Left 4 Dead 2
2 Evil Eyes
Nicky Grimes 13 JUN 2023 a las 10:56 a. m.
Nicky Grimes's Review of "Two Evil Eyes": Complex and Hectic
A full but messy co-op walkthrough on Youtube

After seeing this campaign recommended with other custom campaigns such as Dead Before Dawn DC and I Hate Mountains, I've been wanting to play this one for a long time.

The scenery is a reflection of the campaign: The harder it gets, the more clustered it is. There were two levels that I had a lot of difficulty on.

1) The level where you had to run to hit the switch and then skip the tunnel. I loved how the scenery was. However, I noticed a carried trait from the first level - Using water to slow the pace of the campaign.

The first level was a warning that this type of thing would be more common. It was also difficult to push through with the infinite hordes spawned when there is and isn't an alarm. When it came to going from turning on the switch an back to the tunnel - there was *too many hordes* spawning. Couldn't catch a break even if you cleared the area out.

2) The other difficult parts are saved for last: the bridge and the finale.
I just skipped through the finale because the graveyard and the bridge felt much extended enough.

I did like how the graveyard was connected to an underground train tunnel. It could've been my settings but I noticed how on low settings - it didn't render the environment in front of you. This was difficult to do when the train spawned when we were about to climb out of the tunnel. It forced the entire party to move back downwards into the underground tunnel.

The train and the bridge itself... That's a really tough challenge on Expert unless you're going with all four people who are players and the bots themselves can navigate perfectly through it.

I could be wrong with this theory, but the bots themselves didn't have a great navigation when I told them to lead me through the swamp part of activating the bridge and hiking back by foot. They went backwards each time I asked them to lead throughout a level other than that one.

Overall, I think the campaign is very scenic with a lot of custom events. It's challenging, and the compensation is that the levels are super short to play through if you spend resources wisely and know where you're going.

With this campaign being related to Cold Stream, I think Cold Stream had smoother gameplay than this campaign. Both have a good comparison of being extremely cramped towards the more hectic scenes such as each of the bridges in that level.

I can only imagine that the author might've had burnout towards the end because in the finale - I had no idea that you were supposed to backtrack towards another house to start the finale. I was confused on whether the spot was actually where we were supposed to hold out until I started the finale early. From there, I was able to spot the house where I should've found the starting button.

To suggest that it's an extreme failure would be a false exaggeration. I'd only suggest that it can be improved with adding some dimmer lighting to help eyes adjust smoothly at night time. I adore the fireflies that was added. The author took a lot of detail into making this campaign. The only thing that would need to be improved is adjusting how the Tanks and Witches appear if they want all players and bots to pass.

I noticed the Tanks spawned very frequently after a very narrow physical section of the campaign makes it easy to corner the players. This also made it difficult for players to runaway from either Tanks or Witches if they're surrounded by water.

Taking cues from Hard Rain's terrain (some is submerged under water and some is land that less experienced players can use to find saferooms, I think that's what could make Two Evil Eyes more friendly for players of all skill, especially during the first level. The first level with the body of water surrounding them before reaching a safehouse was a bit discouraging in knowing that the zombies instantly surround you by default. Hard Rain's water slowed down the players a little bit but there was houses, land, and some cars to help them pass through the area quicker. This came in as extremely excruciating when the Tanks are chasing you.

Another suggestion I would make to improve it is to include Tier 2 weapons at least in the second level. It felt weird to start out with just Tier 1 weapons with melee. If there would be an advantage for the Survivors to start with, each player could have the choice of having 4 melee so we wouldn't need more time to figure out who's holding which pistol and who's holding which melee. It would be better to have them available from the start. With the selectable items being on the ground, it was a bit difficult to reach them when exiting from the safe zone.

The biggest gripe (which has been echoed several times but with coarser language in the comments), is the multitude of crescendo events placed throughout the levels.
Lots of crescendos in a campaign forced us to miss sight seeing throughout a visually detailed campaign. With a Tank and a Witch in every level, there was no point to catch a breather. If you didn't have the special threats, it would be 2 Hunters, 2 Smokers, and always a carefully placed Boomer in every level. It got more difficult especially on the bridge as it led to a lot of friendly fire.

My workarounds was this:
- Limiting the amount of common spawning or limiting the Director to only spawn Special Infected.
- Giving the team medkits before and after a crescendo event. Giving EVERYONE melees was the best option for three people to take care of a horde while one person advanced to the next puzzle to solve. There wasn't a lot of medkits around unless you're willing to climb all the heights to get to them.

I think Two Evil Eyes is a great campaign with a lot of challenges. I'm willing to take a second try at it, but with the Special Infected spawning only. Very little to no commons as a lot of crescendo events becomes very tiresome to the ears after a while. The Tanks, we could just make a mode to outrun them as the levels are designed for run and gun in an increasingly different environment.