[Multiplatform] Left 4 STOP THROWING PIPE BOMBS AT THE TANKS

Needless to say, anyone who's played any zombie mod has their shit quite worked out for them when it comes to this game. While Zombie Panic was pretty fun, for the most part, L4D shows that with a bigger budget anything and everything is possible.

While I don't share the same feelings of repetitiveness as Dope described above, this game is all about getting 3 or more of your zombie loving buddies and just having a good time. Sure, there is going to be the hardcores out there that play expert, and only expert, but even the lower difficulties, which for some reason all seem to be set at 'normal' even advanced, still have your OH SHIT moments.

What shines in this game, however, is the AI director. Regardless of what difficulty you are on, it won't mean shit if you're forced to go through a tight corridor, only to have a Tank, (a large, hulk like zombie that, if you're on expert one of you will most likely die) come barreling down at you with no other place to go but past him.

The one thing I have noticed about this demo, however, is that even though it's impossible to find a dedicated server, most of the time I can just host my own game, and everyone has a decent connection to it. Even then, if you have a shitty connection, it still doesn't seem to lag too awefully bad, but that could be just me.

Another thing I have noticed is that no matter how many games you play, at least ONE person will always want to fuck with the witch...Always. It's going to become the new Murphy's Law in some way.

My opinions of this game may be biased due to the fact that I've enjoyed almost every zombie game I've ever played (yes, even including shitty ones like Resident Evil: Dead Aim), but this one is going to be sitting on top of the hill as king for a long time to come.

Also, I've noticed something odd. The black guy always dies first...

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Expert mode comes down to whether or not the four people you are playing with know how to do two things, and two things only.

1. If you're in the front, at any time, your ass should be ducked. No questions asked. Now running from one calm location from another is one thing, but in a mob, your ass should be crouched.

and

2. If you are indeed between transitions of one safe place to another, and there isn't a mass rush of zombies, then your team better know the '2 in front, 2 in back' or at least '3 in the front, 1 in back' because if you're not watching your back at all, you're fucked. Plain and simple.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I found out tonight that the best thing to do against a witch, IF you absolutely need to kill her to get by someplace, is to have a molotov or some other sort of firey substance available before you aggro her.

If you must kill her to get by, what you need to do is have the person with the molotov chuck it at her, and I mean hit her square with it, and then they need to BOOK IT the other way.

I lit her ass on fire with an exploding tank, and while I pumped several rounds into her before she killed me, she DID die from the fire rather quickly, and this was on expert.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Melee is completely and utterly overpowered, and I love every single second of it.

Seriously, when you can melee a hunter down in versus mode and have the guy that you killed go off on the mic (all talk) it's priceless.

I also lived for like 2 minutes after everyone had died on the roof of No Mercy by simply meleeing constantly and reloading everytime I got off a free shot.

Unfortunately, I don't think I could ever melee a tank to death or a witch...By god I'll try though if I get desperate.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by RacinReaver

How's everyone's experiences been playing L4D with random people from the world? I'm generally on pretty late, even for my fellow west coasters, so I'd pretty much just have to play with random people most of the time.

It really depends on what difficulty you play on. I'd say for the most enjoyable and 'beatable' experience, you have to play on Advanced. I've not run into anyone at all that sits there and shoots players intentionally, and the game is still quite a challenge, but not so much that you'll never see the end.

As far as expert goes, it's intense, and everyone plays extremely seriously on that difficulty, but with everyone being so new to the game, they still don't understand the concept of 'don't shoot a zombie if it's right next to a teammate, let them take care of themselves'.

Over half the incaps and deaths on expert are due to friendly fire. So if there are a huge mob of zombies on a player, don't shoot blindly into the crowd...run up, melee, shoot, melee, shoot and repeat until dead. Your bullets will kill faster than those zombies can.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Quote

Though, maybe I'm too critical about how people act on there, but there's a lot of people that don't even try to coordinate attacking. Like hunters just jumping on someone while other infected still haven't spawned yet as well as all of the survivors being right beside them

While I agree that there is not a lot of 'coordinated' attacks, a lot of the times I'll go ahead and pull this stunt is when I, unfortunately, am the only hunter/smoker alive and everyone else is dead. The reason for that being is that every second that you cost the survivors from moving forward, those seconds are spent with the other infected soon spawning. Sometimes it's the difference between a decent attack made by just a boomer, or through the small confusion of knocking the other survivors back, a newly spawned smoker can nab another one, thus costing the survivors more time they should be using to run to the safe room.

