I'm moaning about them pandering to us. And the car lot seemed gimmick - it'dve been cool if the idea had been expanded into a complete sequence - not as long as the awesome hard rain, but a much larger area more like an impound rather than a generic bit of ground filled with props. 

Why link them up? 

Looking forward to it. And new L4D1 stuff too? Awesome. 

The car alarm area couldn't be an entire campaign/level by itself. That would be too god damn annoying and would lose interest very quickly. It's perfectly fine as a small area you run through in a map, but would suck balls as a whole entire map. 

It could have been more of a feature in the map, that map is pretty big and bad ass already, there's a lot to it. I like it tho. 

Due this week. (Valve time: probably Sunday)
Can't wait.


The City 17 campaign (episode one port) is a neat idea, but it doesn't really work very smoothly most of the time. The levels are recognizable even without the HL2 props (L4D2 ones instead), but they often feel a little bland. There's a lot of clippy stuff in some areas preventing the special infected from moving effectively or sometimes rendering them useless. Still, the progression/porting is done well. Okay for a one-time SP experience. 

Yeah City 17 was alright, but ultimately really bad if you consider that the 'author' just used stuff that was already there and modified it. I would have expected some better detail, fixed areas, etc, but perhaps he just wanted an exercise in l4d2 stuff.

The Passing sounds cool, and I'm wondering what the Mutations are (if you haven't seen, check out the l4d blog about the achievements.) 

Of 0 productivity coming up... 

Interest in L4D2 much faster than the previous game. 

Seems Mutations are new game modes that will be rotated on a weekly basis. Interesting.

http://kotaku.com/5520780/left-4-dead-2s-the-passing-introduces-weekly-game-mutations 

Is excellent.

Golf Club:
Ok I spose, just a reskinned melee. has the additional achievement which amounts to 'use it for a whole level'.

M60:
The zombies don't stand a chance - rips them to pieces. Limited ammo like the grenade launcher or chainsaw.

Survivor Infected:
Not bad, just a high health zombie carrying goodies.

Infinite Stuff Box:
Just like HL2. Seems a bit daft tbh - a free chance to stock up on stuff.

Level One:
Very high quality, a lot of fun. Zoey looks suicidal. The new witch is fucking great.

Level Two:
An unholy terror. When setting the alarm don't wait around, chuck a molotov behind and run into the darkness. Chargers own here.

Level Three:
Didn't have time to finish, basically a Scavenge with the original team up above sniping the enemies and multiple tank spawns.

Mutators... not yet.

Need to play through again to find out the ending, got to 10/16 cans (playing on my tod). 

If you play it in single player mode (rather than coop with no other players) then it's only 10 gas cans to finish the level. I managed to pull this off by leaving all the bots to die... 

But was waiting for someone else's download to finish before the lunch hour did. 

There's a new witch?
The fallen survivor is interesting insofar as you have to kill him before he can run off. He'll still be somewhere in the map, though.
The crates are lame indeed.
Some areas could have used a little more detail.
Cool finale, less cramped than Dead Center.
Will see about the Mutations. Func_group plz. Realism Versus sounds cool, but is out my league. Chainsaw Massacre should be fun. 

Realism versus is the dogs bollocks. Just got out of a game where one of my teammates said "valve just accidentally fixed versus mode, and they're going to roll it back in six days". Other highlights included us getting a sub in half way, and straight away telling him he was going "rambo" for walking 10 feet away from the group. It is pretty tough on uncoordinated teams though - catch someone alone with a hunter and they'll go down before they can type where they are. Getting a kill like that is not out of the question!

I think the new witch he means is the bride who constitutes the panic event on the first map. I remember discussing an idea for improving the witch in versus would be to make her summon a horde if you wake her up or crown her - giving a good reason to sneak around her. This panic event lets you see how that would work, which is cool. Of course, versus realism has a slightly different approach - making the witch an instant kill. Waiting to see how balanced that makes the sugar mill now... 

You definitely need a microphone for that. Typing is out of question. This mode is pretty much for pro players only, CS to the max. 

Yo. 

Yeah, some microphones are necessary, we managed with two in the team - as long as they pay attention to their teammates and call when other people are pinned then you can manage alright.

Other observations on realism: It makes the jockey a lot more viable than it was before, for two reasons. The most obvious benefit is that once you have someone, there's no indication of where they are, or even that they've been grabbed, except for the "get him off me!" sounds. You can usually get people further away and hide them for longer. The other advantage you get in realism is that it becomes much easier for a survivor to become separated without realising that they have.

This plays well with the spitter, you can actually take advantage of the separation the spit offers if you get a 3 and 1 split. It's nice to have it serve that role, rather than just using it as a damage multiplier on pinned survivors. 

Since she summons the wedding guests when waking up. Anyone play the midnight riders song yet? I'm guessing it's only on that radio that's next to her.

For me the witches are a bit broken in L4D2... the wandering witch can take a shotgun blast without waking up. They should always summon a horde on wake, or always instakill the player, or attack the entire team. A witch should be potentially more dangerous than a tank - if the team are unprepared / stupid. Which there's no excuse for because of the crying / singing.

In fact, the only excuse is being deaf. A player in our LAN group is and we have to make sure to type 'witch' when the sounds start or she'll walk right into her.

Realism Versus will probably be Monday LAN - I might give the func_group a go some time over the weekend but the ping problems and a heavy weekend schedule might kill that. 

I didn't notice anything special or different about the bride, but I did notice witches sometimes get stunned (in a seemingly buggy way) and take a moment before attacking, like you said. There are some AI clipping issues too.

The MR song can also be played on the jukeboxes. 

Getting a headshot on a witch using a sniper rifle will stun it for a second, it's the best way to coordinate a firing squad on one. 

for installing this on my machine without me even knowing! Cant complain about that.

Seems fun, areas are pretty decent size. 

Haven't had time to play it so much yet, but looks nice.

Witches are fine in versus really, as infected you have to spot where they are, and plan a coordinated attack around her, to force the survivors to wake her while they are busy being boomed/smoked/whatever. 

 

Me and pope played with my dad and we beat the Passing and spoiler Bill died :(