Left 4 Dead 2
 

Yup. I don't get it. Here, link: click.
Trailer.
Article.
Steam's official announcement.

Hm. I really don't know what to say, except that I'm extremely confused at Valve releasing this so soon (Nov 17th??), even though that probably means February 09, if they still work in Valve time.
New special infected types(the old ones are still here), new zombie types, new explosive ammunition, new weapons, revamped AI Director, takes place in the New Orleans area.
Oh, and new characters. :( :mad:
Oh, and here:
http://i39.tinypic.com/2pyucd1.jpg

It all makes sense now.

Why repair what they've released, when they can take all that money they've made, slap together another campaign set, and charge another 50 or 60 bucks?

grrr.

Though, I admit, the idea of bashing in a zombie's brain with a cast iron skillet is appealing.

And that drug lord lookin dude on the left would be fun to play.

I wonder why they chose New Orleans?

This just makes me even happier that I chose not to pay full price for the original.

Left 4 Dead is a great game, but I was sort of expecting TF2 levels of post-release support. To have the sequel so soon is a bit jarring, to say the least.

Oh, well. Given that this seems to be a very common sentiment, I expect the original L4D community will persist long enough for me to get my money's worth (which, if I'm honest, I probably have already anyway).

Also remember they just released the L4D Authoring Tool. There will be an explosion of new content in a matter of time.

It does seem really soon, but it is justified if all the characters are new, the maps are new, there are enough new gameplay elements (the "gauntlet" and the apparent new melee options are enticing), and the AI (and Director) are improved. I don't see why not.... I don't know if I'd buy it right away (it IS 5 months away, so we'll see), but Valve tends to know what they're doing, so I'm sure it's just a matter of time before I'd like to go down South. Oh, another interesting aspect: Shit goes down during daylight. That'll be a cool change.

Dudes....it's Valve.

This announcement has brought the cynic out in everyone, but don't forget... these are the people who waited 6 years to bring out the sequel to Half-Life, and there's still no full sequel to that.

That they're going straight to sequel on L4D must be big.

And by they way... wasn't yesterday a huge PC gaming news day, with Monkey Island and all?

Wait, what?! Monkey Island?!!

*clicks away*

Monkey Island? Oh man, that is going to be freakin' awsome! I may have to break out my bottle of grog I had in storage for this announcement.

Yesterday was massive. I think they announced 2 new Halos, at least 2 new MGS, one of them multiplatform, one of them PSP, a new PSP (that was a couple days ago), Assassin's Creed 2.
What else...uh, a new Splinter Cell (yawn)...this time Sam Fisher is going rogue, but it looks like any 7 year old could've written the story.
Things to probably expect to be announced now: Beyond Good and Evil 2, Mirror's Edge 2....Maybe if we're lucky we'll get a couple new screens from HL2: Episode 3 (LOL).
(Edit: just saw Super Mario Galaxy 2 has been announced, New Super Mario Bros Wii, Ubisoft is making a Tintin game, Crackdown 2, a new Castlevania(possibly made by Kojima), and Crysis 2. I think that's it for now.)

This is just incredibly bizarre, coming from Valve. It feels like waking up with a sore butt after a night of partying hard...just incredibly confused, and kind of hurt, but you don't know exactly why you're hurt.
Who am I kidding, though? This is from Valve, it's a game with zombies, new ones at that, and chainsaws, as well as baseball bats, axes that separate zombies' legs from their bodies, and frying pans, which I hear are a great way to get a crowd of infected to fan out a bit. Of course I am going to buy it. Hell, I can't even act angry at them for more than two minutes before a part of me jumps in anticipation at the new campaigns, and gameplay system.
I can understand that this was not an update, not a new map pack, and is just bigger in every way than L4D, so it couldn't just be an update, but I guess most of us would have appreciate Valve to make the most out of the first one.

Baraka, I'm also excited about map authoring, but only because I saw a couple of projects in the works that replicate other zombie fiction locales(Dawn of the Dead mall, Raccoon City from Resident Evil), but in all honesty, I don't see a lot a good, full-blown campaigns with good balance for VS or even regular Coop coming out.


EDIT: anyone else reminded of Rob and Big from the poster The Parish? Here's my version:

Haha, is it only a matter of time before we see L4D: Celebrity Edition?

Bizarre announcement, but Valve has me hooked and will likely be getting my $50 on preorder day.

If it was anyone other than Valve I'd be furious.

But it's Valve . . .

I'll throw some cash at this, no doubt.

Sigh, so many games, too little time.

heck stop working on that... and work on Half Life Ep 3 already...

but based on what they said in the commentary, they had lots of R&D for the game before the L4D was released. I can't imagine that they didn't have MORE to include but just wanted to do small simple episodic releases like HL2

Left 4 Dead was developed by Turtle Rock which was then bought up by Valve, so it's not the same Valve that's been behind our favorite games. Left 4 Dead 2 certainly has enough content for a sequel but Left 4 Dead was missing so much at release that it feels like a glorified beta test. I quickly got fed up with playing the same 2 campaigns in versus, the matchmaking and corner camping. Some of this has or will be fixed through patches, but a lot of my problems with it are only fixed with L4D2 even after we were promised more DLC for L4D. Now we find out that the reason it took 6 months to add some invisible walls to death toll in versus was because they were working on the sequel. I still like zombie killing but I'm definitely not buying this at full retail price, maybe not ever.

I'm excited. Incremental improvements no doubt..while the content was always rather sparse given the full retail pricing and the long-ass delay for the DLC, I have faith that it'll still be a sweet game. I can afford to shell out 50$ to reward Valve for putting out one of the best co-op experiences and fun games (rather than being a tech/gfx demo).

