is there a versus mode?
There is, but its separate from the campaign, think of a horde mode with versus tossed in.
oh, ya, i remember now, someone mentioned it - it sounded horrible.
I watched the Nextlander stream of the game today and there was a funny moment where Vinny went to open a door where some survivors were hiding in the apartment building, and a Sleeper in the adjacent hall activated at that moment, shot across the hall, embedded in the wall geometry separating the hall from the NPCs, and appeared to die when the door finished opening into its face.
Does it still have that “'I’m a floating cursor” feeling to movement from the beta?
Watching McMaster and Tom play last night sort of has filled my need to want to even try and play this. But I have gamepass, so for free, sure. :P
Is it just me or do the special infected just seem like they are lacking something?
Wiki on the CARDS here : Cards | Back 4 Blood Wiki | Fandom
@tomchick any more feelings / thoughts from your time playing last night?
LOL that’s amazing.
This feels like a network/netcode thing, but going back to “it must be the higher load” comment I made above, I am seeing situations where I get knocked back by the exploder dude’s exploding (e.g.) except there wasn’t one anywhere close to me. I just don’t think everything is quite there right now, in terms of the engine.
I’m still pretty underwhelmed – the progression system and character builds can’t hold a candle to what Aliens: Fireteam Elite and World War Z are doing – but I haven’t re-uninstalled* yet! I’m having a great time working through the levels with McMaster and I’m especially looking forward to trying the harder difficulty level.
-Tom
* I uninstalled yesterday, but then reinstalled to play with McMaster
Seems playing in solo offline mode disables all the things.
I think the solo mode has all the cards unlocked. It’s basically a way to test stuff with bots. I’m not sure why you’d want to bother, because the bots are all kinds of awful.
But, yeah, it’s pretty stupid that the progression stuff forces you to play with at least one other person. Which might be a bigger deal if the progression stuff was something other than a steady trickle of cards without rhyme or reason.
-Tom
Reviews
79 average for now.
Seems like the perfect Gamepass game. :)
Feel free to look me up for some zombie killing co-op! If people want to be added, I can make a mini list here.
lordkosc#8990 (GamePass)
Yyrkroon#4861 (GamePass)
Finished act 1 with a few random players and 1 bot, I wonder what the player numbers look like… you would assume with crossplay is on, teams of 4 shouldn’t be a problem on release day…
Also the friendly fire is real! Not only have I been shot in the back, I also have been set on fire, all in my first 2 hours of play!
Hit some of that FOG that Tom was talking about, adds extra challenge when you don’t know the maps. :P
Acts should have a max of 3 chapters, people keep dropping.
edit I totally agree with him, first difficulty is too easy, second difficulty wipe my team on the first or second map. WAT.
As a minimum, there should be a difficulty between these two, and ideally, there should be five dificulties in total (like Vermintide 2, like DRG).
Some quick thoughts
Graphics are decent. Which means slightly outadated. No ‘visually stunning’ here. If you would told me this game was released 4 years ago, I would have believed it. But in exchange, it performs well on pc.
Weapon sounds are… functional, but they don’t sound particularly realistic.
Special infected feels less well designed than L4D infected. Despite their similarity, in L4D they felt… a bit more elegant, they were very well tuned, easy to kill if you were with your team in open space, and instead served to punish specific player behaviors (people going solo, people camping in a corner, etc). I think some specials here don’t have unique sound cues?
Horde numbers are not impressive. Maybe I’m misremembering it, but it could swear the hordes in L4D2 were slightly denser. And of course other coop games also surpass it (wwz, vmt2, drg).
The difficulty issue, already commented above.
Scenario variety is less than I expected. Some levels actually repeat parts of previous levels.
I like most new additions, like the starting shop, the new item slot, money, different ammo types, and weapon rarity.
First, because it gives you reasons to explore the scenario instead of running to the objective/exits (once you learn the map). You have reasons to go off to the side, and here pick up so gold, here pick a new weapon attachment, there an ammo box, maybe even a new card.
Ammo types gives you a reson to switch between your two weapons more, or even a reason to change to a newfound weapon, or to coordinate better with your mates in higher difficulties.
Weapon rarity gives you also reason to swap it from time to time, instead of playing it all with the same weapon. Weapon accesories also change enough to be noticiable.
And lastly, a bit of ingame progression is always nice to have.
Weapons are better than in L4D, with nice ironsights and more differentiation between them. Not that it’s an incredible accomplishment, L4D was always very arcadey.
One of the things that kept tripping me up is that there are three main types of specials: Tallboys, Stingers, and Reekers. And each type has three subtypes. For instance, the dude with the giant right arm who looks like a refugee from every Resident Evil game ever? He’s called a Tallboy. Except that there are three types of Tallboys. The Bruiser just smacks you with his big arm, whereas the Crusher grabs you and incapacitates you until someone else kills it. And then there’s a third one I don’t recall. And I think they all have different weakpoints, which are the key to destorying them. You shoot the Bruiser in the shoulder, but the Crusher in the head. Yet they’re all called Tallboys?
I only know this from ducking into the Swarm game mode, which I don’t anticipate playing much. Okay, which I don’t anticipate playing at all. It felt small and frantic.
Then there are some specials – hags, snitches, breakers, golems – that seem to be limited to certain levels? Maybe there are corruption cards that bring them into play?
Anyway, the situation with specials is a bit of a mess and like so many other things in the game, it’s not explained anywhere. I guess I’m supposed to watch a YouTube video of some streamer figuring this stuff out if I want to learn it.
-Tom
P.S. I’m tomchick#3230 in the game. Me and @Jason_McMaster will be playing and we’d love some help. If anyone is up for jumping into a match at 7pm Pacific, let us know and we’ll make sure you get in!