Left4Dead 2 S-3D Game Review

[christ0ff]

Well, I picked up L4D2 2 days ago and I have to say I was HIGHLY disappointed, specially after everyone seems to make this title one of the top S3D games...

First, I discover with repulsion I had to install Steam, which led to so many install problems, it took me a good 30mn finding a work around from forums around the web. Once installed, I couldn't play past the intro; apparently something related to onboard sound chip and with bink videos (???). I went to the BIOS, turned off my audio, and was able to get into the options screen, turn off music, adjusted a few other settings, rebooted, turned the sound back on, rebooted again, and I was finally in, expecting to be blown out by the "wonderful" S3D immersion...

What a disappointment that was ! First, the 3d nvidia rating showed only as Good (huh). There must be a mistake I thought...

Despite pushing all my graphics settings to Max, I found all the rendering looking childish, cartoonish, oversimplified and with a lag of details that reminded me of Quake2 (don't get me wrong that game was one of the best,... at the time).

I found the gameplay and the feeling of immersion and being part of the story completely absent. If I wanted a pure shooter where the only strategy was to click/fire as quickly as possible, I could have stayed with Painkiller.

Man do I regret not having picked up RE5 instead... I weighted the pros and cons for both for a week. At least it looks like RE5 story was there...

As far as S3D is concerned, I didn't find myself able to adjust convergence and depth that made me feel inside. Yeah, some stuff pops in your face from time to time, but it goes by so fast there was no time to realize it before a swarm of rushing zombies are in your face and you have to start clicking/firing madly again. When outside, there was so many 3d artifacts (wrong depth mapping of most of the buildings), problems with the depth for many names and objects, etc...

Bottom line, what a waste of my time and money. I ended up downloading trackmania united nations (completely free from their website btw) to see what to expect from the upcoming trackmania2 and I had more fun with it than the whole hour I gave L4D2...

My advice, stay away from this if you are looking for smart gameplay and a feel of great 3d immersion...

I won't even put it in the top 10 list of games I played with S3D. I may actually completely uninstall it, along with the crappy steam... and possibly resale it on ebay.

Unfortunately, my conclusion is that L4D2 is crap ! I might just go to Bestbuy and get RE5 now...

[rajkosto]

you cant resale steam games, they are forever tied to your steam account now, the cd key in the box is useless after youve used it up.
this game looks absolutely fine in s3d for me, i set it up so that the guns pop out, and they looked really nice (especially the starting pistol), using the iz3d (other than the color ghosting i get with iz3d anyway), and the graphics are much better than the previous left 4 dead (and gory as hell), i dont know what your problem was, this is about as preety as it gets for a source engine game.

[christ0ff]

you cant resale steam games, they are forever tied to your steam account now, the cd key in the box is useless after youve used it up.

Another reason I hate steam... It is a ripoff...

this game looks absolutely fine in s3d for me, i set it up so that the guns pop out, and they looked really nice (especially the starting pistol), using the iz3d (other than the color ghosting i get with iz3d anyway), and the graphics are much better than the previous left 4 dead (and gory as hell), i dont know what your problem was, this is about as preety as it gets for a source engine game.

Well, I agree, it works in s3d, big deal. Anyway after your comments, I decided to give L4D2 another chance so I went back playing another hour of it.

Oh yeah the guns pop out, big deal... any 3d game has some sort of pop out, in 3d person view, most games have the character pop out too. The L4D2 game is full of ghosting, there is no physics. Even the cones on the floor are not interacting. The luggage stacks are just like walls... I found myself entering rooms with EXACTLY the same settings, repeated. There is no detail anywhere (walls, road, trees,etc...).

What is even more bothering is that after you played 10mn, you have seen it all. click shoot reload, spin, shoot, reload, jump, pick up a pipe bomb, heal, shoot, reload.... forever. What is the point ? There is no story at all. Now I assume if one like internet multiplayer, it may work for you. Personally, I have stopped playing these stupid non-subtil shooters and favor playing others like the Call of Duty series, or Unreal Tournament, which looks 1000 better and at least requires some skills.

Talking about Engines, I have to disagree with you (Not even considering physics engines here since there is no physics in L4D2) CryEngine 2 still looks to me by far the best engine out there (CryEngine 3 engine is coming out soon). The engine used in L4D2 looks to me like Half-Life from about 10 years ago (which btw was one of the first to use steam crap). Heck I found even Unreal Engine looks better and that's old.

I have been playing games since the time of wolfenstein 3d (only by name since it was limited to sprites and 90 turn... these were the fun days... and I got all the titles that are deemed real 3d games. Somehow I never got L4D1, maybe it didn't even have good reviews back then for me to buy it.

My conclusion stands:

This game is crap. At least they didn't bother writing a real story... and that should be on their cover...
:newshutter

[rajkosto]

thats why i said it looks preety "for a source engine game"
and you are playing in singleplayer ? thats very stupid, its pointless to play in single player unless you want to get familiar with the maps
get some people you know, set up voice chat, and play in multiplayer, you will have a blast
the ghosting is also completely dependant on your monitor, the game doesnt use weird d3d things, everything is rendered in stereo properly (like no lens flares that are 2d only, or weird shimmering shadows)

[soundstorm]

I have to agree with christ0ff.. I was all in for the Hype for a FPS Zombie Shooter. But after seeing the gameplay and playing it, I was turned off. Now, I guess, Multiplayer sure is a bit more fun than Singleplayer, as the game is clearly aimed at Multiplayer, but well... Its not a great game in my opinion. I don't like the look (too simple/comic), walking cycle, gameplay is boring/ repetitive and I prefer slow zombies.

I like Killing Floor better because of the atmosphere and the look, but then, I'm not much of a Multiplayer, so these games serve only for short rounds of 3D-Zombie-Shooting-Madness.

[crim3]

About setting 3D in a first person shooter, I have found that in general is better to forget about hud and weapon. What I do is stand in front of a wall as close as I can and increase/decrease convergence until the wall pops out off the screen just a bit. Often this makes the game look terrific. The bad part is that many times the weapon and/or HUD are totally screwed.

And I add to christ0ff, L4D2 seems like if it has been realeased before the first L4D, not like a newer version.

[BigPork]

Playing L4D2 and not being into multiplayer is a poor choice. That's where all the strategy and skill come to play. As for the 3D effects i'm using tridef because it's the only software i seem to be able to use with checkerboard and the problem i seem to have strangely enough is when i play even in single player, is the screen glitching to show the spawn screen in vs. for the infected and i can't seem to fix it no matter what i do.