Being a lover of games, especially good ones, and even more so of sequels that are just as amazing as the first, it’s not often that I find myself hesitant to accept another title to add to my ever expanding collection. Having what could probably be considered as too many Final Fantasy and Resident Evil games, I’d be a bit of a hypocrite to say that sequels are bad, but that doesn’t mean I can’t question the timing!
November 18th 2008, an almighty day for the gaming world with the release of an undoubtedly influential, extremely successful, and all-round bloody marvellous gaming bombshell: Left 4 Dead. While I wipe away the drool and attempt to contain my love of this game to a bare professional minimum, I really don’t need to spend much time to summarise the impact of this game; Ready Up Left 4 Dead Wednesdays for one, a perfect example of the impact of this game – we don’t dedicate days to any old tosh you know! How about a special edition game of the year release for another, or if you want to be very fussy how about over 2.5 million sales before it’s five months old? Are we on the same page? Good!
So crazy amounts of copies and not many months later along comes E3 2009 with the, dare I say insane, news that Left 4 Dead 2 will be released a day before the year anniversary of the first. Surprisingly, many people have since been left wondering why the hell Valve, makers of Left 4 Dead, have opted to bring out a sequel to a game that is still riding on its fast paced and addictive wave of success.
The main argument for many, and something that as a big player of Left 4 Dead I agree on, is that the first game still hasn’t reached the limits of its potential, and is still far from dropping in popularity with players. The survival pack released earlier in the year was a perfect example of the additions that can be made and be lapped up by us zombie slaughtering nut jobs accordingly. Because of the beautiful simplicity of just having to get through the scenarios without getting pounced, puked on or having your jugular ripped out by a rabid woman in her underwear, gameplay can always be expanded with extra levels, and will be rinsed to the length of a smokers tongue and back before we even think of asking for something more.
The easy add on potential was confirmed again recently by the newly announced campaign pack that will be released in September, featuring tweaks to the normal game modes, new dialogue (I eagerly await more classics one liners!) and will be fully compatible with co-op, versus and survival modes; so… do we really need a whole new game two months later?
This mutual feeling between many of the Left 4 Dead online community has given rise to an actual Left 4 Dead 2 boycott, if you can believe such a thing! Their play on the situation is simply let us get through and take the current game as far as it can go before we shunt to the next one. Having such a close knit group of highly addicted online players, many gamers are concerned that bringing a second title in this early will create a divide, and leave Left 4 Dead 1 slowly rotting and gathering dust in a fictional gaming world corner along with Zoey, Francis, Bill and Louis. When many game series such as Halo, Gears of War and Call of Duty take nearly 2 years to develop between titles, you can understand why many feel it’s all a bit too rushed.
So far well over 41,000 Left 4 Dead players have joined the boycott, and although I know I’m not strong enough to resist the temptation of Left 4 Dead 2, I do agree with their point of view. Valve, the ever encouraging and supportive game developers that they are, attempt to reassure us that this won’t be the end but yet another new beginning, but it wouldn’t hurt to fend it off for a little while longer now would it? For more information on both points of view please visit http://steamcommunity.com/groups/L4D2boycott
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