So, Left 4 Dead 2. It's... Left 4 Dead 2!
New stuff I've noticed:
-OMG daylight.
-The Charger is a single-dose tank; he's not robust by any means but he's basically a bowling ball.
-The Spitter's not too much of an annoyance, and she's more or less harmless in open spaces. She's clearly there to prevent camping.
-The Jockey's an obnoxious little bastard, effectively kind of a melee-range smoker, though more focused on driving you into trouble than just separating you from your team.
-The Witch walks around now. I don't know if she's harder to neuter than she used to be, I haven't tried to crown her yet.
-The melee weapons are pretty much an instant kill bash that can hurt your friends. Aso they replace your pistol. They come in handy but it's kind of a tough sell. I've only used the frying pan and the machete yet and haven't found much of a difference between them.
-There's an adrenalin shot that goes in the pill slot. It makes you reload and bash faster, maybe run faster too.
-There's a defibrillator that goes in the medpack slot. It's supposed to revive dead teammates but I haven't used it yet. Incidentally, I haven't seen many closets around.
-You can get a canister of boomer bile in your grenade slot. It summons a horde wherever you throw it; it feels like the antlion pheropods in Half-Life. I'm not sure why anyone would pick that over a pipebomb, though maybe it's effective against tanks and witches.
-There's a new magnum pistol but I haven't used it much.
-There's a new basic shotgun. Not sure how different it is from the old one (which is still around, like the other L4D1 guns.) There's also an AK and a new autoshotty.
-Guns have way less ammo now. The starting shotgun only has 50-something reserve shots. They're also placed in less contrived locations, i.e. not just plainly lying around on inexplicable tables. I found myself switching guns more often; the game tends to get you to pick up new weapons rather than give you ammo refills.
-Zombies are more varied and colorful in general.
-SWAT zombies wear bulletproof vests. They're kind of a bitch to kill and they resist melee weapons.
-Pipebomb explosions now shower ragdolls all over the place. :D
All in all I'm looking forward to the full release. It's really more of the same, but with new flavors. And the music is awesome. I don't think I can overemphasize this. It is incredibly flavorful. The original seems almost generic in comparison.
