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The specials in World War Z are copies of these archetypes but given the speed at which players move, the rapid fire arsenal, differently designed environments, and quick melee weapons, they don’t match up. If the team was goofing around, a Boomer would pop around the corner and bring an entire army down. If a player was falling behind, a Smoker would snatch him up. If players decided to clump up and turtle, a Spitter would spawn to split them apart. You see, Left 4 Dead’s random sequencing and special monsters were designed to counter specific behaviors the players took. Where Left 4 Dead would let you know well in advance a special zombie was up to some bullshit, World War Z just skips the foreplay and dumps them on you. Add a couple hundred swarming zombies and everything just turns into visual noise. Get them off your teammates with a few hits and rinse and repeat. A bull zombie (essentially L4D’s Charger in a police outfit) will always come, followed by a guy that is a renamed Hunter. But other than the visuals, there is little tension to be had. To see them stack up or charge a gate is truly a sight to behold as you lay down heavy fire. Absent is the environmental storytelling, the tension of not knowing what could happen next, or characters that tell stories to anchor you into the world.Įncounters with the zombie horde from Brad Pitt’s nightmares are visually impressive. You move from point to point hitting buttons and fighting off the swarm, over and over until even Left 4 Dead would ask for a break. You will always find the key on the last body, you will see ammo boxes in the same spots, and you’ll fight the random spawning specials in much the same manner. Left 4 Dead 2 made the director an even nastier person, pitching up the difficulty the better you played and mixing in normal zombies that required specific tactics. Spawn points, escalations of enemies, ammo and medkit locations, everything was up for grabs behind the scenes. Director saw to it no match ever played the same. Going into Left 4 Dead you wouldn’t be amiss by decrying a lack of content and immediate repetition.
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World War Z misses the point of what Turtle Rock did back in 2008 and that’s because they were only looking at it from on the surface without digging deeper. Hell the games even had their own meme subculture. I can easily recall the times Ellis would go on a long rant about something in the environment until other characters told him to shut up. I can still tell you Bill’s callouts are some of the best. On the flipside, I can still recall all the names of Left 4 Dead 1 and 2’s characters. There’s also a woman with a teddy bear on her backpack that I’d randomly pick sometimes. Honestly, the only character details I can provide from World War Z is there’s a guy in a New York Giants jersey and some police-looking guy. It handles well, the graphics aren’t too shabby and there’s an unclockable system for a variety of classes that can be played by a variety of fairly forgettable characters. It’s still the zombie game that tried hard but missed the point.įundamentally, it’s competent. Now World War Z Game of the Year Edition DLC pack-ins do little to change 2019’s experience. Suffice to say I love it when a game like Warhammer: Vermintide spins up the formula and gives it a fresh infusion of new ideas like character classes, perks, a new setting and loot I’m all about it.
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Witch in the way? If you have a shotgun it’s time to headshot her before she stands up. Tank spawned? Toss a pipe bomb to clear out residual zombies and start kiting into a gas can. Horde caught us in the open? Fall to a corner area and make a killbox. The two in the front would use melee weapons and crouch while the rear guard shot over them. Horde incoming! Get two players in the front, two in the back. When I played with others in my elitist nerd sphere of sublime challenge, we would be nearly wordless operating at 3 am. I would even mentor friends having a hard time in certain levels and was often called in to bad situations to help everyone progress. Later on they added even higher difficulty modifiers with realism mode, and yes I beat that too. I first conquered them on their Expert difficulties. I ate, lived and breathed both games as much as one could for years after release. My combined playtime of Valve’s Left 4 Dead and its sequel is in the upward sphere of hundreds (maybe thousands) of hours.