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S1 Ep27: Left 4 Dead
70 Plays7 years ago
Join Dave and Jake as they see if they can survive more than 28 days without talking about versus mode in this week's episode!
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Transcript
Keith's Misadventure with Owls
00:00:01
Speaker
You know my buddy Keith had his car dropping a lake off a bridge just like this one here. Yeah see he was driving over it late at night and there in the middle of the bridge was what looked like in Keith's estimation like a dead bear so Keith gets out his car to find like a stick to poke at it right? Well it turns out it's just some lady's fur coat that must have fallen out her car so hey furry coat right?
00:00:22
Speaker
Now, owls won't normally attack a man, but in this case they were hungry, and that made them reckless, man. Keith reckons they must have been there for hours watching what they thought was a bear carcass. Cause as soon as he picked it up, them owls had claws in him un-inged deep. Well Keith figures his best bet is to jump in a lake, cause owls can't swim.
00:00:44
Speaker
Well, them howls could. He fought them for like 20 minutes treading water, and during that time a boat came, bridge went up, and down went Keith's car. Man, sometimes nature's just trying to teach us if we'd only listen. How's it going everyone?
Introduction to Soapstone Podcast
00:01:01
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake. I am joined by my co-host as always, Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave?
00:01:09
Speaker
Doing good, but I'm feeling a little sick. Yeah. Yeah. Time travel does that to you. How are you feeling sick though? I kind of got like this cut earlier in the week. And I didn't think it was like a huge deal of bandaid and whatever, but now I feel it feels like it's infected. Ah, yeah. Well, that's not ominous. What do you want to talk about this week? Medications treat my infection.
00:01:37
Speaker
Left 4 Dead? I'm hearing Left 4 Dead. Let's talk about Left 4 Dead. Yeah, it was supposed to be my roundabout tie-in. I thought that maybe this was a loop thing. We'll come back to it later, and I'll just be murdered by you mid-podcast. You
Introduction to Left 4 Dead
00:01:51
Speaker
bit, son. You bit. I'm holding out hope. So Left 4 Dead came out a while ago. Came out for PC, Xbox, a bunch of different platforms. Valve made it. So that was interesting.
00:02:06
Speaker
They finally made a good first person shooter. Like they bought Turtle Rock Studios for it and made them Valve South. So it kind of counts, but they do that whenever they make games now. So it is what it is. People eventually went on this part. What is a different studio? Left 4 Dead is a first person shooter, as you mentioned. And this was probably the start of the
00:02:33
Speaker
If it wasn't the exact
Movie-like Campaign Structure
00:02:34
Speaker
start, it was really close to the start of the zombie wave of just everybody's making a zombie game. Well, I mean, pretty easy theme and topic because everyone kind of thinks the idea of zombies are cool, like a horror fantasy sense, but everybody also likes to kill zombies. Yeah. Makes a lot of sense from a gameplay design perspective. You don't have to put a crazy amount of effort into your enemies. They're zombies, right? Like people, people immediately know what zombies are.
00:03:04
Speaker
But a lot of effort went into these Left 4 Dead games. I know when I started we were playing, it has a co-op mode where you run through as with ideally four people, given the four in the title, right? But a lot of the longevity of the game came through in the multiplayer, which I think is what a lot of us stuck around for. Yeah, but what's really cool is multiplayer and the single player are the same thing.
00:03:35
Speaker
elaborate.
Playing as Special Infected
00:03:37
Speaker
I'm gonna ask for justification on that. So in Left 4 Dead you have campaigns. Yeah. So you'll go through a number of areas and that'll be all as one cohesive story, one campaign. And then you get points for how well you do or points ticked off for how often somebody gets knocked down or dies, etc.
00:03:58
Speaker
Yeah, they had them based off of kind of like movie tropes and they actually had posters for each campaign before you start it. And they would have like renditions of the characters and kind of cool scenes. It was really campy and it was an homage to the B-movie kind of roots of zombie film, I think. Yeah, a lot of that early 80s shitty horror.
00:04:24
Speaker
Did it just get really quiet for you? Eerily quiet.
Survivor Coordination in Multiplayer
00:04:28
Speaker
Yeah, that's weird. Must be the 80s. That doesn't sound like the 80s at all, actually, but...
00:04:34
Speaker
The multiplayer though, you go through the same thing as the campaign. You can just play on the survivor side, which is what you do normally, or you can play on the infectant side, which is really cool, because obviously the game has a lot of base ass zombies, which is kind of go at you and climb things and get upset. 48 days later rules, basically. Yeah, pretty much. But the special infected each play a little bit differently and have abilities.
00:05:03
Speaker
And it's really cool to play on the other side and try and sneak up on the people. Yeah. Both sides of the multiplayer require just a tremendous amount of coordination. And you can get more of a feel for what the special infected are capable of if you do jump into versus. Because they
Resource Management and Strategy
00:05:23
Speaker
can be oppressive depending on the difficulty if you're playing through a campaign with your friends.
00:05:29
Speaker
And in multiplayer, it feels amazing to pull off those combos in high stress situations for the survivors. Just like the survivors have to constantly watch each other's backs. One of the special effects is the hunter. I think he's probably the most iconic for me. You just like hoodies. Yeah, it is basically a hoodie. But his ability is... He does decent slash damage if you get up on somebody.
00:05:55
Speaker
but mostly you want to jump off of a high location to get some amplified damage, land on a survivor, and pin them to the ground to just start tearing at them. Clouding up the flesh and stuff, yeah. But that's all you can do. Once you've landed that pin, you can't break it off or do anything like that. No, it's essentially a channeling ability until you get shot to death or you get pushed off. Yeah, or incapacitate them if you manage to last that long, but that's pretty rare.
00:06:24
Speaker
That is also true. That never happens for me. Even just going through the campaign, if you have AI teammates, they're semi-helpful, but it's a lot better to play with your friends and be like, oh, I'm being pulled by a smoker. I need help.
00:06:42
Speaker
And then your friend can either like shoot the tongue, kind of like shove you, or kill the smoker to help you out of that situation where you immediately become, or well smoker almost immediately, become just locked down, you can't do anything. If you get like the smokers, just like a really long tongue will wrap around the person, kind of like choke them, and then pull them back as far as they can until they hit some like collidable terrain, right? Or if they hit the smoker themselves.
00:07:09
Speaker
I think you might actually do bonus damage in two situations. If the smoker pulls them all the way back to themselves and then starts hitting them with their hands, like attacking them. Punching, yes. Punching, yes. Hitting with hands.
00:07:26
Speaker
What is this punch? The other situation I think that did bonus damage is if you pulled them off of a ledge, so they're hanging, that also... Oh, because it's like a strangling, an additional strangling, I should say. Yeah, but if you just like caught them on a table or something, then it wouldn't be nearly as bad. It was a nice little touch.
