Left 4 Dead Demo Impressions

I have to start by saying that I’ am a great fan of COOP games (The team work games not shelf stacking type). So I was very excited to see valve working on their own cooperative shooter, especially as it involves zombies. Personal preferences aside I decided to download the demo to see if it was worth buying. I played the demo on steam, and although I do have a 360 I felt this was more of a PC game. The game is 1-4 player coop and 1-8 player versus. The demo is coop only.

Now it seems valve have some weird idea on what the purpose of a demo is. To me the idea of a demo is to

Heavy update (TF2)

The heavy update was released last night, conveniently just as I got home from work. The update focuses on the heavy class, giving him 35 achievements and 3 new weapons/items. There is the sandvich, which is basically a glorified first aid kit and fun to see in action. The sandwiches heal 120 health and leave the heavy vulnerable to attack in the few seconds it takes for them to munch it down. There is a new mini gun called Natascha which slows enemies down but deals less damage. The last item which most people know about is the KGB (Killing Gloves of Boxing), these gloves give 5 seconds of critical hits when used in exchange for a slower hit speed.

As well as the updates to the heavy there is a new payload map (badwater basin) and a new gamemode called arena. Arena has 5 maps, two new and three converted old ones. Arena is played in rounds where teams face off in a one life battle. There are few health packs around so you need to be careful. The round ends when a central point is captured or one team is knocked out.

There is a new “meet the” video out about the sandvich, you can watch it here

As per usual the class update has turned the game on its head with 90% of all players being heavy. Its a site to see given the heavies large size, watch them lumber around with their miniguns in the masses.

Team Fortress 2: Heavy Update and new map coming next week

Next week Valve are adding a new control point map and giving the heavy class some love by updating it with new weapons and achievements. The names of the new achievements are available but there is no indication on how they are gained. As far as new weapons and adjustments go, the only confirmed weapons are a pair of boxing gloves which apparently increase the heavies critical melee damage. Who knows what the other weapons are, but I hope they are something to make the heavy more of a viable stand alone class.

Valve have put a little teaser site up here with the boxing gloves and some of the achievements being added. If anyone has any clues on the other guns let me know in the comments!