We got the demo but I'm hesitating buying it because it looks like an endless run of the same thing over and over. Figure once we finish it we'll never play it again. Anything to convince me otherwise?
I got Mirror's Edge (XB360) and Little Big Planet (PS3) but they won't be in use until after Xmas. ;-)
We just finished the last of the four campaigns on normal tonight, and we redid one of the campaigns on normal to get the achievement, and that campaign was still fun.
We both have tried single-player and neither of us thought much of it, but splitscreen was great fun. We haven't tried playing online coop with strangers or the online versus mode.
I suppose what potentially gives it replay value is the way the AI "director" is set up. It appears that the game will never play out exactly the same way twice. So rather than having the same enemy units in the same place each time, they are spawned procedurally as you go along. This means if you dawdle you will keep getting bad guys coming in.
What was it that Bungie said about the design of Halo, come up with 30 seconds of fun and then just keep repeating that 30 seconds? I suppose if you find the teamwork of dealing with the same 6 zombie types fun, then you'll like the game. If you find it boring or repetitive, then you probably won't.
I've been tooling through the demo on PC and I find it enjoyable even with random people online, my only problem has been that it's a touch too easy for me. It really never plays the same way twice, and I find the atmosphere engaging. The only trouble is that it has such a very narrow structure that I'm not sure I'm willing to pay full price for it given how little I'm playing games these days.
OK, I have some more to add. Online versus mode is really cool.
Versus takes an 8-person group. The way it works is that one side plays the survivors as normal; the other four play as the infected. The infected players are each randomly assigned a special zombie (smoker, hunter or boomer) and start out as a ghost. You move to a place out of LOS and not too close to the survivors, and once the survivors start the level by leaving the safe room, you can spawn in and wait to make your move.
Your special zombies are really fragile, but if they kill you you spawn another randomly-selected one in ~20-30 seconds. Except from the tank (which there is only one of on a map) they can't do much harm to the survivors alone, UNLESS you can separate one from the group. So, for instance, a smoker trailing the group of survivors could grab one and pull it back away from the others. Then the others would have to come back to rescue them, and if they don't notice right away you can do some damage. If the survivors all die, their team gets a score based on how far through the level they made it. If one or more reach the saferoom they get a big bonus, multiplied by the number of survivors. Then, teams switch sides, and the same map is played again. The winning team is the side that got more points.
It's surprisingly well balanced, and everything comes down to teamwork. The infected are not much of a threat one at a time, so you need to coordinate attacks. But if all four of you get killed together the survivors know they can charge forward quickly for a short while without meeting any serious resistance. Conversely, if your survivors stick together and cover each other there is not much real risk of dying. But if you don't keep moving forward, you're just letting the other team respawn, and they will slowly run you out of ammo and health.
We had 2 people on the couch and the other 6 were random strangers. I could see an 8 person LAN party with this game being awesome.
I had a Halo LAN here at my place on the 19th, with 16 players including my son. At one point a group of us started playing L4D and it was definitely a ton of fun.
Comments
I got Mirror's Edge (XB360) and Little Big Planet (PS3) but they won't be in use until after Xmas. ;-)
We both have tried single-player and neither of us thought much of it, but splitscreen was great fun. We haven't tried playing online coop with strangers or the online versus mode.
I suppose what potentially gives it replay value is the way the AI "director" is set up. It appears that the game will never play out exactly the same way twice. So rather than having the same enemy units in the same place each time, they are spawned procedurally as you go along. This means if you dawdle you will keep getting bad guys coming in.
What was it that Bungie said about the design of Halo, come up with 30 seconds of fun and then just keep repeating that 30 seconds? I suppose if you find the teamwork of dealing with the same 6 zombie types fun, then you'll like the game. If you find it boring or repetitive, then you probably won't.
I didn't realize the campaigns change up so much, we've been playing it solo all this time so we'll have to try split-screen next time.
- M
Versus takes an 8-person group. The way it works is that one side plays the survivors as normal; the other four play as the infected. The infected players are each randomly assigned a special zombie (smoker, hunter or boomer) and start out as a ghost. You move to a place out of LOS and not too close to the survivors, and once the survivors start the level by leaving the safe room, you can spawn in and wait to make your move.
Your special zombies are really fragile, but if they kill you you spawn another randomly-selected one in ~20-30 seconds. Except from the tank (which there is only one of on a map) they can't do much harm to the survivors alone, UNLESS you can separate one from the group. So, for instance, a smoker trailing the group of survivors could grab one and pull it back away from the others. Then the others would have to come back to rescue them, and if they don't notice right away you can do some damage. If the survivors all die, their team gets a score based on how far through the level they made it. If one or more reach the saferoom they get a big bonus, multiplied by the number of survivors. Then, teams switch sides, and the same map is played again. The winning team is the side that got more points.
It's surprisingly well balanced, and everything comes down to teamwork. The infected are not much of a threat one at a time, so you need to coordinate attacks. But if all four of you get killed together the survivors know they can charge forward quickly for a short while without meeting any serious resistance. Conversely, if your survivors stick together and cover each other there is not much real risk of dying. But if you don't keep moving forward, you're just letting the other team respawn, and they will slowly run you out of ammo and health.
We had 2 people on the couch and the other 6 were random strangers. I could see an 8 person LAN party with this game being awesome.
Freewill, is your copy on 360 or PC?
http://live.xbox.com/member/FREEW1LL
http://live.xbox.com/member/DEADLYSNIPE12
I had a Halo LAN here at my place on the 19th, with 16 players including my son. At one point a group of us started playing L4D and it was definitely a ton of fun.