00:07:45
Speaker
But even so, even if you're just pulling them and they're incapacitated, the other base has zombies, as I call them, run up and be like, hey, fuck this guy. Yeah. And a lot of the times you can just disable somebody and that seems to be enough because you can let other people help out. Exactly. There was a valid strategy in versus would be.
00:08:03
Speaker
If the smoker has somebody isolated from
Boomer's Bile Attack
00:08:06
Speaker
the group, but you want to continue the offensive, infected could actually run up, say like a hunter, could make a short-range pounce, jump on the person who was being pulled by the smoker, and then it would start the smoker's tongue cool down, basically.
00:08:21
Speaker
So after a while, the smoker could grab somebody else. And sometimes that was the right call. You could kind of like... Interesting. Yeah, this one person's cutting off. I'll lock him here for you to lock him here and all like that, dude. Yeah, then I'll cover you once the tongue recharges. So there was a lot of strategy in that. There was legitimate competitive tournaments for Left 4 Dead. That's just crazy.
00:08:47
Speaker
That's all of us. That's two of the special infected. Let's just go through the others while we're here. Yeah, we might as well finish them out. So next one was Boomer, which is kind of an all or nothing sort of special infected. And definitely a little bit more suicidal than the rest. He's basically a large,
00:09:06
Speaker
clinically obese, fat, very fat man whose body is like full of this zombie bile yeah he's very bloated and gross and unlike the rest of the special infected where it's kind of in your best interest to preserve yourself the boomer doesn't really care he has like two basic functions he either runs in front of the humans
AI Director and Dynamic Difficulty
00:09:30
Speaker
tries to get them to shoot him so he'll explode and like splash them with bile or he has an actual like spit attack where you can like vomit bile basically on them it's a little gross yeah so ideally if you can actually get set up you can get everybody and then wait and they're like oh thank god that's over with and then go up and die yeah because the bile will attract the basic zombies
00:09:54
Speaker
Also, it obscures your vision. True. That is very true. And that's especially important when you're being swarmed by all of the normal infected. You're panicking like, where do I shoot? Just crouch in the corner, right click, shoot intermittently. There's a mechanic where as the survivors are progressing through the campaign, periodically the AI director, which is a mechanic that kind of adapts the game based off how well the survivors are doing.
00:10:22
Speaker
We'll send like a horde of zombies at the survivors and the boomer can force those hordes It's just like no, we're not waiting for the game to decide this should be harder Right now now you're getting swarmed. Yeah, that's one of the key Mob mechanics
00:10:42
Speaker
Also there are kind of like alarmed cars where if they get hit, they'll trigger an alarm and someone wears zombies. There's like one or two other things. But if you're playing as infected, you can kind of like hide behind cars like, hey, come here. Yeah. And just hope they kind of clip it. Yeah.
00:11:00
Speaker
If you can, like, as a smoker, maybe you pull one of the survivors into the car. Like, that can do it, too. There's so many ways you can screw. Basically, as the infected, you want to screw with the unity and cohesion of the survivors to take them out. Yeah. Like, if somebody's alone, kill that person. Yeah. They ran too far ahead. That was their fault. They fell too far behind. That was their fault or the team's fault for not supporting them. Yeah. Because you can also, like, go to choke points where
00:11:29
Speaker
Once you go past that point, you can't go back. Exactly. So if one person is like, I'll be right there. I'm just putting a bandage around my shin and just pounce them. And they're like, guys, we can't get back up there. Yeah, you're dead. And in the campaign, if you're playing through in co-op periodically, you would find situations where you could like free survivors that had died from like a shack or a building or something else, open a door and be like, hey, you found me, you know, whatever. You look remarkably similar to that person who died.
New Features in Left 4 Dead 2
00:12:00
Speaker
Inverses, obviously, that wasn't the case. The goal was to completely wipe out the survivors, and the survivor goal was to reach the next safe house, which is kind of the game... Checkpoint between missions. Exactly, yeah. Usually there'll be four sections to a campaign, four or five, something like that, and each of them would have these highs and lows, interesting locales, different problems survivors had to solve.
00:12:28
Speaker
And it's a very interesting experience. Yes. Playing versus makes it a lot more intense though. A lot more intense. I think because you're playing against actual people and not AI, because you know certain bots will tend to do certain things.
00:12:48
Speaker
But if you're going through as a person against another person who's played that same level and they know, or they know where you expect to go, where you think they're going to be. So it becomes somewhat mind games, but also that match of actual skill versus just shit luck.
00:13:04
Speaker
Yeah. And the infected players had some things to their advantage. Their eyesight, like when they're in... For one, say you're an infected player, what the game will do is it'll say, your cooldown's up, it's time for you to spawn. It'll randomly allocate you one of the special infected.
00:13:22
Speaker
and put you in like a silhouette mode where you can fly through the level very, very quickly and choose a place that you want to spawn in. But there's the caveat that the survivors cannot see you. Yeah, so you can't drop right in front of them as the boomer like, hey guys.
Survivor Teamwork and Adaptation
00:13:38
Speaker
And I'm here. You just fall out of the sky.
00:13:42
Speaker
So sometimes there's a good thing you mentioned the boomer that was probably one of the most important to strategically spawn at the right time because the boomer has no health. Yeah, like no health and crazy audio cues. You can hear the boomer from like a good distance. People will know there's a boomer nearby.
00:14:01
Speaker
But if you haven't spawned a min yet, and you spawn them in as close as possible around a corner, you can get that drop. You try and just spawn right behind a light pole, trying to find that angle. No one happens to be looking your way. Slowly muscle for a wreck.
00:14:17
Speaker
I feel burning fast on it, thank you. But yeah, in either case, either being the like, no one left behind survivors with perfect coordination and accuracy, and you just tear through all the special infected, or I think more fun, the special infected who are pulling off all their combos, and completely rip the survivors to pieces, both of those are incredibly satisfying.
00:14:46
Speaker
Yeah. But it's definitely more unique to play as infected because it's not the base intention of the game. Because it's a game about killing zombies, not being zombies. Yeah. But the fact that you have the options is really neat.
Game Balance and Mechanics
00:15:00
Speaker
Yeah. And it's asymmetrical gameplay. These special infected on average have way lower health than survivors do. There's one exception. But most of them have very, very low health.
00:15:12
Speaker
And so the special infected playstyle isn't normally to completely kill the survivors on first contact. You have several opportunities where you can set up as a group to try to take them out. So you just want to do like maximum damage. If you can take a player out and now there's only three, like awesome. Like you're on the right track.
00:15:31
Speaker
Or if you can get somebody knocked down and then while their friends are trying to help with them up, you're like, nobody really inconvenient right now. If I were here, the boom. Oh yeah. Getting by on somebody who's on the ground. It's just like, this is now a bad situation for you. Just kick a man while he's down. That is actually true. Yeah, this is a strategy. Um, but, uh, doing the, the gameplay though, um, for survivors is still.
