It’s foolish to deny that the way out Left 4 dead in 2008, he divided the history of cooperative shooters into the “before” and “after” eras. Developers from Turtle Rock Studios under a cozy wing Valve created an almost impeccable zombie action movie for 4 people, where each race through the city flooded with fetid corpses presented a sea of unique situations. Now, directly comparing the old man with the new one Back 4 blood, you are especially surprised not so much at the availability of the necessary ones, as at the absence of unnecessary solutions, which the novelty of 2023 is simply overflowing with.
As much as Turtle Rock Studios may deny, Back 4 Blood is an obvious attempt to create a kind of Leaft 4 Dead 3, with blackjack and classes … and a card system … and roguelike elements … and pumping … and many, many other things, sometimes successfully intertwined, but more often just annoying. The basis of the gameplay has been recreated one-to-one: four armed men wade from one safe room to another, colliding with hordes of angry carrion on the way, while an invisible director led by AI generates dozens of unexpected dramatic situations in the form of ambushes, a sudden horde attack and other villainy. A special piquancy is given by the unique infected – powerful zombies with extremely unpleasant abilities and posing a particular danger to survivors.
It is important to note that the “Battle” mode, which allows another team of players in the same locations to take on the role of special infected, is almost the main reason that still keeps the second part of Left 4 Dead online not only afloat, but even in the top lines of Steam with a solid performance of 20 thousand simultaneously playing. We have no idea what fly bit the developers of Turtle Rock Studios, but in the Back 4 Blood demo this mode was absent, and, judging by some interviews, it was not even planned. Now only a big act of the story campaign and a strange PvP mode on separate tiny maps are presented, which, judging by our personal impressions and the general degree of seething on the Internet, does not come to anyone.
The game menu is designed in the form of a survivors’ camp, where we wander, rebuild card decks (we will talk about the meaning of which later) and we can shoot plenty of shots at the dash from all types of weapons, shuffling various attachments.
About shooting in the game, it is difficult to do without evaluative statements, because it gave rise to many diametrically opposed opinions among the players. Some consider it excellent, others categorically disgusting. Personally, it was convenient and pleasant for me to shoot Back 4 Blood: the guns feel really different, and the good old ultraviolence with tons of ketchup and deliciously flying limbs warm the soul. There was a full aiming and the ability to hang weapons with various sights, laser targeting and silencers. True, the randomizer regularly generates completely idiotic combinations, for example, I was forced to pick up a shotgun with a 4x telescopic sight more than once, and the game does not allow removing the body kits just like that, only replacing it with another, which, God forbid, gets caught.
Zombies, in their essence, are not much different from their congeners in L4D – they are just as fast and also die in hundreds with half a kick, even if they shoot in the heel. To somehow stand out, the developers made interesting visual effects in the form of a terribly twitching swarm of worms from the shot off limbs, but this does not affect the gameplay. Special Infected are reassembled versions of the ghouls we already know, many of which have 3 variations. Let’s say Spit combines the abilities of Spit, Smoker, Hunter, and Jockey. There is a big man with a huge hand, reminiscent of a cross between Tank and Thug. There is a fat man who vomits acid and explodes after death. According to the precepts Gears of war and Lost Planet each miniboss has weak points in the form of orange-colored dots. The developers decided to radically rethink the balance and made the special infected much less individual. In L4D, most of these villains died in a couple of headshots, with the exception of Tank and Witch, which require a ton of lead. Now, to pacify anyone, you need a couple of clips. An analogue of Fat Man is almost guaranteed to reach survivors under a hail of bullets, if they are not separated by a very great distance. The spit almost always manages to launch several green grubs at the players. Mini-bosses began to be perceived as homogeneous meat, evenly smeared all the way. Previously, every meeting with a Tank or Witch was a pronounced moment of maximum stress, but now every monster is a conditional “Nedotank”.
In the course of getting to know the beta version, I got the feeling that the developers were selflessly weaving elements of all popular network games into the game: here there are heroes with different classes, and elements of a looter-shooter with color gradation of guns, and a pinch of a roguelike with the accumulation of money and pumping into within the session, and even a system of collecting cards with playing them on the battlefield.
The dynamics have significantly decreased. Hurricane races to the next save room gave way to a more leisurely passage with the collection of everything that is not nailed to the floor. Now there was a reason to sniff every nook and cranny for money, a cooler purple barrel, weapon upgrades and extra ammo. Yes, ammunition now more often runs out, and instead of universal piles to replenish them, we have to look for the right caliber, cursing loudly when the game again threw in a bunch of shotgun cartridges, and the character only has empty AK-47s and a revolver with him. Slowness is also added by a limited bar of stamina, which is instantly depleted when sprinting and swinging melee weapons.
