HP Fansite

Thanks for the Left4Dead 2 update, Valve!

Playing as the happy chainsaw-wielding Coach in Left4Dead 2

In some other news related to gaming, I’ve just updated Left4Dead 2 to the latest version (I think) after a long while of not playing the game due to crash issues, which some may remember, I posted about more than a month ago. Well after keeping myself busy with other games, relaxing during the Christmas/New Year holidays and more recently, covering HP-related CES news, I’ve finally had the time to start up Left4Dead 2 and pull in some new updates. And guess what? I just finished the first campaign, Dead Center, on singleplayer and it worked the whole way through without a single crash/lag situation happening! Yes, we bumped into the Wandering Witch several times, the bots AKA computer-controlled characters disturbed her and had to take her down (one of the biggest causes of Left4Dead 2 crashes which even Valve themselves acknowledged)… did that a few times without crashing at all.

I’m off to get myself something to eat before I test out the other campaigns, then later today, I’m planning to celebrate this occasion (yes, hurrah for games with LAN support!) by bringing my Pavilion dv4 over to a small L4D2 gathering/LAN party with some other L4D2/gamers I know. Once again, I’m overjoyed that Left4Dead 2 seems to work very smoothly after being updated… that’s another PC game with decent multiplayer and LAN support, for the win! I’m glad I got this game – initially for its singleplayer/multiplayer replay value and multiplayer features (yes, like LAN support and dedicated servers which should be standard in the PC world), and now, good support by the developers for the game. In fact, in my books, any game with either a long, in-depth singleplayer mode (ie Metal Gear Solid 4 and Arkham Asylum) and/or replayable singleplayer/multiplayer (ie Left4Dead) is a kazillion times better than this certain game with overly short, fairly linear singleplayer, apparent disregard by developers for the PC version and poor, extremely crippled multiplayer.

Update: It works!!! It works!! All the Left4Dead 2 campaigns played smoothly for me without any crashes I experienced when I initially got the game. Gamer review of Left4Dead 2 to follow soon…

P.S. I’m in the process of trying to acquire the new ATI Mobility 5830 totting HP Envy 15 for testing… so in case you’re curious about benchmarks and such for the new Envy 15, now you know that’s on my “to-do” list this spring. Have a great weekend everyone.

What single-player gaming should be…

Batman: Arkham Asylum for PC (I'm enjoying it, "only" 47% done)

The date is January 2, 2010. No sign of any HP news or rumors so far… so before we get all busy with CES 2010 (Consumer Electronics Show) and the rumored new HP notebooks and stuff, I’d like to take some time today to talk about gaming.

For the last two days before the New Year, I had probably the most exciting and enjoyable single-player gaming experience of 2009. Batman: Arkham Asylum (yes it has a superhero in it, but it certainly won’t be small little children playing this game) is a game which came out in September 2009 for PC, and yes, I’m noticeably late to the party (3rd person perspective games have never been my thing, but a recent experience of Metal Gear Solid 4 on a friend’s Playstation 3 has motivated me to try out more recent 3rd person games for PC*). In terms of single-player replay ability, the Left4Dead series are easily at the top for most re-playable games recently released but in my opinion, Arkham Asylum takes the cake for single-player playing depth.

I’ve spent about 12 hours spread out over two days (New Year’s eve and the eve before the eve) and I’m only 47% through the game (see my little screenshot above). I estimate it’ll take me about 26 hours in total to complete the entire single-player of Arkham Asylum – which is excellent! Compare that to the 4.5 hours it took on the latest Call of Duty title: Modern Warfare 2… and Modern Warfare 2 pales in comparison with its overly short single-player campaign. Granted, Arkham Asylum and Modern Warfare 2 are two games of two different genres but Arkham Asylum is a great example of how single-player should be on every game.

Not only does it take several days (or longer, if you don’t spend too much time playing in one sitting) to complete the game’s single-player mode, the game also makes you feel like you’ve been playing much longer than you really have (especially with some scenarios where you have to sneak around and be stealthy, combined with several high-packed, heart pumping fights/boss fights – there’s a really nice stark contrast here). Arkham Asylum’s gameplay essentially gives you a dose of some ‘stealth’ elements along with quite a bit of action, though it won’t be replacing games dedicated to those respective genres anytime soon.

Oh, did I mention the graphics and environment are both awesome (save for the few pre-rendered cutscenes. My eyes tell me they’re pre-rendered because the details and graphics in cutscenes are much coarser and lower resolution). The “world” of the Arkham Asylum island is nicely sized, and though you have to pass through or go back to some places at times, you don’t really feel “oh no, I’ve been here before, why am I here again” because there’s always something new: be it new bad guys having come back to patrol the area or giant “beanstalk” plants bursting through the walls and floors, presenting the need to find another way around.

What single player gaming should be: Sufficiently long with a good story line (this should be one of the top priorities in my opinion) – 24+ hours of singleplayer gameplay should be good, some level of non-linearity or dynamic/changing in-game elements and/or plot twists. With that all said, I think Eidos (Arkham Asylum’s developer) has won me over and just turned me into a potential customer for the upcoming sequel, Arkham Asylum 2. *Note: I still stand by the fact that I really wish someone would make an MGS4 port for PC!!