Left 4 Dead 2 : The Sacrifice Review

Valve recently released the latest in the line of Downloadable Content (DLC) for Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2, The Sacrifice. Combined with a massive sale on Steam as well as making the game available for Mac users, both games have seen quite a dramatic increase in player numbers and popularity. I played the original Left 4 Dead for 500+ hours and loved every minute, played Left 4 Dead 2 on release day, have hardly put 50 hours into it since. I could never quite put my finger on the reason for me disliking what appeared to be a perfect sequel, I thought I would return for The Sacrifice and see if the changes are noteworthy…

I noticed a few improvements right from the start, the matchmaking was smoother and the vote start option eliminated AFK hosts that plagued the game for so long, getting into the game actually seemed smooth for a change. I struggled between playing The Sacrifice VS campaign or trying out the Left 4 Dead 2 version of No Mercy, being a huge hunter fan, No Mercy won.

I played through all of No Mercy and really enjoyed it, the old classic ambush spots that you were so comfortable defending have evolved into ever increasing threat spots with the introduction of the sequels Special Infected. Plenty of old harmless locations and elite tactics are now certain death traps, I have yet to see a team complete The Sewers, the combination of the Jockey/Charger/Smoker make that long journey across the rooftop, one of the most dangerous in the game. Valve did tweak a few locations, most noticeably the Finale rooftop ladder, a previously open roof top has been replaced with a fenced in version to reduce the impact of the Charger and Jockey. After playing through it a few times, I realized it was the maps in Left 4 Dead 2 that just weren’t entertaining enough compared to its predecessor, with the release of No Mercy and the possibility of other original maps making it to Left 4 Dead 2, my interest in the game soared.

I played the new campaign “The Sacrifice” and found it to be a much more enjoyable experience than the previous campaigns. Valve have done away with that stupidly limiting skybox seen in the Left 4 Dead 2 campaigns and went for a longer maps/shorter campaign approach only releasing 2 new maps with the 3 map campaign. A map from a separate campaign was included as the Finale, I found that a little disappointing but the new “I hate” quotes from Francis kept every second engaging and humorous. All the while your decapitating zombies, a great DLC to a great game. Did we mention it was totally free?