00:15:58
Speaker
progress and scavenging and basically making sure you have enough supplies to get through. Yeah. Cause you only really have a main weapon, which would be like your assault rifle, your sniper rifle shotgun, what have you. A secondary weapon, which can be like a pistol or another pistol. Yeah. It's basically like an M9 with an infinite ammo cheek. Yeah.
00:16:21
Speaker
Anytime you reload, you're pretty much fine. The main weapons will run out of ammo over time. But if you find ammo checkpoints or another gun, it's not really an issue. This is your health, obviously. Yes. Your most important resource. Yes. Like real life. So if that drops to zero, you go down.
00:16:39
Speaker
and you have more temporary health, it could jump up to like 300, but you're incapacitated, you can only use your secondary weapons, and that temporary health diminishes over time. And you're usually being attacked by stuff. So ideally your friends will help you get up and then patch you up, heal you back up.
00:16:58
Speaker
And there's also, there's health packs, you can self heal or heal somebody else. And there's like small consumables, pills or stim shots. Yeah, bottle of pills. We're talking about Left 4 Dead 1 and 2, so we'll mention just all the consumables.
00:17:16
Speaker
But
Co-op vs Versus Modes
00:17:17
Speaker
if you went down too many times, you only had so many downs before you'd go black and white. Which is your next style, you're just dead. As soon as you hit contact. If your health gets to play, you just ragdoll over. That's pretty great, actually.
00:17:34
Speaker
killer survivor like you were saying outright because they have their teammates helping them out, picking them up and their healing as well. So if you can time it to get everybody down around the same time. There's a constant counter play of resources. The other key thing here is if the survivors get low on health, they move slower.
00:17:58
Speaker
Seriously injuring somebody slows the whole party down until more resources are applied. So you're trying to get the survivors burned through everything. Survivors have some nice tools in their kit though, things they can use. Guns. Guns, which you mentioned. Guns are good. Left 4 Dead 2 added the inclusion of melee weapons, which take the pistol slot, but more or less kill most zombies on one hit.
00:18:23
Speaker
i think they kill all basic zombies in one hit they kill some of the special in one hit the ones with a little bit more health can take like two yeah there is an achievement you don't know what i'm talking about i don't actually think so okay
00:18:35
Speaker
So we're going to very shortly talk about another special infected called the Charger. Where it has like one little gangly arm and one giant Hulk arm. The right arm. Yeah, and it charges you and it has this noise. And if it hits you, it will pin you up against the surface and then the shirt punching you into the ground and it has you locked and you can't do anything.
00:18:56
Speaker
There is an achievement if you have the melee weapon of the baseball bat of hitting the charger in the face when it's charging you and that will, it will just kill it outright. Like it has a decent amount of health. It's something to that effect. But steam's like, Hey, good job, buddy. That's funny.
00:19:12
Speaker
And it feels really, really rewarding if you can pull it off. I think I did once at a point. I'll believe you. I don't have any evidence that you didn't. Good. I totally did it. War stories. Back in NAMM with the Charger. Yeah, it's a really interesting experience to add with two. You mentioned the Charger. You've got the Spitter who
00:19:33
Speaker
It has low health, is visually distinct because she's got this fluorescent green goo kind of dribbling out. But
Advanced Infected Strategies
00:19:44
Speaker
she can spit a wad of fluorescent green goo that's basically acid that sits there on the ground and hurts people.
00:19:54
Speaker
It also hurts people more over time. So the longer you're in it, the more damage it will do. Per tick. So if you can pin somebody down with like a charger or a hunter, or if they're just clumped up in a way, you put the spit under them and it just deals so much damage.
00:20:11
Speaker
Yeah, the charger and the spitter were both added to combat the most effective strategy in Left 4 Dead 1 and versus, which was just power pile. Like you just get everybody in one group focus all of your firepower and like just basically swat team your way through the entire campaign. Yeah. Cause if somebody gets smoked, you're just right click done. Yeah. Like right clicks like hit with the butt of your gun.
00:20:35
Speaker
Usually pushes back zombies, but it'll free people from special infected as well Except I think I think the charger I think no charger has you locked in you have to kill the charger. Yeah
00:20:46
Speaker
It's like a snapping turtle. It's like, it's not going to let go on its own. Just murder it. Yeah. There's one other kind of standard special. In fact, it was added in Left 4 Dead 2, which was the jockey. Yeah. Which is kind of like this almost monkey looking human. He's like gibbering wildly. It's like golem, I want to say. That's pretty good. A little more awkwardly muscular. But he's these short little jumpy dude.
00:21:13
Speaker
I'm trying to think of more analogies to describe this. If it's like a leprechaun did math. Yeah. That's also pretty accurate. It's like if Gollum did more math. Like Gollum, leprechaun, and math. One ring, not even once gets. Yeah. But he'll jump on people and then just kind of latch onto the back. And then if Jockey has you, you have no control again. And he can kind of...
00:21:42
Speaker
loosely steer you in a direction away from your teammates. Ideally into other zombies who are just, you know, giving you high fives and taking your health down. Yeah. And there's a, there's like a back and forth at play where the jockey is trying to pull you in one direction, but you can resist his movement by trying to move in the opposite direction. And if you do that for every single one of his movements, he doesn't move you that far, but a good jockey player will like vary up his movements to like make you move erratically and work your way in whatever direction he wants.
00:22:12
Speaker
But it's, it's interesting. It's a different experience playing the jockey, I think, to a lot of the infected. Yeah, it's not like, hey, I'm going to help out for this group effort. It just like somebody in the back. Oh, thank God. And I can. He's an amazing. I'm sorry. He's an amazing follow up. Yeah. To somebody else. You get one person on the ground, like you said, someone they're trying to pick him up and you're just like, oh, jockey. Now you've got two people that are disabled. So.
00:22:39
Speaker
Or especially if, like, let's say you set up something with a charger. People are
Diverse Campaign Settings
00:22:44
Speaker
like, we gotta deal with this charger. Then you come around, somebody's not paying attention, or who wasn't charged away and just separate the pile. Yep. So divide and conquer is basically the strategy for a special impact. Yeah. Whereas human strategy is shooting. Yeah, conquer. No division necessary.
00:23:02
Speaker
I don't want to make it sound like it's not fun playing as the humans. Yeah. Because it is. It's great. Yeah. I like going through with the katana, chopping down zombies, and then shooting down special infected with a sniper rifle or something. Yeah. You've got like diverse set of weapons. They got the AK-47 at 2. Oh yeah. AK has a nice ratatat response. Oh my gosh. I just love the AK. They kind of have like a counter strike sort of aiming where if you're moving, your accuracy drops off a lot.
00:23:44
Speaker
Yeah, that's why the death squad style was so good in one, and they had to specifically try to counter it in two. But there's another one, another one that was pretty decent at isolating survivors, causing a bunch of damage. This is the tank, which I think everybody remembers that played the game.
00:23:54
Speaker
You're not going to do a whole lot of run and gun for long range shots.