Though, I agree, when all four infected are up and running, a coordinated attack is great, with the boomer being THE handiest infected to have period. I can't express how grateful I am as a hunter/smoker to see a boomer nail two or three people with a spit or an explosion so that the survivors that are still free have to mow down a wall of zombies just to get to the person I pounced or entangled.

Last night was epic...first map of Blood harvest and I was playing with three other people who were halfway decent at playing infected...it went down so smoothly halfway through. Me and two others were hunters, and we had one smoker. The smoker (in plain sight) snared someone up, and us hunters systematically (within like...3 seconds) all managed to pounce on every single other survivor so that all four of them were completely screwed.

Weird thing was, they were actually all laying there, snagged or pounced, and it didn't stop...the round only ended when they were all brought to that incaped phase. Which was weird in my book.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Quote

Yeah, I'll do the same in those situations as well, and it's understandable to do so. Though the guys I meant are the ones where most of the team is alive, and setting up an ambush up ahead, they'll go and attack them too soon. Oh, the ones that annoy me the most though are when you're a smoker, and you catch someone, and then a hunter for whatever reason will ignore the person coming to save that person, and instead pounce on the guy you just snagged.

Truth be told, I forgive a LOT of people who pounce something I've snagged due to the fact that lag and all that shit has a lot to do with it.

There have been times where I've wanted to pounce a Louis that was standing in front of a Francis, only to have pounced a Francis instead of a Louis.

That's why I typically try to snag after a hunter pounces, or hopefully the hunter isn't lagging enough to accidnetly pounce my guy.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Bradylama

Oh hey it's the lobby freeze bug I guess I'll always have to play games in progress and can't play with my friends, yay Valve.

I've noticed for the last few days a lot of servers have been lagging like shit...which I'm not sure what to blame it on.

As for the lobby freeze...happens to me like...1 out of 100 games so I'm not going to worry about it too much. I'll chalk it up to it's the 6 days between christmas and new years where everyone really just doesn't give two shits about their job and enjoys the small time frame two super holidays.

Give it a week and it'll be fixed.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by How Unfortunate

Gives them a chance to pistol-shoot someone free from the ground.

That's the thing, when 3 hunters have 3 people pounced and a smoker has 1 person died up, I don't think anyone can shoot.

So for about a minute there we got to gloat as the survivors all were going from 100 health down to 0, and then from 300 little bars that drain fast, down to death.

Could be for points though, I suppose...not the actual team winning points, but the individual ones at the end of the round *shrug*

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I'd be down for versus mode anytime. I'm still not sure about the death toll map as far as being a hunter goes. A lot of rooftops that -could- be used for high damage pounces are inaccessible. On top of that I've hit the 'ceiling' of the game map on several occasions as well.

Haven't played Dead Air yet...so if you see me online in the gamingforce group, give me a holler and I'll be happy to join up.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Throwing rocks tends to come in mighty useful on the rooftop of the hospital when the AI decides to spawn your ass right in front of the mini-gun. Taking cover behind something while arcing rocks through the air at the survivors that refuse to run away from the little encampment where the mini-gun is does wonders.

Ever since this DLC hit I've hated being the tank. It doesn't matter if my ping is sitting at thirty, and same with everyone else, the fucking arm tends to pass right through them 90% of the time. It's annoying as all hell and I don't think I'm the only one having a problem with it.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by RacinReaver

Yeah, I've done that for the Campaign mode, but I imagine it wouldn't work as well in versus. Then again, if you get four people with autoshotties up there, some decent teamwork, and people that know how to use pistols and I could see that spot being pretty solid.

As far as that spot working, the rock, if the entire team of survivors do have auto shotties, then as the tank, I would think you could stand back at that little house that's north-west of the contact point and literally chuck rocks from afar and not worry about taking any damage at all. That is if you weren't hit by a moly.

As far as Death Toll goes, I was really, really looking forward to playing this in versus constantly due to it being my favorite map on campaign. Unfortunately, due to several invisible walls and cheap camping spots for survivors, its my most hated map for versus as it stands. I've not had the opportunity to play much of Dead Air, but all in all, that seems to the more enjoyable of the two.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I own it for the PC, but I keep forgetting to check if anyone is actually in game on the gamingforce group tab

I'd enjoy getting some 25 damage pounces on you bitches...Hell I should check right now.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I've yet to try scavenger mode at all due to the fact that I've been loving the shit out of the campaign and realism mode...but honest to god, if you only play with people that just want to shoot the shit out of everything, realism mode will turn your night into an un-fun curse fest.

You would never think that not seeing an outline of a partner that was pounced, or charged would be such a big deal, but god damn...sometimes it's impossible to find the fucks.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?