Left 4 Dead 2

By on September 5, 2012 9:40 pm

Left 4 Dead 2

Game Mechanics:

  • Shoot a weapon
  • Reloading
  • Heal yourself/teammate
  • Movement in a 3D space
  • Rotate camera orientation by virtue of moving the player’s head.
  • Melee
  • Run
  • Walk
  • Jump
  • Weapon Switch
  • Projectile throwing
  • Button holding to activate something

 

Real Time Control

For all of the mechanics listed above all feel instantaneous while playing the game which means they most likely execute in under 100ms.  Only two of the mechanics listed above, healing and button holding, remove control from the player in order to execute.  However, even though player movement is not allowed during these events the player can still interrupt these events by letting go of the button early in the event that something happens that they need to react too.  Movement in all directions as well as jumping, camera movement and firing a weapon or throwing a projectile can happen at the same time.  By allowing this to happen you allow for a continuous correction cycle because the player can immediately react to their perceived error.

Spatial Simulation

For the purposes of this paragraph we will be discussing campaign mode.  The player exists on a map with 3 other teammates that can either be AI controlled or controlled by others.  The player has boundaries that they must adhere too, the map has walls and boundaries that the player will collide with if they attempt to walk through them.  The player can open doors by pressing the interact keep when next to them.  If a player attempts to walk through an infected they will be stopped and most likely attacked,  this especially becomes challenging when you have many infected in a close proximity to you.

Polish

In Left 4 Dead 2 sound is king. Every weapon has its own unique sound that match what you would expect when firing the weapon.  Whenever a special infected spawns on the map a specific sound trigger is played meaning that if you are familiar with the game you can tell when something is near you without even seeing it.  When you throw a Molotov on the ground smoke and fire permeates through the air catching onto any infected that happens to pass by.  Whenever the player gets covered in “boomer bile” the players screen is obscured with a dark green semitransparent layer that serves two purposes, to obscure the players vision for a short time and to notify the player that the infected will now be specifically targeting him.  Each footstep you make has its own should associated with it as well as when you jump and open doors.  Given that the player is using a sharp melee object or a powerful gun each infected can have individual body parts injured or removed giving the player the illusion that the location that the aim for actually matters and giving the player the satisfaction of being able to specifically eliminate specific body parts on an infected.  The player is also given a flashlight on each main weapon allowing the player to illuminate specific areas when in a dark room.

 

By combining all these things together you have a game that has a very solid and tight game feel which is what one would expect from a Valve title.

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