00:24:03
Speaker
he's the he's the special special infected yeah he he's the hulk if the hulk was flesh colored and angry or angry he's like he he's roughly the shape of an m i would say
00:24:19
Speaker
Yes. We're lucky. The legs of the M are just his arms. He's literally gigantic. And he'll go around and just kind of like left click people. He kind of like just throws out his arm. Yeah. It deals like a third year health. And if you get hit by it, you get knocked way the fuck back. Oh yeah. Crazy knockback.
00:24:37
Speaker
On top of that, he has the magical ability to summon rocks out of whatever surface he's standing on for the purpose of throwing. Yeah. He kind of just like digs into the ground for like two seconds, puts this giant piece of road above his head, and then he'll throw it wherever he's facing. Yeah. And if you get hit by that, again, that's like probably half your health and will knock you back or knock you down for a little bit. Yep. Kind of disrupts your movement and go, fuck.
00:25:03
Speaker
They kind of have a, there's a little bit of protection for the people on the ground. They don't seem to take as much damage. But the tank is amazingly good at knocking people down initially. If you got someone isolated and the rest of the group's willing to abandon them, the tank will definitely finish them off while they're on the ground. But in particular, he's really good at getting people to the down state. Knock one person away from the group, take them out, and then
00:25:29
Speaker
Especially if you're near an edge and if a survivor gets knocked off an edge with me like hanging on be like hey guys Help me up. Yeah, it's treated the same as your got knocked down And people like we can't get to me. Yeah, cuz there's a giant guy that is standing between like what are you gonna do? Yeah, we'll try to like body block and Make sure that one person gets taken out and he can because he has a ridiculous amount of health. Yes. He's a capital in
00:25:55
Speaker
Yeah, he has a crazy amount of health. There is one good strategy, well, besides focus fire, which does tear through him pretty quickly. You need some help there. If you hit him with one of the throwables, which is a Molotov, he'll just burn consistently. Usually fire kind of goes out after your time, and tanks that last forever, and it's just a timer until you can no longer, you'll just die. It forces you to play aggressive if survivors get that fire on you.
00:26:24
Speaker
I mean, you can put yourself out in water if you find it. But a lot of times you don't have that option. So you kind of want to go in and fuck them up anyway while the other special infected are trying to help out when they can. I
Importance of Teamwork
00:26:38
Speaker
don't know if this is a rumor or not. So maybe I should have looked it up. But I could have sworn at least in Left 4 Dead 1, if you were like a hunter and you were on fire, you dealt more damage if you found somebody. I think that's true. Yeah, I think that was true.
00:26:52
Speaker
We'll have a MythBusters episode for Love or Dead, but I believe that was true. We'll just go back to our podcast and be like, did we lie here? Oh my God, yes. It's all lies. Everything we've said is a lie. I haven't even played this game. No. I've been making up memories.
00:27:09
Speaker
This is two minutes of wiki-paroozle. Tank in particular would be thrown at the survivors at like fixed crescendo moments where usually he's not in the pool of infected for like random spawns throughout the whole pool. Yeah, that'd be a little bit broken. Yeah.
00:27:27
Speaker
He'll be like, you'll get a notification basically being you're now becoming the tank. The tank will have spawned on the map and you'll gain control of him. If you wait too long, like, then it'll give control of the tank to some other survivor and you'll just spawn in as a special. Or some other infected character. That would be weird. I'll pave the way. Guys, guys, it's me. Shoot him. Don't let Timmy die. He always kills us as an infected.
00:27:55
Speaker
Yeah, that's not a mechanic, but that would be funny. I'm going to switch sides. Fuck you, Phil. And do you actually like playing as the tank? I enjoy it. It is a lot of pressure, though, especially in versus. Well, I mean, it's only available versus, but like in a more competitive when people are really trying hard. Yeah. You have a lot of pressure to perform as the tank.
00:28:18
Speaker
Like if if you just get like blown up by a bunch of auto shaddies and you don't take anybody down Then your team's just gonna be like ah, we should have gotten so much more out of that. Yeah, it's really helpful in general regardless of which infected you're playing as is if you have one other person before you set you up mm-hmm or just be like hey, I'm over here or
00:28:42
Speaker
Whatever zombie noise is. Just to draw their attention for a brief second. Because that level of disruption can help you pull something off or clip them with some damage. Yeah. Yeah, no. Coordination is the name of the game. It's not actually. It's Left 4 Dead. But it definitely helps. Yeah. There are other... Sorry, good. I was going to say the other thing. We talked about throwables for the Molotov cocktail. There's also a pipe bomb. Oh, yeah. Which attracts zombies.
00:29:10
Speaker
So the strat there usually is if you get boomer-biled and they're like, oh, we're attracted to you, you can throw out the pipe bomb and that'll override. Yeah. They'll be like, okay, we'll go there instead.
Dynamic Challenges and Adaptation
00:29:21
Speaker
It's got like a beeping sound and a flashing light on it to attract them. I would check it out. It seems super cool. Yeah. I could put this in my collection. Fidget spinners and pipe bombs. Yeah.
00:29:32
Speaker
Left 4 Dead 2 also had in the same slot a bile, there's a bile bomb. Which basically did like a similar kind of smaller effect to this pipe bomb, not like as large of an area. But if you hit infected with it, it's basically the same effect as Boomer Bile. Like it'll draw nearby infected and they'll attack it. That could also be good against the tank. Because if you manage to hit it with bile, then all these like small zombies are trying to swarm it and take it down and stuff.
00:30:00
Speaker
And that's very inconvenient as a tank player. Yes. And you definitely had to use the resources available to you. Ammo resupplies, medkits, pills, all these offensive things to make it through the diverse set of levels that they had in Left 4 Dead 1 and 2. Oh my god, yeah. I put most of my time into 1, but I know that you played a lot of 2. What would you say your favorite for 2 is?
00:30:29
Speaker
Favorite level? Favorite level, probably. Well, not probably. But actually. But actually. Actually. That's a different movie. But actually.
Character Exploration and Impact
00:30:42
Speaker
It's tough. No, I got to say The Dark Carnival. The Dark Carnival, yeah. Like the design's great. I like how they have the chapters and the finale. The whole thing is just, oof. Is that the one that, that one culminated with a concert, right? Yes. Yeah. I vaguely remember this. I just remember explosions and fireworks and things. All right. Let me, let me walk you through it. Let me set the scene. Set the stage. Let me, let me do the thing. I'll let you do the LA talk.
00:31:12
Speaker
So after you finish the first area you essentially go to the edge of this amusement park that's where the safe house is so when you leave the safe house you start to enter into the amusement park and you're just kind of Going around there's like some tents and stuff not not too much killing some zombies along the way right as you were want to do But then as you go further into the carnival
00:31:37
Speaker
There's more rides and shit. There's more things that are blocking your path, more actual structures.
