Review from a Single Player experience

So I played this (and all the previous Glubtastic maps after seeing the trailer for this one as someone who has never heard of them before) on Single Player, simply because I was too impatient to try and gather a group of humans - I figured I'd at least try them solo even though I was sure I would run into issues with the survivor bots - they just aren't built for this kind of extremely gimmicky custom content.  Sadly I frequently had to resort to godmode to make up the difference between playing with teammates who understand the chaos going on around them and AI bots that don't, but I still had an absolute blast.

To focus on Glubtastic 4 in particular though, I was impressed at how much of the custom content the bots DID interact with.  They attempted to attack and avoid the custom enemies and mostly behaved themselves during the vehicle section too.  The vehicle itself was a lot more temperamental than the one featured in Glubtastic 3, but was still extremely impressive in it's own right.  Unfortunately the amount of Smokers during the gate-opening area are definitely too overwhelming for a lone player.

Going back to the custom enemies, at first I was beating them through a fluke, thinking they were just damage sponges. When I first realised how I was actually killing them I was really impressed by the fact that they WEREN'T just damage sponges, which is really above and beyond for custom enemies.  The boss fight was a bit more typical in this sense but the animation, spectacle and sheer variety of attacks to anticipate and avoid make up the difference.  While I again had to use cheats to stay alive playing solo here, I will say it's worth adding some gun spawns to the area. I went in with an m60 and a melee weapon, and naturally once the m60 had run out, I had no way to attack the boss without using cheats at that point.

Cut-scene work is really impressive, there was a lot of fantastic laughs to be had along the way and some of them were just generally cool overall.  I feel like you could make a really special story-driven campaign with these talents unlike what we've ever seen if only you'd use your talents for good rather than evil, hahaha!

The checkpoint system is extremely cool and was much appreciated on Map 2, which had a lot of slow exploration at first (the switches here could be a little more obvious as to what they trigger, finding them wasn't particularly fun).  The bots also have trouble navigating down to the lower depths of the room with the gnome temple, which is surprising considering you had them all platforming alongside the player in earlier campaigns.  My only gripe is that Map 6 definitely needed a few more checkpoints - dying to the very fast-moving doors at the end of the conveyor belt section after the rooms of "witches" and being sent back to the start of the map was insanely demoralising and probably the only time in the entire series of Glubtastic that I lost patience and just straight-up noclipped back to where I got to rather than speedrunning because I knew what I was dealing with now etc.

The platforming section was also really fun and surprisingly non-trolly compared to the series leading up to this point.

Overall though, I really enjoyed my time playing through this series.  While they just simply aren't built for single player, it was very easy to understand the potential of four human players taking on this gauntlet, and while I'm a little sad I robbed myself of the experience of playing this with friends for the first time, I'm eager to introduce some of them to it... and hang back and let them go first.  The sheer technical prowess on offer here is what elevates me to give it a 5-star.  It's definitely not a traditional, vanilla campaign, but I think it takes the mind of someone who wants to make something as insane as this to truly break open and push the game to its limits.  It's far from perfect, but to expect a campaign this unique to be perfect is a tall order.  The unique gameplay novelties that each map offers and amount of humour makes up the difference.

I definitely recommend folks play the entire series to fully appreciate the build-up and what passes for the strange narrative these campaigns entail, just be prepared to play on easy and use cheats to compensate for the AI bots' incompetence if you want to play them alone.  The poor guys try but they just weren't built for stuff this bizarre.

It's a shame that (I assume) custom campaigns can't be given a seperate set of rules for offline and online play.  I can definitely see how reducing this stuff too much would make the campaign far too easy when played with a full team of humans.  If you ever have it in you, releasing a "single player cut" of the Glubtastic series that reduces the burden on a lone player would be amazing, but it makes sense to give priority to the online experience.

P.S. To my fellow Rochelle players... Maybe try someone else for this one.

Very satisfying expansion of the original

I haven't touched Left 4 Dead 2 community maps in a long while due to my interest in the game fading, but I came across this and thought it looked pretty cool.  Glad I took the time to play it because it didn't disappoint.

