Thursday, July 16, 2009

Left 4 Dead 2 Hands-On Preview







The world of zombie-related media is often full of nods, homages and references. Despite a lawsuit claiming plagiarism the initial moments of Dead Rising, a human dropped by helicopter into a shopping mall filled with zombies is quite obviously a reverent bow to George Romero’s dawn of the Dead. The house defending scene from Resident Evil 4 felt like
something from the original Night of the Living Dead or any number of other horror films.
Not to be outdone, the folks developing Left 4 Dead 2 have put in their own
loving tribute, but this time to a far more modern piece of zombie lore: Shaun of the Dead. No, you won’t be hurling records at the shambling corpses, but you’ll have the far more satisfactory crunch involved with pounding on them with a cricket bat. The efficiency of this weapon is yet to be announced since Valve are keeping a tight lid on things, but whether it takes one or a hundred whacks with this simple implement to dispatch a zombie, every swing will be full of glee. I’m guessing once the game comes out the number of virtual cricket bats in use will far exceed the number of real cricket bats being employed.


Left 4 Dead 2
Our current favorite game is getting an undead sequel. According to uber-developer Valve,
Left 4 Dead 2 ($60) "takes place at roughly the same time as the original, and leads four new survivors through the southeastern region of the U.S., from Savannah, Georgia to New Orleans' French Quarter." L4D2 adds melee combat (chainsaws, frying pans, axes, baseball bats, etc.), a new group of survivors, new zombies and creatures, co-operative campaigns, more Versus campaigns, maps for Survival mode, and more. Find it for Xbox 360 this November.

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