“The zombies are hungry, looks like they’ve come back for seconds.  Well then… I’m more than happy to oblige with a canister of tasty Boomer vomit.”

Yep, Left 4 Dead is back with its much anticipated and protested sequel.  Its the same ol’ zombie slaying friendy fire shooting pipe bomb chucking joyride with a few new toys thrown in the mix.  This time around players have access to new weapons, including Melee Weapons and Adrenaline Rushes, new zombies to slay, and still hilarious graffiti on the safe room walls.  Honestly, there isn’t too much I can write about because Left 4 Dead 2 isn’t all that drastically different from its ancestor.  There are zombies, then there’s you, you kill the zombies.  Granted, I’ve obviously only had access to the demo, so who knows how much has yet to be seen.  For example, the much anticipated Mall level, the chainsaw and rocket launcher (which I still think is a makeshift Pipe-Bomb launcher), and Clown Zombie.

Left 4 Dead 2 is interesting in that it will try to accomplish what the first game was largely unable to do, keeping things fresh and interesting.  That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy the first game, but one can only run through Mercy Hospital so many times before they grow bored.  Valve has created numerous new game modes such as Scavenge and Realism (I don’t know the details because they aren’t currently available in the demo) that could keep things very interesting.  They have also implemented new ideas into the levels themselves.  For example, on the second level of The Parish, there is a point where players must enter a car, and then leave through the other side.  As soon as the players leave, an alarm goes off, causing massive amounts of zombies from all over to throng towards the players.  The survivors must weave through a chain-link fence maze, climb up some ladders, and turn off the alarm if they wish to survive.  When playing this section solo, considering your AI friends won’t run ahead of you and turn the damn alarm off while you’re performing 360 degree dual-pistol spins to save their worthless lives, it gave me an excellent challenge to overcome.  If they were willing to show that in just the demo, then I can’t wait to see what else Valve is hiding from me behind the curtain.  (Oh $*&t there’s a witch here!!)

I can’t find any major faults with the game.  After finishing a few rounds I felt that warm and fuzzy sense of zombie slaying accomplishment, and I never stopped enjoying myself while playing.  The one thing I might point out is that The Parish level does make players lose that sense of fear you get when you stumble upon a Witch at 3 A.M. in the morning with your lights off (considering you’re out in broad daylight), but I’m confident that other levels will scare the pants off of me.  Other than that, I’ve also noticed that the AI aren’t as ruthless in Expert as they were in the first game, though this could just be my imagination.

Things are looking good (or post-apocalyptic) for Left 4 Dead 2.  If you enjoyed the first game, then I’d definitely recommend buying the sequel (despite obvious protests and objections of cost), or in the very least playing the demo on one of your friends computers/consoles.  My reason being that the game will only get better and more innovative with time, because I’m willing to bet that Valve will be releasing much more downloadable content for Left 4 Dead 2.  As always, you can expect a few follow up articles when I get my hands on the whole thing come November 17th.  (Sidenote~ If you buy it from Steam now not only will you get a discount, you’ll also receive Bill’s Beret, from the first Left 4 Dead, for all of your Team Fortress 2 characters, which is totally awesome.)