wouldn't have been with a R18+ - and before long we'll have naked-man-pyramids build by bewildered children wondering why everyone is complaining? they haven't done anything wrong, have they? |
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