Left 4 Dead 2 takes place one week after the events of the first game and
three weeks after the first infection. Instead of following the journey of
Zoey, Francis, Louis and Bill from the first game, the player gets to control
Coach, Rochelle, Nick or Ellis. They arrived a few minutes too late at the
evacuation point and now need to fight their way through the south-eastern
part of infected America to the next official evacuation point.

The core gameplay has not changed since Left 4 Dead. The player still looks
through the eyes of one of the survivors and fights his way together with his
three team mates through hordes and hordes of zombies. Instead of fighting
mainly in the dark, most content of the five campaigns takes place both out in
the open and in daylight. This also plays into the hands of a new feature:
weather effects. The second part of the third campaign is even completely
build around the theme of a heavy storm hitting a small town on the outskirts.

Heavy rain is not the only new enemy for the survivors. The zombie horde also
grew through the addition of three new special infected called Charger (a
smaller version of the tank), Jockey (he jumps onto a team mate and moves him
away from the group), Spitter (spits deadly acid in front of the player’s
feet) and a new class of common infected: the uncommon common infected. They
have the same basic attributes as normal zombies but have a special ability.
The clown for example attracts a horde of zombies, while the riot police man
is immune to damage from the front.

To take on new and old enemies the weaponry has been greatly expanded. Besides
new rifles, pistols and shotguns, melee weapons such a a chainsaw, a guitar
and a baseball bat have been introduced to the game. Also new is a laser sight
that can be used to increase the accuracy of a weapon as well as two types of
special ammunition. In addition the Boomer Bile is now available to launch at
enemies and turn the raging horde against them.

Multiplayer once again consists of several different modes. Beside playing
through the campaigns cooperatively and playing both the survivors and special
infected in the Versus mode, the players can choose the Survival, Scavenge and
Realism Mode. Survival pits the players against wave after wave of enemies
with the only goal being to survive as long as possible. Scavenge requires the
players to collect fuel canisters to fill up a generator while the other team,
playing as special infected, tries to stop them. Realism Mode is a variation
of coop-play for hardcore zombieslayers. The stakes are much higher there. The
zombies can only be killed with a headshot, the witch has changed into a one-
hit-one-kill-weapon, and a downed player is dead unless he is revived with the
shock paddles. The last mode is Mutation, which has the player play a game
with different rules. The rules are changed every week. The player might have
to do the entire game using only M60’s or play Survival combined with Versus.

Left 4 Dead 3