The new areas are very well placed and designed, nothing felt poorly constructed or out of place with the existing areas of the campaign.  The finale was a lot more fun due to the expanded area to fight in, and I really enjoyed how Map 3 sent you to a brand new area before reconnecting to the main campaign, rather than how the original very straightly played the "return trip" card for the most part.

Only major issue I had was that the bots did not pick up kits in the final safe room - luckily it was a non-issue as a Tank ambushed us right outside so I ended up heading back in and healing them all myself since we took considerable damage - but still an issue.  I also felt map 3 might've been a little overly generous with supplies - as a single player I regularly found myself throwing pipe bombs at 1 or 2 zombies just to use them up before moving on, I imagine a full team would never be lacking in grenades at any point.

Would definitely recommend this campaign to anyone, the new additions aren't as extensive as some remake campaigns (such as Clam Toll) however that may be a good thing for some - the alternative routes only add about an extra 5-10 minutes onto each map, rather than making every map overly long and challenging.  The quality and consistency with the official maps is also very well observed - no awkward unnecessary crescendos or cheap forced tank/special infected spawns and such.  All in all great stuff and took me back to the glory day of when I'd play good community maps regularly at the height of L4D2's popularity.

Pros:

Replicates the following L4D1 Elements:

+ Weapon Select UI
+ Pistol Appearance and Sounds
+ Vocalise Z/X Menu
+ Versus Graphics
+ L4D1 Special Infected Skins
+ Several other small details

Cons:

Includes a bunch of unnecessary custom mods, such as:

- Awful survivor portraits (from a variety of inconsistent sources/art styles and Francis' is the incorrect ratio; even ignoring the fact that L4D2 already uses the original survivor portraits, dunno how you thought these even looked good)
- Custom pistol animations (they look cool as hell but are not what is advertised)
- Re-arranged survivor health bars (with exact numerical HP display for teammates - this is a mod many appreciate, but again, not what is advertised)

Also the following changes I expected but weren't present:

- Still uses the L4D2 Text Font and Main Menu style
- Primary Weapons are unaltered, still using the L4D2 style "strapped to the chin" viewmodels
- Common Infected still use L4D2 appearence

These missing elements aren't a criticism as I dunno if they're possible to change or not, but still, was hoping for them.

Conclusion:

Overall a disappointment.  Only partially is faithful to the original game, with many elements using distracting mods not mentioned or shown in the description or screenshots which range from unwanted but super cool to downright bad looking.  Nothing wrong with making such a mod for your own use and uploading it as a sort of "L4D1 Modifications + Extras" mod, but for those who wanted to replicate the original L4D1 look faithfully, this mod is very misleading.

Pros:

+ Cool idea, expanding on the concept of the original Fairfield to add new twists that make it worth playing in its own right.
+ New randomised paths vary up the gameplay without going so far as to stretch into complete remake territory.
+ Inclusion of The Last Stand is appreciated as I've always wanted to just play this map as a regular finale.

Cons:

