Game Brain: The irrational side kicks in

By Brian Diefenbach
Western Herald

For a man who espouses “Gaming with Intelligence” as the theme of his column, I can be pretty irrational when it comes to games.

I broke one of my own rules twice this year: first, I bought “Batman: Arkham Asylum” on the recommendation of friends. While it was a good game, I never really got into it. I also have no desire to play through it again.

The second instance of rule breaking was my purchase of “Borderlands,” also on the recommendations of friends. This time, I didn’t regret my decision. Despite its flaws, “Borderlands” is addictive and a blast to play online with friends.

My irrational side kicked in yet again last week after I played the demo for “Left 4 Dead 2.”
I hated it. In a particularly flagrant bout of nerd rage, I declared that I would never buy the full retail version on Nov. 17.

I didn’t even finish the demo. I yelled obscenities and angrily shut off my Xbox 360.

Granted, L4D2 isn’t that dissimilar to the original “Left 4 Dead.” There are a few new enemies, guns, and characters, but it’s pretty much a retread of the original. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, I know… I know.

The same-old, same-old irked me a little bit. But that wasn’t the entire reason the L4D2 demo soured me on a once assured purchase. The voice acting sucked; it wasn’t funny or memorable. I didn’t find anything interesting about the characters. I’m tempted to give Coach a pass, but he wasn’t as cool as I thought he would be (he’s pretty much a fat guy with a whistle around his neck).

The frame rate, at least for the Xbox demo, was atrocious. However, this was during splitscreen mode. Another play-through on single-player didn’t have the same problem. The damage, however, was already done.

Source – the game engine that has powered every Valve game since “Half-Life 2” — has not aged gracefully. Ol’ Gabe Newell seems to think that slapping on a few extra polygons will be adequate eye candy. Graphics aren’t everything in a game, but they are an important aspect that shouldn’t be apologized for.

Daytime zombies lose a bit of their sinister edge in the daylight. Instead, they’re just mean drunks that happen to be missing body parts, and crave your sweet, juicy flesh.

All of my gripes about the L4D2 demo are fairly minor in the grand scheme of things. Plenty of people will enjoy the game just as much as the original. The biggest problem is that L4D2 is dancing on L4D’s grave, only a year after its release.

I wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye to Bill, Francis, Louis, and Zoey from L4D just yet. I’ll miss the Boomer bile in my eyes, the deadly caress of a Smoker’s tongue, and bear hugs from the Tank. Forget about the Witch, I’ve had enough of her. It seems like these characters only just got here.

Instead of more downloadable content for the original, we get a full priced ($59.99 for Xbox 360, $49.99 for PC) sequel that’s nothing more than a glorified mod. Mods, for those who don’t know, are modified versions of a game, often with new content. At worst, they can be half-baked character skins or new levels. At best, we have mods that qualify as separate games in their own right. Heck, the original “Counter-Strike” was a mod that was bought by Valve and published.

Maybe L4D2 is on the higher end of mod quality, but it remains a mod nonetheless. I never played “Gears of War 2” because it was just a full-priced mod of the original.

Even though I’ve been rationalizing my dislike for L4D2, I’m still being irrational. After all, if you have fun playing a game, even if it is overpriced, isn’t it worth it? Why sweat the small stuff? I loved the original L4D, and L4D2 is pretty much more of the same. I should be happy.

But I’m not. Instead of being content with a fun game from a great developer, I have to pick out all its flaws and condemn it for not being exactly what I expected. It’s not right, it’s not fair, but it’s how I feel. But who cares? It’s not as if the lack of my purchase is going to doom Valve to bankruptcy. I have a feeling that L4D2 is going to do just fine sales-wise.

Maybe because I love Valve and so many of their games, I get overprotective. When I said I “hated” the demo, I didn’t really mean that. I was angry and disappointed… disappointed that the sequel to “Left 4 Dead” could have been so much more. I was, and still am, willing to wait another year or two for a true sequel.

But why cry over what should have been? We should be grateful that we have great games like “Left 4 Dead” to enjoy. So what if they come out with another boring sequel? There will always be plenty of new and interesting titles out there. Have a little patience; keep your eyes open and your ears perked.

It’s okay to be irrational sometimes. If we were always perfectly logical and rational, we wouldn’t be spending our money on video games at all. And that’s a scary thought.

Brian Diefenbach, a copy editor and columnist for the Western Herald, is a senior majoring in imaging. For more Game Brain, visit gamebrainonline.blogspot.com

Short URL: http://www.westernherald.com/?p=11739

Posted by HeraldAdmin on Nov 12 2009. Filed under A & E. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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