The card system works quite simply: we take into battle a pre-made deck of cards with various character improvements. “+ 5% to health”, “+ 10% to stamina”, “+ 20% to ammo” and so on. Each completed stage to the save point allows you to choose one improvement from five random ones. By the middle of the campaign, the character is expected to become a more adaptable warrior with a bunch of useful perks, tight pockets and a couple of serious guns, hung with improvements. Money, by the way, plays a crucial role in survival. Each save room has a store with a bunch of consumables for every taste, weapons and upgrades for it. You can even buy a powerful boost for the whole team for the next stage. Levels sometimes come across lockers with paid treatment and perks that are activated for money. You can earn money not only by sweeping a handful of coins in every nook and cranny, but also by fulfilling the pre-selected conditions of the stage. For example, having run it without a single knockdown or without disturbing a flock of crows.
This whole heavy system of cards, lutting and Plyushkin’s habits is falling apart due to a couple of critical flaws. If you want to break into a session with friends who have already passed half of the act, for some reason you will start completely naked with a standard class weapon. Needless to say, without pumping, money and more solid guns, your character will be noticeably weaker and more useless in battle than his comrades who have come from the very beginning. In this aspect, the simpler structure of Left 4 Dead definitely brings the novelty forward with its feet. There you can easily join the game at any time, without feeling the burden of inferiority.
AI bots in the current version do not stand up to criticism. They don’t take perks, don’t buy consumables, don’t get treatment at help points. Their ceiling of usefulness is to run next to you, sluggishly shoot at enemies and, in a suicidal impulse, try to lift you to your feet, even if they are thrashed by the crowd at that moment. But even such elementary algorithms sometimes break down, and bots jump into the abyss for no apparent reason. In Left 4 Dead, playing with dummies, I managed to go through several stages on the “expert” difficulty, but out of the three available difficulty options, the impenetrable dullness of artificial intelligence hardly allows me to overcome even the first.
The revolutionary AI-director at one time practically did not undergo any changes, but he nevertheless learned some dastardly tricks. The levels are still linear, but some rooms may be closed or open after a restart. Sometimes a secret room with supplies appears in random places, which can only be opened with a repair kit, which is bought in the form of a consumable. Traps are generated in random places on the levels that summon a horde due to the careless actions of the players. It could be an alarm door, a car, or a flock of crows feasting over a corpse. There is an analogue of a mine – a zombie in a cocoon, attached to a wall and throwing at an unwary player. The Ogre also appeared – a giant mini-boss the size of a three-story building. According to the developers, you can encounter him anywhere, but in the current version of the game, no confirmation of this thesis has been found. The giant delighted us with its presence in strictly defined places and nowhere else.
In general, the presented act turned out to be incredibly rich and varied. For a couple of hours of adventure, we trample the streets of the metropolis from the very roofs to the underpass, cross a forest, a ship, construction sites, farms, a cemetery, and even personally turn the church into a safe conservation room, fighting off an angry crowd and nailing down windows.
Of course, Back 4 Blood cannot be called a full-fledged nextgen project, but the game looks quite passable. The levels are drawn with passion and diligence, the atmosphere of the classic zombie horror is worked out almost flawlessly, already in this Turtle Rock Studios got used to it. At least the program is minimum completed – Left 4 Dead 11 years old is graphically defeated by more modern lighting, high-resolution textures, smoother animation and interior filling. The sounds are also good, though it’s better to play with headphones out of harm’s way, so that the neighbors don’t grab the Bible, hearing endless heart-rending screams, squeals, groaning and squelching of the rabid dead.
The local PvP mode, against the background of the absence of a full-fledged cut of the special infected within the campaign, is perceived as some kind of depressing mockery. The survivors will have to fight off the waves of carrion on a tiny map, while the special undead will contribute to the speedy death of the little men. The already small territory is gradually shrinking into a very modest heel, as if in some Battle Royal. After the inevitable death of the survivors, the sides change. Almost no one in my social circle liked the mode, but this is the only, at the moment, way to assess the management of the infected. Three classes are available and each has 3 subclasses. Managing them in the long term is quite pleasant, especially the Plevunya galloping along the walls, but, again, in the future. The regime itself gets boring instantly and almost completely eliminates such a concept as “ambushes”, because the survivors have practically no motivation to move around the arena.
Of course, Back 4 Blood cannot pretend to be the Messiah of co-op shooters, which without a twinge of conscience can be attached to the first Left 4 Dead. The framework of the mechanics has been cleaned up from the original, and the mechanics that have been pulled from everywhere do not always fit well into the concept of the game. However, most of the problems are solvable, and it is quite likely that an excellent zombie action movie for a noisy company will await us. We sincerely believe that the community will force the developers to return us to a full-fledged battle mode as part of the story campaign. In addition, the game needs to be balanced for players who join in the middle of the act, and AI bots are now pulling for the title of “the dumbest in the history of shooters”. In its current form, Back 4 Blood looks like an inappropriately overloaded and inhibited clone of the great game.
Author: Alexey Bezdenezhny (KOZIK)
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