00:31:42
Speaker
So you have to like kick off a carousel, which generates noise. And then you have to go into like the tunnels of love, which it's cooler than it sounds. It's kind of like, it is a tunnel. There are some like offshoots you have to worry about. And it's also kind of like has that pink mist. So it kind of like sets that vibe and there's like a swan boats as scenery. Yeah. The traditional tunnel of love decor.
00:32:10
Speaker
We should go again sometime. Yeah, I think so. I remember those side passages. Those were really specifically for special infected. Yeah. Just like we're here to make it fun. Hmm. I think after that you went through.
00:32:27
Speaker
Smart carnival stuff, nothing crazy notable. Yeah. I know there's like some slides you can go down at a point. Right. Probably run across a couple clowns anyway there. Oh my god, clowns are the worst. Yeah, clowns, clowns are like one of the game's non-special, kind of special infected, non-playable, but they were different from your standard just run-of-the-mill 48 days later.
00:32:51
Speaker
and that they had shoes. Everyone
Cultural Impact of Left 4 Dead
00:32:54
Speaker
else had shoes, but these ones had clown shoes. Again with the squeaky shoes. So them running at you would attract infected. So they'd normally kind of like loiter, right, until they saw you. Yeah, most of the zombies, you're just kind of minding their own business, but like once they detect you, they're like, that guy, fuck that guy. Yeah, most zombies just, they work their nine to five. They're not concerned, they're in the service industry. Look at that pitch, I can get out of here, don't give me any trouble.
00:33:20
Speaker
Um, but yeah, they'll, they'll run at you with their squeaky shoes and just make everything terrible. It's like a mini boomer kind of. Yeah. I think if you shoot them down, it has like a balloon deflating, something comical. Yeah. But once you get through that junk, there's a roller coaster you have to get onto and it sets off an alarm.
00:33:44
Speaker
And I like these sequences where you have to do a thing, you're like, all right, I know shit's gonna go down. And it's going down, zombies are kind of constantly spawning while things are happening, but you have to go to a place to do an objective. It's usually turning off the alarm somewhere else. I actually remember these as you're talking about them, it forces me to recall. You had to run across the roller coaster, didn't you? Yeah, it's like a decently sized wooden roller coaster.
00:34:10
Speaker
So you have to worry about if you get knocked off or fall off because then you have to go back to the beginning because you have to like go all the way up here and then around the corner.
00:34:21
Speaker
Yeah, they have these really fun sequence crescendo moments where it's pretty much ideal for the special infected to hit you now. And this is one of the differences between one and two, is in one, in Left 4 Dead 1, most of the crescendo moments were stay put and defend, including the finales at the very end. Like hold this point. Yeah.
00:34:44
Speaker
you're like waiting for rescue. I think all of the crescendo moments in 2 except one with a parade float were actually moving. This came up in the commentary. I was listening to some of the dev commentary and that was kind of their throwback to one. They had a parade float where you like started a tractor moving forward to form a bridge and
00:35:09
Speaker
you had to just hold out until it was done. Then you could move across. But they introduced the mechanic of always moving forward in crescendos to keep survivors from death-balling, basically, in a corner. But yeah, they hit you with that in the carnival as well. I was about to say railroad. It's not a railroad, it's a roller coaster. Yeah, roller coaster move forward one. I think
00:35:35
Speaker
I forget exactly which part it's in, but there is a part where you kind of like set down some gas canisters. You get up on top of like some scaffolding. You pull the alarm, you go up there, you set shit on fire and you just get swarmed for a bit. You have to like wait for it to burn out. Yeah. You have to wait for the admissions door to the next area to open. Right.
00:35:57
Speaker
But the key last one, the finale, is you have this rock concert and you want to set things off to
Unique Campaign Locales
00:36:05
Speaker
kind of draw the attention of a helicopter saying, hey, we're here by like blasting music, having a light show. But I mean, the zombies are going to obviously be attracted to this because they're like, what the fuck's going on over there? I would definitely go see them play live. Yeah. So you set up gas canisters. You have kind of like this big stadium where you can be up on the stage.
00:36:25
Speaker
Yeah, it was a huge area. It was very, very large, very, very open. It was a good place for a couple of survivors to have, like, hunting rifles or the snipers just to help cover everybody, for sure. And then usually in the finale, they force a tank.
00:36:42
Speaker
Yes. It's usually like when escape arrives they're just like all right tank time or right before I think. I think it's a little bit before like a helicopter will arrive in like 15 to 30 seconds. Yeah. The tank's like yeah just throwing rocks at the helicopter. About that and that was a valid strategy is um
00:37:03
Speaker
So as it is left for dead, you cannot depart from one area or the area is not complete. You can't end the level in a safe house unless everyone's in the safe house or the people outside are down, like actually incapacitated.
00:37:20
Speaker
in the finale or I think I think level by level if you're just doing a standard level if they're down outside it's not over until they die yes but for the finale if they get downed and you're like an escape helicopter or something like that then you escape and you leave them behind literally left for dead so one of the strats was if you had one of the less damaging special infected but like with good disable say the smoker
00:37:46
Speaker
and they pulled somebody while the escape helicopter was showing up, you would not try to kill that person as quickly as possible or down them. Instead, you send the tank to the helicopter. So you just use that extra long time window. Yeah. Nice. Because everybody's kind of just trapped in this small space and you're like, it is my time. You're waiting for like, Rochelle's gonna die, right? Yeah.
00:38:10
Speaker
It was a kind of advanced strat, but hilariously effective when it worked. Some levels it was much better on than others.
00:38:20
Speaker
Also, who are some of the characters in 2? I've been talking about zombies the whole time. Yeah. I mean, the zombies are the main characters of this, obviously. I mean, they're all the cover art, so. Yeah. But for 2, we had Ellis, who was kind of country boy, has like a disrespectful shirt. I think it says bowl shifters is the text on it. I mean, he's got the hat. Yeah, he's got a cap, right? Like baseball cap.
00:38:49
Speaker
Has a lot of fun stories throughout the game and usually is just the the naive kit right? Yeah, I'm a trope. He's a he's a chatty boy, but he's good. Good egg. Yeah Got Nick. You got Nick. Yeah, it's kind of like your
00:39:04
Speaker
Bradley, who's the actor? I don't know. From The Hangover? I don't know any actor. He's like Bradley from that one movie. He's like a very sharp guy. He's in a suit. He's much more serious, kind of the dad figure of the group. Yeah. We still got that cool, like, I might do cocaine once a month type thing. Do you know his backstory? Did you ever know? No. So Nick's actual backstory is he is an escaped felon.
00:39:33
Speaker
who basically during this outbreak he escaped and the first thing he did was went to a suit store and just got a fitting suit that looked good. Cause I can get my life back together. Got some bling, you know, and then went out into the world and found these people. So it's hilarious. He doesn't talk about the fact he's a felon, but it's pretty great. I think Nick is most people's favorite. Yeah. Cause nobody wants to be Rochelle. Yes. Rochelle is the next one.
