In-game shot of Left 4 Dead 2 on a roller coaster.
The Border House podcast decided to take a little holiday for those who celebrated Thanksgiving and try out something a little more fun. Instead of waxing poetic at our favorite RPGs we decided to have a change of pace for some good ol’ FPS zombie-owning action. We take on the Dark Carnival campaign and I think we tried to sneak some intelligent conversation in here, and a Boomer probably popped out and stopped that. If you’re into watching Let’s Play videos and would like to see more, show your support here! We’ve created a YouTube channel, and our play sessions and presence on YouTube will be moderated as safe places for everyone to enjoy. Come back in two weeks for a return to regular programming!
The Border House YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheBorderHouseBlog
Let’s Play Left 2 Dead 2: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheBorderHouseBlog#p/c/2872B8B5F0D6B432/0/392JfrC5NnU
TBH Podcast Speakers:
TBH Fans:
Laquidara
Richard
Want to play in a future Let’s Play? E-mail the editors (editors@theborderhouseblog.com) with your Steam handle to be invited to The Border House Steam group and I’ll snoop around for when we next have an opening!
Yay! It was a lot of fun, though looking over the videos I sound a little sick. I kinda just wanted to be in the background (it’s how I am with multiplayer games.)
I look forward to more, and yes, that means even the ones without me in them.
Thanks again for letting me join in the fun!
Oh Left 4 Dead, so many memories. For some reason I never really got into Zombies with WaW; only when Blops came out. L4D was my go-to party game for both me and my circle of friends. It’s vastly superior to the old usual suspects like Halo in that it’s 4-player co-op, so that both the veteran and the newcomer can have fun and contribute. Co-op with varied objectives, too, not just “fight off the horde”, which puts it a notch above Gears (at least it did at the time). Also, had female characters (which Gears has now too, but not at the time – I remember reading an interview about the inclusion of female characters in Gears when they were shocked to find so many people’s “co-op partner” was their actual significant other. Who knew?). I spent hours on those gold and silver challenges. I like that both L4D games have diverse casts, but I really wish they’d have more than one female character. Having a single female character puts one at dire risk of tokenism, and becoming the representation of what is essentially “female” in the minds of the creators. Besides which, women are 50% of the population – there’s no reason to suspect there wouldn’t be even numbers of survivors. Heck, throw a three women/one man L4D crew in the next game. No less realistic than the other way around.
One of the unique and interesting things to me, at least, is that while L4D is co-op, it also at times rewards selfish play. Whereas in many other games, one of your buddies dying = game over for the whole crew, in L4D I on several occasions left my buddies to die when getting to them would likely cost us a victory. It isn’t the nicest way to play and it’s spurred on more than a few arguments, but really, what’s better? Saving a single character but having everybody die as a result and have to play the level again, or sacrificing someone and making them sit out for a few minutes while the rest of us finish the level? Most of the time it’s worth it to take the risk and have the extra gun around, but other times it just isn’t. I don’t take umbrage when this happens to me – it’s for the good of the many and it’s just a game, not like I died in real life – but others vehemently disagree. They think we should finish together or not at all; that priority number one whenever someone goes down, no matter what, should be to save them. I was literally running to the escape boat in one level to end it when one of my buddies went down a few steps behind me, and was immediately swarmed not just by zombies, but by chargers and a tank. I shrugged, ran to the boat, and got our finish. But he was spitting mad and told me I’d “betrayed” him, even though going back for him would have meant certain death for both of us.
I don’t know, what do you guys think? Bros before objectives? Don’t get me wrong, in an IRL scenario I’d surely prioritize my comrades, but this is just a game. I don’t want to play the level again because someone screwed up, and I wouldn’t expect any different if it was me.
Hm. I’m more concerned with everyone enjoying themselves and each other’s company than game objectives or ‘winning,’ really. For me, co-op like this is more about socializing and bonding and having silly antics with the people you’re with more than it is competitive or victory-focused.
That’s just me.
That’s true, but isn’t the rub that some people won’t be enjoying themselves if they’re not ever completing any of the objectives? To be sure some of the most fun I’ve ever had playing co-op was just for a larf and we never went anywhere with it, but when we’ve been trying to get the trophy for an area for the past hour or so it would be nice if we actually got it. It seems to divide my friends into two camps by the end of the night: the don’t care and the do care. It’s no fun to have someone ride you about making a mistake, but it’s equally no fun to have someone crap out on you for the sake of wacky antics when you’re earnestly trying for an achievement. Particularly when it happens more than once.
Ah well, us do-care-ers can set up our own co-op nights, which we have. IMO it’s just as great a bonding experience to accomplish something trying, difficult, and teamwork intensive as the wacky antics part :p
Oh, it looks (and sounds) like you folks had fun. That’s the most important part in multiplayer with friends, imo. Just to have fun and try to keep it easy and light, even if it can get frustrating at points for one mechanic/user-ability reason or another.
I know in a frantic pace and setting like L4D social justice commentary is harder to divide one’s attention to do, but I think it’d be neat if discussions on social justice issues and representation and such could happen based on what one sees/hears while playing on these Let’s Play videos. Mattie mentioned how there’s only one lady in each of these games, for example, and pointing out things and talking about them along the way would be neat, I think.
I’d love to do something like this with BH. Though anything first-person is a no-no for me. Motion sickness! Ick! But maybe something like Mass Effect 3′s co-op and various Mass Effect related items when that game rolls around.
Every time I’ve played L4D it’s always been a blast, whether it’s been with Mattie or otherwise. This was my first time with Rawles and Richard, both were fantastic.
There was *some* talk at the beginning of the video about people throwing in stuff to say along with some other stuff, wasn’t sure if it was worth keeping in or having a smoother introduction. Wasn’t anything profound, so I decided to cut it. But maybe some might have found it interesting?
(If I had the footage still on my computer I’d have added an “extras” video along side of the other videos, but the thought didn’t occur to me until it was too late.)
Me and my brother have great had some great times with L4D 1+2, its always much, much, much better than playing solo. I prefer solo to deathmatch, but I prefer co-op to solo.
Oh, neat. Next time, if such happens, I’d really be keen on such an “extras” video.
I did enjoy L4D1+2 with friends, the handful of times I’ve played them. It has a similar sense of open-world mayhem to it that sandboxes do, and that might be why it is appealing (even without any sort of storyline of character dialogues/cinematics). Though I only played in modified third-person over-the-shoulder mode. Edited via the .ini and dev console. Can’t play it to keenly in first person due to the motion sickness issue. :3