Good News: Shut Up!

A great tactic for survivors is to surround zombies to confuse them!

Contrary to other reports, the Left for Dead 2 demo was released on time by Valve to the delight of many preorder customers. All “nerd rage” is simply in spirits with Valve tradition. It’d be a dark and horrible omen if this demo were released on time by our mundane standards.

For those not in the know on this franchise, Left 4 Dead 2 is a co-op first person shooter based on the hit movie 28 Weeks Later, about 4 survivors combatting Rage infected zombies in New Orleans.

Valve has broken their longtime stance against using blatant sexuality in their games in order to truly create a realistic and immersive New Orleans. Boomers now come in a female variety with delicious booty jiggle physics, and the Spitter, the new gal on the block, parades around the streets proudly showing off full cleavage and a thong pulled just high enough to entice a lonely male gamer. Both of these gals harness the power of bulemia to assail the survivors with terrifying results. Ladies to the series won’t be disappointed as many of the regular infected barrel down onto the survivors in muscular, shirtless masses. The amount of infected hungering for the supple flesh of the living is staggaring as Valve really worked on optimizing the engine. Waves charge and are gibbed like tasty gushers (www.gushers.com a wonderful candy treat with a fruity center that explodes into your mouth when you bite down!) with no slow down on the engine.

The new special infected are more than worthy additions to the enemy team. The afforementioned Spitter does mindboggling damage against campers, and the ludicrously quick Charger more than lives up to his name, picking off single survivor and taking them to Curb Slam University. I’d like to take a moment to talk about the Jockey however. I seriously need to talk about the goddamn jockey.

Bullets disappear in there and never come out.

The Jockey is a female infected that, in the spirit of the hyper sexualized New Orleans that Valve has created for us, rides the face of whichever survivor she manages to wrap her cold dead legs around. One moment you’re fighting some infected, pretty relaxed and just letting loose a spray of pellets into a crowd. The next you see a screaming wretch flying cootch first at the screen, about to enshroud you in absolute darkness. Despite the lighting in the game, between her legs is a dark void where light cannot penetrate, and as long as she rides your face she will control you. You can try to resist her influence but it is futile. Without the help of your teammates, she will control the rest of your life. A pretty harsh criticism of women in general, but I suppose if I were going to die in a zombie apocalypse this is the way I’d want to go.

Our heroes this round include a mechanic, a gambler, a coach named Coach, and a Depeche Mode fan. Not much is known about them yet, and the demo really doesn’t reveal too much. Come the release of the megapatch to this demo which will include 5 full campaigns, their stories and personalities will likely be fleshed out more completely.

The zombies are all clamoring for the attention of rock superstar Randy Jackson. Or so Coach would have them believe!

In the original Left 4 Dead, many gamers lamented about the four playable characters each essentially being the same when played despite wildly varying characteristics to each of them. These complaints have been heeded and a small preview of things to come has been included with the demo. Coach is the only such character in the demo to have an ability, which can only be activated when he is equipped with an electric guitar. Using the button usually reserved for zoom, he has the ability to do a mean Randy Jackson impersonation, attracting the horde to his rockstar persona. It’s an amazing ability to save an injured and swarmed player. Mum’s the word on the other special abilities but I, for one, am extremely excited.

The demo’s out for everyone next week and I recommend looking for a game to chill to with pals to give it a shot. The demo is free ($0.00 USD).

"God DAMN I am addicted to crack." - James, upon seeing this image of the Spitter.

BREAKING NEWS

The demo for Left 4 Dead 2, which was scheduled to be opened to all pre-orders today at 1:00 PM PST will now instead be opened at 10:00 PM PST. While this is not out of the ordinary for Valve, it has caused an alarming reaction in the gaming community.

Observe:

Most users expressed frustration over the incident with responses typical to the 13-35 “stay in basement” demographic:

While others expressed confusion:

And while we have the reassurance of authoritative figures:

Some just couldn’t handle the news:

More on this as it develops