AI Director and Replayability
00:40:03
Speaker
She's just kind of whiny I think is mainly her problem. She's kind of like she's like a soccer mom basically. Yeah, she doesn't curse she won't swear so we have that in common, but the Unfortunately that trait in video game characters is not as appealing to me. Yeah
00:40:20
Speaker
She's just not a super interesting character. No But she's the the female of two and she's still a fine character. She's just not as interesting as the others. Yeah Yeah, cuz then you have coach. Yes, which is like friends. Call me coach
00:40:36
Speaker
The other black character you can pick in Left 4 Dead 2, but he is like a coach. Imagine like an older guy a little bit overweight. Seems like he would coach football or something. That's just him. He played college ball back in his days, but he's put on some pounds. Yeah, back in his days. He's put on some pounds, but he's level-headed. He keeps people from going for each other's throats. Yeah. And he's kind of the diplomat of the group.
00:41:07
Speaker
Easily the most friendly. Yeah, for sure. Doesn't like stairs. No. But like he always gets teased about like wanting like cheeseburgers or maybe the hell with chocolate. Maybe it's made of chocolate.
00:41:22
Speaker
it is pretty great but they're just kind of like a ragtag team i mean as it would be any type of zombie apocalypse but that is your your squad yeah when the uh when the game kicks off um for the very first campaign
00:41:37
Speaker
They actually don't know each other at that point. They've just been I think offloaded by a boat at that point and Actually, yeah, I think so because you start on up here And they're just like alright. Well time to actually figure out who each other are and they'll give each others
00:41:53
Speaker
Give each other's names is not what I wanted to say. Oh, yeah, your coach now give each other their names And so you get to get the full character development getting to know each other throughout the campaign, which is really cool Yeah, a lot of it is through
00:42:10
Speaker
Intermission dialogue like if you're going down an elevator like you have a 30-second window. They're like man I fucking hate zombies a little fact about myself Yeah, exactly and you grow to love all of them honestly Yeah, because they all have their own unique personality and how they're dealing with a zombie apocalypse There's a tremendous amount of dialogue like
00:42:28
Speaker
These games are kind of prided themselves on being adaptive because of the AI director. Like a gear will be placed in different locations. And two in particular, there's a couple maps where it'll actually have different paths depending on what the AI director decides to throw at you. But you won't experience all of the dialogue in one playthrough. Like these are meant to be replayed.
00:42:52
Speaker
Yeah. Especially for versus. Have we talked about a versus yet? Yeah. It's been a while since it was kind of a scratch, scratch, scratch my neck. It's been a while since you talked about a new versus. You got any of that, uh, look for dead versus. Um, I seriously did binge a lot of time on that game.
00:43:08
Speaker
Like, I think my friends in college had it before I did. And I just played it at their plays a lot because I didn't have anything going on in my life. And it was a fun game. Yeah. And I also get to hang out with them intermittently. And then I got it for myself or somebody got it for me. And we still played that game for a number of years outside of college. Oh, yeah. That was on the that was on the land party rotation for a while, for sure. It's perfect for that. It stayed well.
00:43:35
Speaker
Even Left 4 Dead 1 still gets a decent amount of play. It's true. Valve was very generous I think with their post-launch content for PC. I think they had to charge on consoles for some reason.
00:43:50
Speaker
It was a requirement. It was basically the patriarchy of Microsoft and Sony. They had to charge money for DLC so that they wouldn't establish a precedent against charging money for DLC, which is a different podcast episode. It's sketch.
00:44:08
Speaker
But for PC, they took the entirety of Left 4 Dead 1 and imported it into 2. They added completely new campaigns, they just gave everybody. Just a tremendous amount of content they provided for that game.
00:44:21
Speaker
I think one of the campaigns was actually made by a fan. They were like, hey, we're just going to use the game editing engine and we'll make a thing. And then it was actually good enough that I was like, yeah, we'll take that on your hands. It's a good mission. A full modding setup where people could make their own maps, share them with friends, things like that. As Valve is wanting to do, they're the kings of monetizing their fan base.
00:44:52
Speaker
Um, but yeah, a bunch of content. The passing I know was one of them where I think they had, uh, the survivors actually run across each other. Yeah. Between one and two. And as it's just, it is really cool how it all is in this contained universe. Um, I mean, there is, there is a plot, but I mean, it doesn't matter so much compared to actual content in the game. Yeah.
00:45:16
Speaker
It's a lot more like the vibe of the game and how it plays and feels like I know we were saying before. It kind of has a unique thing to it.
00:45:31
Speaker
Yeah, like it's not unity
Development Insights and Philosophy
00:45:32
Speaker
modeled per se. Yeah, it uses a source engine. Yeah. Like if you know that source engine feel and then kind of like iconic audio cues for a special infected or hearing zombies or like somebody threw out a pipe bomb. Right. Other things. It's a very tailored experience.
00:45:50
Speaker
yes it's like you play portal 2 and you're just like this is a very tailored experience the audio the uh it's clear it's been play tested for like two decades before they decided to actually release it some other thing for Left 4 Dead 2
00:46:06
Speaker
They actually apparently, this is just another random fact kind of from the commentary, but for Left 4 Dead 2, they had their QA people who were playtesting the game and playtesters. They recorded with webcams their expressions for every single moment of playtesting. Interesting. And then correlated that to also recorded gameplay of that exact moment.
00:46:30
Speaker
So they knew how people reacted to events in the game. Oh wow. Which is like the most Valve thing you could do. Like complete overkill, tailored experience.
00:46:41
Speaker
That's actually really smart. Yeah. And then also it saved a dev time because usually for Left 4 Dead 1, they had to have devs overlooking every single person that was playtesting the game to gauge their expressions. Then they just had one overseer, basically. Who could see everyone's web games? Like, oh, yeah, we have a guy with all the monitors eyebrows moving. Yes. Looking up at the red briefcase stolen.
00:47:10
Speaker
I just thought that was a fun fact. That's pretty sweet. So do you think they did a better job with one or two? It's really it's kind of interesting because
00:47:21
Speaker
I think the answer's two, but it's kind of like one laid all of this foundation, and then two was the capstone. A lot of the mechanics that actually went into two were almost finished for one, but they just couldn't find a way to completely implement it, or it was an idea they didn't have the time to do, like laser sights. You could pick up laser sights for your weapons in two, which had the minor benefit of giving you a dot sight on your screen,
00:47:50
Speaker
Um, but you already have like a reticle. So like, what's the point? The point was you can now see the dot sites for all your allies. So you know where your friends are pointing. Also, you didn't really have to. You have to worry about running gun because it would always keep your reticle as small as it could be. Yeah. You know where you're going to shoot.
00:48:10
Speaker
Yeah, so you could be running around with like a scar, like a burst weapon, and you're just like, I'm shooting here every single time. So it just comes down to how good you are at left clicking and moving your mouse. I can left click really great. Moving before left clicking, that's the trick. Oh no. But yeah, that feature, the laser sights almost made it into one, apparently, but it wasn't quite done, so they put it into.
