Tuesday, November 18th 2008

Zombies!

After being forced by co-workers to buy Left 4 Dead, I would like to say that I'm glad that I did. 

We just had a little session this morning and it was a ton of fun.  Some parts are pretty difficult, but it's fun to try and come up with a way to make it out alive.  The coolest/craziest part is when a zombie horde comes after you.  It can be up to 50 or so zombies running at you and your team all at once and it can get nutty.

For some reason, my brain isn't working well, so my thoughts aren't making it into this blog very well.  I'll give this another go later.

Comments

  • I just bought this for me and a buddy of mine and we love it.  We finished the first scenario and got near the end of the second but died at the church before the server crashed.  You should add me on steam!
    My id is
    stonetheforbidden
    P.S. Why does it say Sunday, May 3rd 2008 on your post title?
    Stone
    Stone  Level 26JournalistWeblog CommenterIt's All RelativeAlways Right
    reply
    11/19/2008 5:11 am
    • Ha, I never actually programmed the date.  All I did was put that date value in there.  Whoops!

      I'll fix that tonight.
      justin
      justin  Level 29JournalistIt's All RelativeExtra CommentaryWeblog CommenterAlways Right
      reply
      11/19/2008 6:11 am
  • This is one of the few new PC games I've managed to play this year, and I'm pretty sure I'll be playing it for a long time once I actually buy (and stop mooching from roommates).  By far, my favorite part of the game is Versus mode, but that's mostly because I like the challenge of out-thinking human players.

    Hopefully they put some work into their system for setting up online games.  The lobbies are nice, but it's a hard to coordinate a Versus game with 2 friends and 5 random online players without having a ton of people join and leave your lobby for 10 minutes.
    mikkl
    mikkl  Level 11
    reply
    11/30/2008 11:11 am
    • Versus is a ton of fun.  We just started playing that at the office a little bit and being a zombie is so fun, especially when you are the tank =)  I gotta work on my strategy as a zombie though, because they always seem to make it to the end.

      Is it just me or is being a smoker 99% pointless?  It's nice when you can pull a lone guy away from the pack, but most of the time, something gets in the way so that you can't pull them all the way to you.
      justin
      justin  Level 29JournalistIt's All RelativeExtra CommentaryWeblog CommenterAlways Right
      reply
      11/30/2008 12:11 pm
      • I felt the same way about Smokers until I played them a few times with a coordinated group of friends.  They're pretty awesome, but definitely not front-line attackers.  Like you said, they're mostly good at getting that lone player, but here are a few other scenarios where they're effective:

        -Most of the survivors are somehow temporarily out of action (hit  by boomer/hunter or incapacitated), so you can pull out the most effective remaining player and prevent him from helping his teammates.  While you may only get a few hits, so will your teammates, which is much more valuable.
        -A deluge of zombies comes at the group and everyone's focused in one direction.  If you can get the right angle, you can pull a rear player out while while everyone else is getting trigger happy.
        -Any situation where pulling a player off of a ledge or something will set the group back for a couple of minutes until they run back.  This gives time for setting up another attack, zombies to respawn, and most importantly, delays their progress.
        -Pulling players out of a defensive area into cover (to protect you) or better yet: fire or a horde of zombies.  During the final zombie rush of each chapter, a Smoker can pull a survivor out of the defensive structure which can sometimes kill them or disrupt the group enough that they get overrun.
        -Beginning a coordinated trap.  I think this is the hardest to get right, but it's pretty awesome.  Basically, search ahead for a good group of zombies.  Then, try to grab the leader if he runs ahead a little so that you pull him past all of the zombies (across as much of the map as possible).  If the Boomer can hit the other survivors, the leader's pretty much dead on his own and the hunters can hopefully finish the rest off.  Usually, if the Boomer fails to hit at least 2 survivors, the plan fails.

        Unfortunately, we've really only played against random players, so whether or not these strategies will work on a coordinated team is unsure.  The L4D community is still a little young, so we'll see how that develops.
        mikkl
        mikkl  Level 11
        reply
        11/30/2008 1:11 pm

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justin's Top Games

  1. Final Fantasy VII (PSX, PC)
  2. Metal Gear Solid (PSX)
  3. Mega Man 2 (NES)

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