Last year Valve unleashed the Zombie killing cult hit Left 4 Dead, and now Valve is back with even more zombie slaughtering fun. Left 4 Dead 2 offers the same gaming fun and story concept of the first game, all placed in the deep south of the United States. While the core game has remained the same there are a handful of new weapons, brand new story-lines, and some game engine enhancements.

L4D2 hasn’t changed much from the first title. You play as one of four survivors and fight your way through hordes of zombies. The campaign is split into 5 stories, “Dead Center”, “Dark Carnival” “Swamp Fever”, “Hard Rain” and “The Parish”. Each campaign then has either 4 or 5 chapters. For the most part it will be very easy to complete most if not all the stories in one sitting. The story is all set in the deep south and takes place in such locales as Savannah Georgia and the French Quarter of New Orleans. The Campaign can be played both as a single player with AI teammates or you can jump online and play with 3 of your Xbox Live friends. Like many great games these days, the real playing time goes into the online and other game modes. For those not familiar with Left 4 Dead, a big focus is the online co-op play. Besides playing the campaign stories with your friends, you also have a few other possible modes to play with or against others.
Realism Mode, is pretty much what it sounds like, its real. The game strips out the assists like item and player halos, the zombies are harder to kill and you need to stay alive. Realism could be considered the mode for the hardcore, lots of team work and headshots are required.
Versus Mode, again is just like it sounds, there is a player team of four survivors and a player team of seven infected. The survivors want to get rescued while the infected want to do nothing but eat brains. This is the classic deathmatch gametype tweaked and applied to a zombie shooter.
Survival Mode, has been added to the game right from the get-go and is a great pick-up and go mode. As the four survivors you need to again work heavily as a team fighting off non-stop waves of infect zombies. These waves will vary from the common easy to kill infected to the special non-common, ones that take a little more effort. Hold out as long as possible, but no there is no end, rescue will not be coming to get you.
Scavenge Mode is another team vs. team style mode like Versus. However with Scavenge, one team is trying to collect fuel while the infected team is trying to prevent them.
That makes up the different game modes, all these modes have numerous maps they can be played on. The game also runs very solid online, and I have yet to run into lag or drop issues. If players drop out during a game that player will be taken over by AI until someone else pops into the match.

For the most part L4D2 is the same game as L4D however there have been some additions. Firstly “The AI Director” has been upgraded. ”The AI Director” is the part of the game’s engine that drives what happens within the environment. It controls the enemy populations, weather and environmental effects, world objects and the music, and it does this all on the fly as you play depending on your performance. I for one enjoy games that use this type of tech in games as it doesn’t cause the game to be to easy and boring, or to hard and frustrating for players. Also for L4D2 “The AI Director” will allow players to notice changes in the game like weather or the route that they can take through the maps, giving gamers prolonged replay value.
The next big change to the game comes in the weapon department. L4D2 now offers players the ability to use melee weapons, and there is a wide variety, from the standard fire axe, to the always fun frying pan and chainsaw. Also many of the guns have received some form of upgrades and there a few new guns for you to use. Some of the upgrades include laser sights and different types of ammo.

Graphics and sound remain great. I can’t even explain how much fun it is to pick off zombie arms and legs with a sniper rifle, or watch their heads explode like zits. Intense battles can lead to blood stained walls and fire, smoke and other particle effects look solid. While the textures are pretty much the same as L4D and those weren’t anything to ground breaking, the sheer number of AI characters being rendered on screen at once makes up for it. Also the music is tense and scary and changes as the action unfolds. Just like L4D this game unfolds and is presented like a movie.
Controls are exactly the same, and haven’t been touched. For the most part the AI is also the same, the zombies will constantly come at you no mater what, and for the most part your AI team will help but there will be situations like them blocking your shots, to not really paying attention. I have yet to have a map where I didn’t hold the top kill spot over the AI players. Like the first game I’m still missing a fine tuning aiming system. I enjoy shooting from the hip at times but at others times I like pulling the trigger for a better shot. Yes scoped guns have aiming but it would be nice to have some with the non-scoped weapons as well.

Overall Left 4 Dead 2 is a solid game. Valve was smart and kept the game true to its roots. While the differences between the two games aren’t blaring and many might feel this should have been DLC, it’s still a great game. The action is fast paced and fun, and this is an easy game to pick-up and play for a few minutes or a few hours. For those who enjoy Xbox Live play this is a very Xbox Live heavy game, if you don’t have an Xbox Live account your going to miss out on a great deal of the game and will want to get an Xbox Live subscription. Fans of the first game will be happy to get a new story, new characters, melee weapons and new maps to have fun in. While people who have only heard of the game will be in-store for a fun zombie apocalypse ride.