Impressions on Left 4 Dead 2 (Stephen Gillespie)

Killing zombies is a fun past time and most gamers would leap at the chance for some pure unadulterated zombie murdering. So, unless you live in Australia, Left 4 Dead 2 is probably the game for you. Left 4 Dead 2 manages to keep everything which made the first game a lot of fun and ads even more to that. The biggest and best addition, in my book, being melee weapons. Until now if you wanted to murder a zombie in the Left 4 Dead universe you could shove it or you could shoot it. Both are fun things to do, especially with some awesome limb severing technology which make limb shots just as fun as head shots, but slicing and whacking is even more fun. Of course there are zombie game staples like the always-awesome chainsaw but alongside that are some things which are just awesome and pretty funny.

sadly, you can't do this, best stick to Gears of War

The katana is a fine weapon and when in the right hands can sever heads like, well a katana through somebody’s neck. In Left 4 Dead 2 pretty much anybody’s hands are the right hands, a simple tap of your trigger on the 360 controller or your mouse on the PC will slice some zombie head right off. This is fun to watch and is even more fun when your playing and run into a zombie hoard and just slash madly, the fun just heightens when you slash a boomer, covering yourself with some horrible liquid that zombies just love. When this happens you are pretty dead, so many zombies come to kill just you but you have your trusty katana which may not be that helpful but hell it is damn awesome.

the thing that makes this picture even more awesome, I honestly found it on a website called obamaskatana.com

The katana may be very satisfying but surprisingly the frying pan is even more so. It may not decapitate that much (or at all when I was using it) but it gives a great sound every time you hit a zombie or, if your like me, your team-mates. The saucepan is actually a lot more fun than the katana, there was even a point where I could choose a pan or an axe, I chose a pan. Later I used the axe though, and the axe is awesome too if you like decapitation.

kill it, cook it, eat it. All you need is this!

The last melee weapon I tried was by far the best, the guitar. When you hit it makes awesome guitar sounds and for some awesome reason it decapitates, a magic head severing guitar, it doesn’t get any better than that. Now these added weapons make the game a lot more fun and make Left 4 Dead 2 a worthwhile follow up to the original. However in my opinion some problems remain, the mission structure is still very repetitive and the core gameplay, although really fun, is still pretty shallow. If your looking for an on rails shooter where you can actually control where the person walks you will love this but if your looking for story or any thing else but pure zombie killing action, go elsewhere. Of course though pure zombie killing action is kind of awesome and those crafty special infected spice up the gameplay quite a bit.

ok, I may have gotten a bit carried away with my zombie killing

So if you have a 360 or a PC that can run it and actively enjoy murdering the undead, then check out Left 4 Dead 2 but before you do I have two pro tips for you:

1. Always kill your team-mates!
It makes it much more tense if it’s just you and an actual friend and two dead AI companions if there is no AI then just kill your friends but they may fight back. Killing the AI companions just adds that extra bit of hilarity


2. Always, and I mean always, disturb the witch!
I don’t care how you do it, hitting it with a pan is my preferred way, but nothing annoys your friends more than a ravaging witch on the loose, it makes people mad and it will make you laugh… a lot!