Hard Rain pretty much fixes your problems with the textures... not sure you will enjoy the rest, otherwise

I played Dead Center, wasnt thrilled with it

I got in on a normal game, chapter 2, was fun for a bit. Did seem a little less linear, and we actually explored and stuff. This is likely just because we're all still new to the map.

Immediately though, I found it harder than the original L4D, which isn't exactly bad, but there seemed to be even fewer reprieves. There ALWAYS seemed to be a horde or multiple special infected coming at us, which is good for some people, but I was hoping for a litlte more atmosphere, and a little less constant BAMBAMBAM.

Didn't really notice anything new with the Director, but I've only played the map once so this isn't a fair judgement at all. New special infected run the gamut of interesting/dangerous to just plain annoying (idk, the charger annoys the fuck out of me)

Like the new witch. New weapons and items are nice if not pretty basic and uninspired (cept for Boomer vial, that's hilarious). Love the laser sight.

Then I got to chapter 3. Drule's comments really stand out here, the interior was drab, boring, and repetitive. I actually just got tired of it and quit, though we were also getting slaughtered at the alarm portion (two team mates had just bailed for no reason so we had AI)

Levels are way too big, repetitive and open-ended, and lack the cramped survival horror-ish elements that the original game had. Also, powerups are scattered EVERYWHERE. There is no strategic placement at all. You literally come across items ALL THE TIME and you don't even have a chance to finish up using your old weapons and medikits before stumbling over new ones.

Hmm. I didn't really get this impression. Levels didn't seem repetitive, although there are some very open areas (which I actually liked!). Items can be abundant, and I'm not sure if it was just the fact we were playing on Expert and thus using them faster, or if the director AI actually scales the amount down, but we were frequently running out of ammo and limping to the end.

Whatever pays the bills. They could announce Left 4X4 Dead featuring a 16 player co-op main storyline with offroad racing for all I care as long as they keep churning out goofy armaments for TF2.

i want Meet the Medic and most importantly, Meet the Pyro


that is all i am asking for valve



do them

Hm you guys should play with us. Me and farmrush have a blast. I really don't care about the atmosphere, but it is true the source engine has reached its limit. As for the items, I think it's way better now. In l4d1, all power ups would be in the exact same spot, which meant you didn't have to explore to find other ones. Now you switch weapons much more often because you have to work with whatever weapon is at that specific spot. And the interior levels, I hated them in the first game because they're terrible in versus. They still suck here, Dead Center is the worst campaign out of the others.

Don't play with pubs (unless they have a mic) and the game is great. I play on expert because I find the game a lot more fun when you're struggling. And there's more coordination going on in the harder modes.

i still have yet to play versus, how to the jockie and charger play? no one cares bout the spitter

I have a hard time playing Jockey in versus because it's hard to miss a little hunchbacked bleeding guy in a wifebeater crawling around near you making funny noises.

The mapping is horrible and the textures are way too plain and bright. Every level looks like a 3D image does before you apply the shading. In the first level, which is a hotel, you have the chance to view the building from the outside, and it was so lacking in detail that it almost looked like a Duke 3D map or something.

I only thought this about The Parish, honestly, and that's because it was so devoid of detail, not a problem with the engine itself. I thought that most of the levels looked really good and I just wish the draw distance was longer.

oh, and the corpse piles looked so terrible i'm practically begging for a reskin.

I have a hard time playing Jockey in versus because it's hard to miss a little hunchbacked bleeding guy in a wifebeater crawling around near you making funny noises.

jockey has limited windows of opportunity but man can he fuck up the survivors. run people out windows in dead center 1,  off the bridge in parish 5.

my best so far is on dead center 4, the survivors got split up and i jockey'd some guy on the ground floor. i ran him up the stairs to the 3rd and rode him around til he went down, a horde came and he was fucked.

on dead center, before you get in the elevator, my friend managed to charge a survivor right out the window for insta-kill haha

spitter is actually now the best infected

yeah, i've quickly learnt that...

Could you grab a screenshot? I think I know where you mean, but I was honestly too wrapped up in the zombies and FIRE.

Every new infected seems designed to fuck you up if you camp somewhere high on crescendos/finales

i think that was the plan.

they intend to fuck up campers as much as possible but one thing im wondering if it's intended or if it's a bug is when you die because a charger blows you away from somewhere high. I was walking on top of the houses in the second to last tivoli map and a charger grabbed my friend and threw me to the ground and it insta-killed me. Even if i landed somewhere inside the map.

I'm not complaining that the graphics aren't up to par with today's standards, I'm saying that when I played the hotel level, the exterior of the building looked excessively pale and plain, like a single colored 3D model lacking a texture. I don't know if it's a bug, my video card or if the game simply looks like that on medium to high settings, but when I played the first campaign it mostly looked horrible.

yeah the hotel exterior is really badly done. it's definitely a low point. but the rest of the game looks great except for a couple of areas  like that (interior of swamp fever shacks just looks like they didn't put any effort in, i like the country lawyer office with a copy machine and computers in the middle of the swamp town but uh why is the office interior made of just planks?). it's definitely the settings, source is a really old engine and won't look great if the settings aren't on high. i play on highest with a midrange computer and i think it looks really fantastic 95% of the time but on low settings there is a HUGE impact on prettiness. it's stylized so it looks pretty bad, like TF2 does, on medium settings.