Left 4 Dead 2 - first impressions

Time was, I'd buy a new game, rip off the cellophane, ignore the instruction manual and plough several hours into my new purchase. These days, what with being 'grown up', having 'responsibilities' and a pathetic craving for 'sleep', I take my new-purchase gaming where I can find it.

Which brings me on to Left 4 Dead 2. I bought the game on release day (20th November in the UK) but was going away for the weekend for a pre-Christmas visit to relatives, so could not play it until Monday night. And, as it turned out, into Tuesday morning.

My initial impression is that L4D2 is bloody hard! The first game was no walk in the park (other than the bit that was, actually, a walk through a park) but this ratchets the difficulty level up a notch. I've only played through one campaign, 'Dead Center', so far and if that's a sign of things to come, there'll be a few more late nights in my future. The campaign took two and a quarter hours to complete, which is about an hour more than a campaign in the first game would take.

The new infected are both interesting and hard to kill (I hate the Jockey) but, in the player's favour, you are given melée weapons (which rock). The set pieces are a lot more involved than in the first game. In the campaign I played, I had to steal some cola (really) from a store in order to bribe some guy to blow something up and, for evac, had to find fuel cans around a mall, with which to fill up a Nascar-style car. I thoroughly enjoyed these events, which showed more depth than just blasting scores zombies, wave after wave, as in the first game (though I enjoyed that too).

I think that this added layer of complication kills the single player game, as the CPU-controlled characters simply do not have the nous to use the tactics necessary to progress. Hand them a petrol can and they'll just drink the petrol and wear the can as a party hat - they're that dumb. I played with one other real person, with the other two in the party in the hands of the 360 and even then we struggled.

After I've played it some (lots) more, I'll post a full review. Of course, I would have played it some more last night but my 7-year old was still awake at 9pm, my L4D buddy had to work on an important job tender and I was crazy-tired. Responsibilities, eh?