Left 4 Dead 2

Left 4 Dead 2

Terminator Future War Campaign
Nicky Grimes 14 Aug, 2023 @ 8:09am
Nicky's Review of Future War: "Have to Kill Fast and Bullets too Slow"
Videos
Full co-op walkthrough: Video.
If you're here only for T-800's cameo, here's the entire sequence: video.

Pros
- The dream of many... Someone finally did it. Devs actually scripted a whole sequence where you can walk alongside T-800 to blow up zombies and robots. Scripted to really good music. It might not be considered picture perfect, but you can consider that a dream come true for MANY Terminator fans.
- Impressive AI scripting. Robots will shift focus from one player to another. They'll cease fire if you take cover. If they see you, they'll unload clips on you.
- Open areas all around. There wasn't a part of the level where it felt narrow/clustered without ample room to fight the zombies.

Strategies
- T-1 Battlefield Robots: Grenade launchers, M60s.
- HK-Aerials: Long-range rifles such as AK-47, default rifle, and mounted machine guns.
- Walking Terminators: Autoshotguns and SPAS shotguns are easy counters. It's possible for melee weapons to stun the bots into not attacking. Still have yet to test this theory out if it works for all of them, or if it's one bot in particular that it worked on.

- Use vehicles as cover and MOVE FAST. Walls are less likely to hide players. Taking cover behind sandbags doesn't work, either.
- BRING A MELEE WEAPON. This is also a zombie apocalypse, and getting rid of surrounding hordes is what you need if you want to more time to kill the robots.

Cons
- AI will target one person for a long period of time. They do switch between survivors, but for those who are targeted constantly, it can be difficult for other teammates to heal them.
- Zombie hordes are infinite to an extent. T-1 Battlefield robots spawns 3-4 more zombies. If you're dealing with too many zombies, it's better to limit the number of common and specials that spawns to properly deal with robots.
- Hiding behind walls aren't registered as good hiding spots. This made it a bit difficult if you're in a building, or if you're in an area with no vehicles. If there could be more vehicles added so players have a chance to pause from the action - that would help survivors stock up if needed.
- Items are very sparse in areas that's designated to reward players. There's lots of throwables (the pipe bomb being the most), but not enough medkits. Each area that we've visited (store, rooms) usually spawns 1-2 medkits. The rest of the healing items are just defibrillators.

With a party of four, it was difficult to maintain as the only spots that gives out all 4 medkits are the riskiest areas - out in the open where foot patrol can incap you. Rooms spawned 2 medkits rather than having all 4. This is a huge hassle because of the infinite-ish hordes of zombies without a waiting period in btween.

Level Design
- Environmental cues are mediocre at best. There's very heavy reliance with just arrows on the walls.
Common indicators of navigation that can be utilized would be abandoned vehicles pointing towards the direction players need to go, a change in scenery with a crashed truck into a wall, streetlamps shining on the arrows themselves, and etc.
In our very first playthrough, the second half really needed this as the first half was difficult to navigate through. This also prevents the scenery from looking repetitive.

- Access to miniguns can be limited, depending on how fast the AI is traveling.
- Overall environment is much bleaker and blends together in huge contrast to the movie. The movie has a dark environment, yet the lighting was taken to show areas that doesn't make them seem blended together.

Conclusion
- The devs did a great job with the scripted sequences again. The main highlight of the campaign is T-800's escort. It does a good job of plucking up the players from the monotonous landscape.
- No bugs at all with game crashing to desktop, or any lags experienced with transitioning from one sequence to another.
- Healing items are very limited depending on which areas you explore.
- Taking care of low-level teammates are a challenge in itself. Enemy AI is scripted perfectly to gun down teammates.
- Environmental navigation could use more lights to point where players need to go.
Last edited by Nicky Grimes; 15 Aug, 2023 @ 6:55am