The first update for Left 4 Dead looms ever closer and I bet you’re all ravenous for explicit details, salivating in excitement at the prospect of exploring the updates every crook and cranny. Well your in for a treat then, welcome to your one-stop non-stop source of Left 4 Dead news, Boomercharged! Where we fire juicy information right at your face that imbibes every drip of factual news like a roll of super absorbent Bounty. Yes we leak you every ounce of hot steamy details, grilled fresh from our informants and fact checked our sources at wikipedia. So prepare your factual osmosis faces for the latest and greatest details on the update, found nowhere else but here on Boomercharged.
That is of course if you haven’t already read IGN’s preview of the new update, where their writer’s were flown to Valve headquaters to test play the update (We at Boomercharged are sure our invitation got lost in the mail, right Gabe?). But please don’t leave to read it, please stay. Those guys don’t love you like we do (in a purely platonic and totally macho of course). They may be professional games journalists, but we’ve got fanatical ranting right here. So let’s forget your affair with that other site and move on to the details of the update.
The so-so yet still crucial details
Firstly Valve will be releasing a Critics Choice Edition of Left 4 Dead for the X-box on April 21st, although that won’t interest anyone here seeing as you all should own the game anyway, but good news for X-box players is that Valve have managed to coerce Microsoft to release the DLC for free. No need for you to get your Microsoft fun bucks out to join in the good times. Valve have also stated that the update will be ready for download before April 21st, which knowing Valve could mean April 20th (look trying to get a reliable release date from Valve is like trying to get directions from a limbless mute). Valve have will finally be adding Dead Air and Death Toll onto the roster of Versus maps, which is a good thing too if your like me and can now trace the Mercy Hospital campaign maps blindfolded.
Survival
That’s right Left 4 Dead is getting a brand new game mode called Survival. As you may of guessed from it’s title, the aim of this game is to survive as long as possible against an infinite horde of infected and their special counterparts, simple right? Oh is it ever that simple? I’ll go into more a bit later. Now when I first heard of Survival I presumed it would be the four campaign finales that just never ended, well I can tell you now that I was a presumptuous fool. It will be fifteen levels from the campaign, plus a brand new map called ‘Lighthouse’. That’s thirteen maps to die on, for those as bad at maths as me.
Each level will have a random sprinkling of ammo caches, health kits, gas canisters, molotovs, and pipe bombs as per the norm of any map. When the four unfortunate survivors start they will have as much time as they deem to familiarise themselves with their geographical layout and form their plans. Once they’re bored of bickering, praying to the Director, and voice spamming one another, the survivors can press a button to activate the horde. This probably means that the maps are going to be the ones that include crescendo points, those being the button that will activate the endless horde, so my hint of the day is to familiarise yourself with those maps.
Once the horde are released then hell is truly unleashed, think the finale if the Director had just found it’s AI lover sleeping with SHODAN and found it had contracted a virus from them. Or as Wash from Firefly would say, “Oh God, oh God, we’re all going to die,” or Hudson from Aliens, “That’s it man, game over man, game over! What the fuck are we gonna do now? What are we gonna do?”. Basically not good. Don’t believe me? Well Valve’s company best survival time is just shy of 9 minutes, no-one has yet beat the 10 minute mark.
Now, now before you all unveil your e-penis’s and say how you and your friends could, “like totally survive 20 minutes.” Remember this is not going to be the finale, where a horde attacks, followed by tank, sprinkles of the special friends, rinse repeat. Valve have said if you survive long enough (I doubt we will) we can have two tanks at once, including a horde, and a couple of each of the special four. If you read that right and realised, then yes, yes there will be multiple boomers and smokers at the same time. There is no mention of the witch, which either means she takes a leave of absence for this mode or she is placed randomly around the map beforehand.
Valve also give out medals depending on how long you last, Bronze, Sliver and Gold. The times are hand crafted for each level, but a rough idea is Bronze is four minutes, Sliver six minutes, and Gold eight minutes. Gives you an idea of how long the creators give your chances at survival. It also can give your ego a boost when you earn one, but it also gives another thing for a squeaky voice teenager to boast about over voice chat, and to call everyone else a noob if they don’t have gold yet on all the maps. You know this to be true, look in your heart (OK I really am going over my geeky reference quota on this one).
The point of this having very short rounds? Well it may be that Valve knows we worship them and with their power are being as sadistic as physically possible. Or they are nicely filling the feeling players such as I have of, “I fancy a game of Left 4 Dead but I can’t really devote myself to an hour of campaign or 2 of versus.” This should be a fun short game that requires less time devotion, while still being addictive and replayable until the wee hours of the morn. Or maybe that’s what Valve are hoping a Valve fanboy like me would say. Sadistic future gaming overlords or genius developers? Either way I’m excited.
- L4D pic by ~jake-ru