Looking forward to melee weapons and the new infected to end the corner camping.

Yeah, I can't deny I'm excited too. I'm a sucker for Valve, and their games, and their level design, and their attention to quality. Which I believe l4d was full of. Just quality, not quantity. So I guess I'll gladly fork over some money again for another mindblowing gaming experience.

I'm not really buying the 'come on, it's Valve' argument. Sure, I enjoy everything they've presented me with so far, but that doesn't excuse them for any future mis-steps.

Perhaps Left 4 Dead 2 will prove sufficiently mind-blowing that it warrants an entirely separate release at full retail price. Perhaps.

while Half Life 2: ep1 and ep2 have been much longer, it has been well worth the full retail price for both.

I generally wait for sales on software so I got HL1 for cheap, and HL2 I paid full price when it was released. I got L4D for 50% off, so I don't mind paying full price for L4D2.

It's a shame the graphics don't seem to be updated. While I was happy at the time, it does seem more limited after playing something like CoD5: WaW..

Only geeks would complain about getting a second helping of something this awesome.

Well, we're geeks. I'm not really complaining, either. Just taken aback completely, as nobody expected this.

Left 4 Dead 2 "Swamp Fever" Hands-On Impressions

Article on the campaign Swamp Fever.
Night. Swamp. Awesome.

The new special infected will be a welcome change to the corner up dynamic.

I bet Versus gameplay will become a lot more interesting, for sure.

Also, making the triggered events dynamic and moving will be a welcome change..little tweak that will make a huge gameplay difference.

If they eliminate annoying things, like being Infected while survivors are waiting for the elevator, and just waiting for them to get in, and only getting them boomed every once in a while, then I'll be very grateful. It's those moments that made l4d dull for me sometimes.
Although, if you're like this team of infected, jesus: :thumbsup:

or this one:

Played it last week and interviewed one of the guys from Valve (and I interviewed one of the Monkey Island guys too).

First of all, there is more DLC for L4D coming "soon," so it's not like they dropped support for it. And remember, the last bit of DLC was free (as it should have been). So I'm not pissed in the least about a sequel coming out so soon.

The sequel plays like the original. It's a little smoother and a little faster, at least it seemed that way to me. I understand the witch will roam around, which is cool. The new special infected aren't all that special. One guy is a scaled down Tank. The Spitter is cooler - he sprays something at the ground to make it look like it is on fire, so your nice little safe spot can become a burning, nasty place to be. The incindiary... incendeary... shit... flaming ammo is very cool, and is going to cause all kinds of chaos to those who aren't careful with it.

Rocking game overall, but not a whole lot more to it than L4D.

Interesting, clavus. Thanks for that. How is it that you have the awesome chance to interview Valve? I knew you were a good writer, but are you in the Video Game journalism industry? If so, that's pretty cool.

I do a humor/pop culture podcast as well as all my other stuff. My podcast partner and I lined up some very cool interviews at the show: Valve, the Behemoth, the Monkey Island guy (I barely participated in that one), Doug TenNapel, etc. (and thanks for the "good writer" thing)

Really cool. Valve finally officially announced it this morning.

It's a new campaign, called Crash Course. Sweet.
"As already detailed, Crash Course is designed purely for Versus Play. It can of course be played in a straight Campaign mode, and it works with Survival mode, but the shorter length and more intense combat situations are geared toward competition. With eight of us kicking seven shades of crap out of each other in Valve's office, we played through the game multiple times, and before we begin with the details, let me just confirm this straight away -- it's very fun."

Yep, excited for new DLC! Glad there's a shorter option...otherwise its like 1:30-1:45 long commitment to play a vs round. Sometimes it's hard to schedule that sort of time. 30 minutes will be super short though..especially with a tank or two..

Gametrailers had an exclusive with Valve yesterday. They showed a bit from Crash Course the L4D DLC, and a new campaign from L4D2 that takes place in an amusement park.
There's not much footage, but they do interview Gabe Newell on his plans for TF2, a sequel for Counter-Strike, and HL2: Ep.3. Oh and Portal 2. :D
As you probably expect, he's very vague with these titles and release dates, which is fine with me.
To quote Shigeru Miyamoto: "A delayed game is eventually good, a bad game is bad forever."

We waited ages for TF2, and its one of the best things to ever happen to the FPS industry. I know it'll be good when it comes out.
/fanboyism

I'm thinking about getting this for the 360. I just wish the 360 would get the modding ability like the PC gets. I've seen some sweet L4D 1 mods.

Amusement Park? Great idea for a level! Now we just need a cruise ship ;)

Get it for PC. When it comes to Valve you want to buy it on PC.

That isn't an option, I don't have a gaming rig anymore and my wife won't let me buy one. Also my wife doesn't like me playing games so I have to play them under the guise of hanging out with guy friends ;)

I'm sure it'll still be a solid title on 360, so I wouldn't sweat it too bad.

I just read that valve is looking into releasing mods on the 360 through live. I guess they looking to charge for them (hopefully a nominal fee) and give the money back to the developers.

If the fee is low enough this could be a really great thing. Modders would get a kickback for their work leading to even better mods. Of course if they make it to expensive then no one will buy that mod and you will have no one to play it with...

Crash Course is out! :D

I read that L4D2 might be backwards compatible with L4D1 though I don't know exactly what that means. I'm hoping it means that i'll be able to borrow L4D1, install it, and then just use the L4D2 disc to play the original also.... I doubt it will be this easy though.

Not sure about that, but I think it means the scenarios in L4D1 will be playable in 2.