00:48:36
Speaker
I mean two does kind of have everything that one did plus and then some yeah but One really the characters that leave an impression really good. The character is definitely better than one. Yeah, I think I agree I think that's
00:48:50
Speaker
I don't wanna name who they are, talk about them, but they definitely were better than one. Yeah, I mean, that's not for us to decide what their names were. But their names were, you had Bill, who was the grizzled veteran. Yeah, he kinda had like the beret. He had like pseudo green camo. He always had like a stick out of his mouth, like a cigarette. Yeah, had like his grizzled white beard.
00:49:16
Speaker
Old man, but literally the trope, you know, like in a classic B, B film for vampire, for zombies. Also vampire, did we say there was vampires in the game? There's not, so we did that. But you had Bill, you had Francis, who was the biker gang member. Hates a lot of things. I hate vans. I hate planes. I hate the woods. I hate subways.
00:49:46
Speaker
I hate stairs. I hate elevators. I hate train yards. I hate Ayn Rand. I hate tunnels. I hate hospitals. And doctors and lawyers and cops. He's your grumpy cat. But I think he's sweet deep down. You know who else is sweet deep down? I think maybe sort of.
00:50:16
Speaker
The girl who was a popular favorite in Left 4 Dead 1, Zoe. She had a red hoodie, zip-up hoodie. And that was her defining characteristic, I think. She was also just a character. I don't remember that much specifically about Zoe, to be honest.
00:50:34
Speaker
I just remember she was a cool character and she kind of dressed like Ellie from another zombie game. Yes. I think I think her trope was kind of like the one who you knew was going to make it in the end because she was capable. Like she always rose to the occasion of dealing with all the situation. She didn't freak out like everybody else did. And then there was the man that she had developed an attachment to over the course of the campaign.
00:51:02
Speaker
The black guy, Lewis. Or just Lewis, I guess. Just Lewis is fine, but he did serve the trope. And the Left 4 Dead one. But he was like an office worker. He like had a red tie, had a white button-down shirt, khakis. Yeah, he's your average Joe. Yeah, addicted to pills, as he mentioned.
00:51:29
Speaker
But not really, he just had some really great voice lines that were used in a lot of source filmmakers. He was kind of, I don't wanna say dorky in a way, but he was like the most surpriseable or like, whoa! Yeah. He kind of, he was the least adjusted, I think, to the zombie apocalypse. Yeah, he's not a guy who's gonna go around and be like, I need a murder or something. Yeah.
00:51:52
Speaker
It's always like, that's what we need to do. Yeah. He's like, I'd rather not. Throughout the course of the campaign though, they'd have like a couple moments where it's just like, it was clear that they had some respect for each other. But the way that you knew that there was something going on was if one of them died, the other person lost it.
00:52:10
Speaker
There was like specific voice lines for if one character dies like, oh no, they got Francis, you know, whatever if you're Bill, but Zoe was really upset if Lewis died. Lewis was super upset if Zoe died. He didn't handle it as well if I remember correctly, but it was fine. You would find him later in the closet. Yeah.
00:52:31
Speaker
That's how that works. But yeah, I think those first characters had some really strong personality. And more importantly, I think they played off of each other really well. Francis and Bill were kind of at odds because Francis is just like, this is the apocalypse. That's great.
00:52:53
Speaker
He's one of the anarchists and Bill's like we need to like he's trying to be a team leader. Mm-hmm It's like we got a button down shape up get through this. It's like
Lasting Legacy and Influence
00:53:02
Speaker
the only way we get through this is if we stick together Don't mess around just focus on survival Which ironically just didn't work out so well for him Yeah
00:53:18
Speaker
The sacrifice never happened, I don't know what you're talking about. Fake news. Outside of the sacrifice, do you like any specific levels out of one? And stand out for you? I think... I mean, everybody knows No Mercy. No Mercy, yeah. It was the canonical very first campaign mission in Left 4 Dead. No Mercy's really good. Crazy good finale with the top of the hospital.
00:53:40
Speaker
had the nurses, zombie nurses, we had the special ones there. But I think my favorite section was probably the finale for Blood Harvest, because you've already gone through this gauntlet of situations that can wipe out the survivors, it's just like...
00:54:01
Speaker
Got a lot of spots infected can jump on them and try to get people before they drop down a ledge Scram them away from the rest of the survivors You have the actual cornfield which in special infected couldn't spawn there very easily because the corn Like it didn't really block it didn't block site. Yeah But if you were already there before they jumped down or you found a good angle or something could be devastating because you have like no site as survivors
00:54:29
Speaker
but then the farmhouse where they had to hold out against you know like waves of special infected infected ultimately a tank before a armored personnel carrier like showed up to actually drive them off um i think it was a really good finale so i really i like that from from leopard dead one oh that's a solid one there's another stage from leopard dead one
00:54:55
Speaker
Might be the same one or maybe it's a different one. Mm-hmm. I can't remember the name but it had a lot of witches along the way. Oh Yeah, um, well, I know there was one in heavy rain Yeah, so heavy rain. I think Traditionally wasn't it was in two was it? Yeah, I'm pretty sure that wasn't was in two. Let me phrase fuck one I like this one level from two. Yeah again I know I know you played to a lot more than me. I think I played heavy rain like twice maybe I
00:55:21
Speaker
It's just very muddy, washed out. It's raining a lot of the time, which helps obscure vision. You're kind of going through like more so outdoors. Yeah. Which is nice. Like going through like a small town and whatnot. Also the witches. Yeah. What I can't believe, I forgot to mention them earlier, but they are a special infected type, non-playable that will occasionally just spawn in inconvenient spots where you're trying to get past
00:55:49
Speaker
But if you shine a light in their face or get too close or shoot at them, God forbid, they get really mad. And they'll charge at whoever aggress them. And then as soon as they hit them, they're immediately knocked down.
00:56:03
Speaker
They have like a passive crying state, right? Like where they're just sitting there. You can hear them. They're sad. Yeah. Being real sad. You're like, oh, what's wrong? Oh, I'm dead. That's what's wrong. Yeah. Like a little pop-up will say like, oh, so-and-so startled the witch. Yeah. And then the witch will just go after somebody. You're just like, Temmie, what? Also after they're knocked down, the witch kind of does like a woo-doo-doo-doo-doo-dah. And then the shirt's like beating the shit out of you while you're on the ground. Yeah. Like it's not like. Like claw hands.
00:56:32
Speaker
Yeah, the Hunter has similar claw hands where once you're pounced, it'll kind of slash at you. But these are like extra long claws and does way more damage. Yeah, she encaps somebody crazy fast. There is a special mechanic you can use to deal with her, specifically with the auto shotgun. It might have been possible with the base shotgun, but I don't think so. I think it's harder to, but still possible. Yeah. I was never great at it. There is an achievement for it. It's called crowning the witch.
