GeekStrike

Here’s a quick sum-up of what to expect so far for the upcoming sequel of the highly popular multiplayer zombie shooter.

Story Background

• Left 4 Dead 2 takes place in the Southern United States, as the survivors make their way through Savannah, Geogria to New Orleans, Louisiana.
• Entirely new cast of survivors: Coach, who is coincidentally a high-school football coach; Rochelle, a news reporter; Ellis, a mechanic; and Nick, a gambler and conman. Wait a minute… a conman? Is he trustworthy? To say the least, he’s not an infected zombie. More skeletons in the closet will be revealed through the in-game dialogue.


(From left to right) Ellis, Coach, Rochelle and Nick in the Swamp Fever campaign

• 2 of the 5 campaigns have already been announced. They are Parish and Swamp Fever.

Swamp Fever is probably the only night campaign in Left 4 Dead 2. And the Infected can come from virtually anywhere on this map. Totally eerie.

Show me the weapons

• All the old weapons will be making a comeback, along with firearms like a new shotgun, a silenced sub-machine gun, an assault rifle with better aim and grip.
• Incendiary ammo when used with your firearms, sets the Infected on fire.
• Instead of just shoving the zombies away — which a pretty bad idea anyway since any real zombies can just scratch or even rip your arms off — you have access to an arsenal of melee weapons that includes baseball bats, chainsaws, frying pans, chainsaws, axes, chainsaws and more.

BOINK!

New Infected are added

• Charger, reminiscent of the Tank, charges at an incredibly fast speed that can send your team flying away like bowling pins. His other ability disables a single target — by relentlessly and repeatedly smashing the poor survivor’s face into the ground with his humongous arm — somewhat like the Hunter that has successfully pounced on a helpless victim. However, the Charger has a lower health compared to the Tank and only charges in a straight line.
• Wandering Witch, is the Witch from the original except she’s no longer a squatting crybaby in the day. She still doesn’t want to be disturbed and now moves around aimlessly, which makes it even easier for your team to stumble onto her.
• HazMat suit Infected (below), appears only in Parish campaign and is invulnerable to fire attacks. So don’t even think twice about spamming Molotov cocktails against these guys.

What the? This Infected in HazMat suit can walk through fire and never get burned. I'm dead serious!

• Mud man, appears only in Swamp campaign. They sprint on all fours at such an incredibly fast speed that it’s quite difficult to track them down.
• Spitter (below), is introduced to solve the survivors-camping-at-the-same-spot issue. She does a ranged area of effect vomit attack that damages the survivors the longer they stay put within the infected area. It is extremely effective in multiplayer mode, when the survivor team panics to escape and gets dispersed into small groups, leaving them even more vulnerable to further onslaughts from the Infected. As a side note, she is pregnant and looks extremely abominable.


She could be fined S$1,000 for spitting in Singapore. That was some wishful thinking... she would probably be killed-on-sight.

Miscellaneous information

• Adrenaline and ammo packs replace pills and first aid kits respectively. Popping an adrenaline allows you to run past a horde of Infected without slowing you down.
• AI Director 2.0 provides a uniquely different experience for each L4D2 game session. It changes the weather effects, pathways, altering the enemy population, and many more according to the player’s decisions and performance. For example, it rewards you with the powerful incendiary ammo for picking longer or difficult paths.
• All the 5 campaigns support Co-op and Versus mode. There is also a fourth game mode that has yet to be revealed.

Release Dead Date

• 17th November on PC and Xbox 360.

(Images courtesy of Gamespy.com)