This post relates to: Left 4 Dead, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe
Sorry about all the abbreviations, I couldn't help myself.So yeah, I'm currently playing Left 4 Dead and Mortal Kombat vs DC universe. Here's an unnecessary picture of my PS3 about to run MK vs DC.
I've played quite a bit more of Left 4 Dead than MK, but that's only because I got MK today and L4D on Friday.
Therefore all I will say about MK is that it seems pretty awesome so far. I'm about 1/2 way through the MK side of the story mode, ( in case you didn't know there's two story sides, one from the MK point of view and one from the DC side) and it works pretty well. You play through different chapters, and in each one you play as a different character. This helps to vary the play, as well as helping you decide which character you might be best suited to. As far as online goes, I've only played a couple of matches. There wasn't any lag in either, and I managed to win both somehow, even though I played as Superman and didn't really know any of his special moves. I just ended up relying on good block timing, and one decent combo. I'll probably do another blog on my thoughts on MK once I've completed it and played some more online, and possibly a review if I can be bothered. Anyway, on to Left 4 Dead!
Before I talk about what I think of L4D, I'll just comment on my computers ability to run it.
As you can see I have a laptop, plus it's about 2 years old ish. However, with everything on normal settings it plays great. I guess this isn't that surprising as it runs on the Source engine, and that's been around for a few years now, plus I can run CS:S, Half life 2 and episodes 1 and 2 quite easily. It does look quite a bit better than those games though in my opinion, so I was pleased when everything ran good.
So onto the game itself.
TBH I wasn't expecting that much from this game. There are quite a few Half Life mods that involve you fighting zombies, so I just thought Valve were cashing in really.
Obviously I hadn't read or seen anything about the game at this point or I wouldn't have thought that. I downloaded the demo and got into a 4 player co-op campaign match, and straight away we were under attack from hordes of zombies. I had foolishly chosen to play on the hardest setting so unfortunately we didn't make it through to the end, but I didn't care really because it was so fun! It's hard to describe why really, but I guess it's like Ryan says in his review that the world seems so real, even though you don't see another non-zombie in the entire game. Combine this with great shooting controls and decent graphics and you have a great game.
Anyway, after playing the demo I decided to buy it obviously. Then I watched the little preview vid that GB put up and saw that they were playing AS THE ZOMBIES! I did not realise this was possible! So I went straight onto the versus mode when I got the game, and became a hunter first off. I ended up jumping on a guy but got blasted straight off, so I decided to be a bit more careful next time. When you play as the "special zombies", you get randomnly assigned to either a Hunter (can jump long distances and pin people down whilst mauling them), Smoker (can pull people long distances with it's tongue whilst constricting them), Boomer (can vomit on characters which attracts hordes of zombies almost instantly), and finally the Tank (does what it says on the tin). If you get killed by the survivors (which happens fairly regularly) then you have to wait about 20 odd seconds to respawn.
Therefore, it's very important to work with your fellow zombie teammates to bring the survivors down together, and this can be very satisfying :)
So my final thoughts on Left 4 Dead are that it's a 5 star game, because even though there aren't that many maps now people are already making their own ones (at least on the PC).
As for MK vs DC I would also give it 5 stars just simply because it's so much better than the most recent versions. However, I can't comment on the longevity of the online or replays of the story mode, arcade mode etc yet, so look forward to a review possibly in the next week or so.
Thanks for reading:)






































on Aug. 19, 2008
on Aug. 15, 2008