00:57:01
Speaker
which is basically sneaking up on her and as your first one to two instances of damage, you just get like instant point blank head shots with the shotgun. Yeah. Which just kills her immediately. Because that's a lot of damage. Yeah. And the head, which is going to crit too. That's a lot of damage. It's a good thing that the witch isn't playable though, because that wouldn't be a very interactive experience. Oh, the players chose to walk past me. Damn. Dang it. All right, guys. Well, you do your best. I'm going to be here for the rest of the mission.
00:57:31
Speaker
Should I sit here and cry? Left 4 Dead 2 actually had, so all of the missions in Left 4 Dead 1 are during nighttime. Left 4 Dead 2 actually introduced the concept of missions during the day. There's a lot of them. And it had daytime witches, which obviously didn't exist in one because it was always nighttime. But during the day witches will actually just walk around and
00:57:54
Speaker
that makes them significantly more difficult to deal with in certain circumstances when you're being pressured in versus to move forward. Nick, you all go forward, but what's that? So as a smoker, you're always like, let me pull them into this inconvenient thing, like an alarm car or a winch. Yeah. Oh, yeah. A lot of strategy at play. I got better. No, you got dead. Take a time out. Think about what you do. We'll get you out of the closet later.
00:58:24
Speaker
What's nuts though is the level design for these games, like I said before, campaign and versus, you're going through the same area. The fact that it can support single and multiplayer is beautiful. And also all the levels are really well designed for
00:58:44
Speaker
being cohesive for where you are, but also having the diversity of this is a more open area. It's a little more enclosed and your types of scenarios too. Cause like you're going through a mall, you went through a hospital, you're at a carnival. Yeah. It was a great summer. Yeah. Really, really, uh, interesting locales, I would say, especially for a lot of their set piece, um, finales and build ups to them. It's a lot of really cool stuff. You, you, um,
00:59:15
Speaker
We're talking to me earlier about Dead Center before this. I know, so this is one of the ones we played in prep, right? Yeah. And I think I hit alt, tabbed, the game near the start, because I know there's this unskippable intro thing. But I heard you call out that there is a super loud helicopter sound. Yes. I then remembered. The most iconic thing from Dead Center. I mean, great level. I'll talk about shots and ganks. But the helicopter you were trying to catch,
00:59:42
Speaker
just leaves you guys behind doesn't really see you yeah but the volume for the chopper is so loud you have to take off your headset or like blast your volume down for like a couple of seconds because just the loudest thing in the world yeah comparatively to the rest of the game yeah it's a it's a it's a fun time i'm not mad about it
01:00:03
Speaker
That map did have a lot of interesting mechanics. It opens up pretty early. It has a lot of rooms you can explore in. As soon as you go down that first flight of stairs. And it's not all safe. There's so many places Special Infector can spawn there.
01:00:21
Speaker
Yeah, because they can just go behind a door and be like, spawn, and then open the door. Well, they can't open doors. They can melee through. Yeah. It's really obvious, though, and it has a very notable sound. Like hunter scratching on door sound is just a trigger sound, I think, for me. I know where that is. And if it got damaged enough, hunters can actually jump through doors and just straight up break it. What? Yeah. I did not know that. I thought doors always blocked. That's cool.
01:00:47
Speaker
You could do the final instance of damage and then carry through with your body, which is a very Kool-Aid man type moment. I like that. I think smoke through holes and doors. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You can shoot and have projectile-like things through holes and doors, which is pretty good as it turns out.
01:01:10
Speaker
I like how the deeper into this we get. I'm just like, so you're saying an object and pass through an open space where another object is not currently residing. Yes. Interesting. Interesting. Welcome to another episode of physics. To be fair, a lot of games would be like the door model is still there. Yes. It's going to have a collision detection. So it's cool that they designed it that way. That's what I'm trying to say. Yeah, it's cool. That's all we're saying. It's cool. Yeah.
01:01:39
Speaker
I know that, personally, one of my favorite tactics in some of the more open areas like that, near the top of No Mercy or the very top of No Mercy, basically any video game I play, ledge kills. Ledge kills is what I care about. Oh my god, yeah. And it's super possible at the top of No Mercy, hit somebody with a tank, they go flying off of the hospital, and you're like, one down. It's the best thing ever. I'm disappointed when I play games that don't have ledge kills.
01:02:09
Speaker
Yeah, like one of the things I really liked about For Honor is you can just knock people off the edges of things and it's just they're dead. My swan. Yeah, my swan. It is cheeky but it's something you have to like keep on your guard for so like having it as a mechanic. Usually for me though if I'm getting ledge kills it's with a charger. Yeah. And you just charge once you clip somebody you go until
01:02:33
Speaker
I think there is a max distance, but you go into like you hit a solid object like a wall or some barrier, or you just go in a straight line, which is great if you're lined up with a window, because you'll just take that person with you out the window. You're now exiting windows. Please make sure you have your seatbelt on at all times. It's now safe to turn off your computer.
01:02:59
Speaker
Yeah, it's a fun experience. We talked about so many infected special strategies here. This is clearly the versus podcast. It is though. It's a solid game all around. I would say definitely try out the single player campaigns or co-op with a friend or friends as you go through and get used to it. But it is really cool to then play against your friends once you know the maps and how the game works.
01:03:25
Speaker
It is fun to play the resource-deprived expert difficulty with three other friends, where it will wear you down. If you make mistakes, it hurts a lot. Yeah. A lot of the basic zombie's damage goes up in higher difficulty. Yeah. Because usually they just do a minor amount of damage, but they also slow you when they hit you. But if you go up later, it's like 10 damage per hit. Yeah. And it's... You only have 100 health, so... It goes quick. It does. But...
01:03:54
Speaker
I think that's about all I have for Left 4 Dead. It's a solid game. It's been around for a very long time. I'm sure most people have heard of it. Most people have played it. I think most people own it because Steam has made it so cheap. Yeah, it's one of those games that goes on free every month. Yeah, it might just always be free now. I don't know. But yeah, it sunk a stupid amount of hours into it and I don't regret them. It was a fun social experience.
01:04:25
Speaker
with friends and enemies. It's good to play games with your friends, but it's also good to be able to kill your friends. And support them out of your friends. Yeah. That's a game. I'm just gonna leave it on that pause. Yeah.
01:04:39
Speaker
But that's not this game. No. Like, Left 4 Dead 2, insanely cheap, great replayability, and they have all the features of one built into it now. Yeah. Because you can go back and play campaigns from one as well.
01:04:55
Speaker
The only reason to play one is if you just literally don't want like melee weapons and the items added in too. That's it. So, play two. Good stuff. But I'd like to thank everyone for sticking around for another episode of Soapstone. As always, you can leave any feedback you may have for this episode on our Facebook page at facebook.com slash Soapstone podcast, or send it into our Gmail at... What's that sound?
01:05:25
Speaker
What's that sound? What do you think that is? Who do you think I am? What? What's that? What is it? Are you talking to me? What is that? Is that a tank? That's a tank. That's a tank. Thick boy. So propane and propane tank.