Since the announcement that Valve was working on a sequel to the very popular Left 4 Dead game, there has been quite a bit of backlash from the community.  Valve typically a company that commits to a title and supports it to great lengths was popping out a sequel so quickly was quite upsetting obviously to the large fan base of the original game.  Widely popular in both its PC and Xbox 360 versions Left 4 Dead gave gamers an interesting perspective of the zombie apocalypse.  With a slew of game modes, smooth game play, and addictive multi-player elements, Left 4 Dead gained popularity quite quickly.  A new locale, characters, weapons, and the same game-play formula are featured in the new title but is it worth a full price tag?

In Left 4 Dead 2 gamers will assume the role of one of four survivors. Confined to a first person perspective with a heavy emphasis on cooperative gameplay, your characters are immune to the zombie outbreak that has swept the world, players must fight their way through way through five campaigns set in the southeastern United States.  Collecting ammunitions, health, and weapons to help fend off the zombie hordes.  Moving from safe room to safe room the objective of a Left 4 Dead 2 campaign is to make to an extraction point by using teamwork and cooperatively defending each other from attacks of zombies and special infected zombies that have unique attacks to hinder your progress.  Like its predecessor, Left 4 Dead 2 provides a unique experience for the player by using a AI Director which will set the pace and difficulty of a campaign controlling factors such as weapons, enemy spawns, visibility, and some parts of level structure.  Left 4 Dead 2 is primarily a game for the multiplayer oriented gamer.  While the single player campaign is ok, the real depth of the franchise comes from its multi-player components.

The Good:

Scavenger Modes:

If you enjoyed the first Left 4 Dead Multiplayer experience you will get a second helping plus some of multiplayer goodness. Scavenger mode is a game type where opposing teams take turns trying to collect gas cans for generators while special infected attempt to thwart their efforts. A start contrast to the standard versus mode, Scavenger mode will allow players to play Left 4 Dead 2 multiplayer in much smaller portions. A quick and dirty game can last around 15 minutes.

New Special Infected increase the game dynamics:

New to the series are three new special infected. The Charger, a large hulking zombie infected which can charge the survivors and can separate a survivor from the pack if used in the right circumstances. The Jockey, can jump onto a survivor and steer him into or away from danger. The Spitter, can spew a blast of acid that takes away health and restrain survivors from moving in a specific direction without losing health. When you couple this new cast of characters with the old Boomer, Smoker, and Hunter you get a nice mix of gameplay and even greater number of ways to hinder or stop the survivors campaign progress.

AI Director:

The AI Director in L4D2 is handled extremely well again, making subtle changes to a campaign on nearly every playthrough keeps the game fresh and unique, even on your 100th playthrough of Dead Center.

New Weapons and Items:

Melee combat weapons have now been incorporated into the mix. Crowbars, Guitars, Chainsaws, Swords, Machetes, Frying Pans are all viable options now in dispatching your Zombie enemies. The game seems to incorporate them well and have good purpose when used in the appropriate situations (close quarter combat). Valve also incorporated a few new items like, Adrenaline Boosts, A defibrillator, A Boomer Bile Bomb, all mix up how a campaign can be played once found on a level.

The Bad:

Lag:

It seems to be a big problems these days, a lot of developers are putting out games and tweaking the multiplayer components to handle to weight of xbox live. Valve is no different here with Left 4 Dead 2, plauged by terrible lag in every game mode except single player, Left 4 Dead 2 is just not very fun to play with the considerable latency. At the time of this review patches have been implemented that are supposed to address the problem, but it is still not fixed. Hopefully a fix is not far off as when the game runs smooth it is a blast to play.  I mean after all the Left 4 Dead 2 is not something you can just dump on, it’s like a series of tubes, and unfortunately these tubes are clogged at the moment.

Single Player non-existent:

I don’t know if I ever actually played the original L4D on single player, but with the terrible lag that has plauged the game since launch in its mulitplayer components, I tried some single player. This is not a very fun experience. The AI is not very smart, and it feels like it is not the way that the game is meant to be played.

Achievements

Overall,

Left 4 Dead 2 is a better game than its original. There are a ton of new features that expand the game, in a good way, and actually increase the fun and replay value of the title. While it’s not exactly a revolutionary advancement in either the technology of the engine or the graphics, the differences in the titles are so much so that it definitely warranted a new full price title. Whether you were a fan of the original or not, you will enjoy Left 4 Dead 2. When it works it looks like it could be one of the best multi-player experiences on the 360 to date.