- Numerous spots where new fogging effects look kind of bad.  For example, the pale fog that appears when inside on the Crash Course finale looks awful against the sky when you look outside.  This area is too opened up to have seperate effects for inside and outside, the fade is too obvious and distracting.
- On Map 10 (Death Toll 3), we were blocked by invisible blockades, both at the top of the steps at the end of the trainyard, and at the entrance to the house in the woods.  We found the new path, but whatever objects were meant to be here blocking the old path was not appearing.
- On that note, using the ladder on the train car to climb up here is non-intuitive.  It's a very tiny detail and is non-climbable in the regular version of the campaign.  I wouldn't have noticed it to try it had I not remembered how it's lack of climb-ability normally annoys me.
- Map 12 (Death Toll 5) required us to jump on an army vehicle and over a metal street blockade.  This felt unintuitive too as in official maps these kinds of blockades are used exclusively for "no way to get over this" areas.  Consider adding a plank of wood bridging from the vehicle over the top of the blockade, as you're literally asking players to go against visual "rules" that have been in effect for years of playing.
- On Map 10 (Death Toll 3), my melee weapon (axe specifically) view model disappeared.  Weirdly I swear this has happened on Death Toll 3 for me before on another remake - Clam Toll I think?  But yeah.
- The No Mercy finale felt a bit too quick.  If you want to keep the rolling crescendo, I'd suggest (if possible) moving the helicopter to the other side of the building, and setting up a few obstacles to require a roundabout route to get there perhaps?  Either way it felt like a waste of the space that houses the most fun survival finale IMO.  Death Toll on the other hand feels built for a gauntlet finale.
- The door that starts said Death Toll finale was smaller than the frame, just floating there in mid-air.
- Crash Course finale felt a bit broken.  All the infected were spawning way way away from the finale area - I occasionally saw them running from around the corner with the flaming barrel that you can see from the fortified bus in the center of the finale area by looking back towards where you came from.  The first Tank took a good minute to show up after the music started too.  Special Infected didn't appear at all.  I also was confused by the gas can thing - do you just need to hold one or the vehicle won't leave?  No instructions came up again after the one at the start of the map.  Finally I don't really understand why we get the full finale treatment for Crash Course but an abridged version for No Mercy and Death Toll.
- Church Guy is replaced with a Tank encounter - though you still hear Church Guy talking after you've opened the safe room door.
- The new elements added to The Last Stand are a bit rough around the edges visually and don't blend with Valve's mapping too well.  This map in general also has next to no proper fogging, and as such you can see the angular map edges out to sea.
- No Mercy seemed to have a crapton of Grenade Launchers about, especially Map 2.  On the flipside, Death Toll and The Last Stand had next to no melee weapons and losing my one three maps from the end was a pain as such.

Conclusion:

Apologies for the wall of negative text, I just wanted to be thorough with the problems I did have so they're easier to identify!

My final neutral suggestion would be, if possible, it'd be super cool if you could give The Last Stand a random chance of either the boat OR a chopper showing up, causing you to keep on your toes regarding running for the boat or climbing to the top of the lighthouse at the end.

Overall I did enjoy my time playing this map, and I love the concept, but it is far from perfection yet.  With the exception of some seriously-in-need-of-fixing issues on Death Toll's Church map, it pretty much does what it says on the tin, and if you can ignore the handful of niggling presentation issues, you'll have fun playing these old favourites in a new, but not overwhelmingly new, way.

Pros:

+ Original settings and locations
+ Unique events with pretty clear instructions
+ The most unusual event has a failsafe of ending eventually with a penalty even if you can't figure out the puzzle - good idea.
+ Fairly decent supply ratio
+ Long maps (assuming you enjoy long maps)
+ Decent finale with the escape gameplay being visually appealing with all the debris

Cons:

- Tons and tons of graphical problems and missing objects producing ERROR models.  The restart-the-game fix mentioned by Krokzombie did not work for me (also worth noting that all four of us on my team had the same issues, so it's not just my computer).
- No rescue closets at all.  One teammate died early on due to a slip up on maps 2 AND 3 and basically had to sit out of the entire things.
- Lack of cut-scenes for rocket launch, disappointing escape cut-scene, and no intro cut-scene.
- Several spots where you can get to places you shouldn't.  Namely, you can jump onto the switch at the code entry event and up onto the wall to avoid infected.  At the start of map 4, you can climb the fallen tree and see the edge of the map.
- Personally I felt the maps were a little TOO long.  Map 2 never seemed to end, only emphasised by going through a copy-pasted house 3 times in a row (even if the route through is different each time).

Conclusion:

Overall a lengthy campaign with a ton of heart and effort put into it, but I found too many problems to fully enjoy it.  Perhaps the missing objects put a damper on the mood, but doesn't change the fact that the gameplay was lacking for me.

This has so many high reviews from others who clearly enjoyed it though that all I can say is that it's worth players trying for themselves to see what they think.

Seriously get some rescue closets in there though, that's the most crucial complaint considering how long the maps are.  If people want the challenge of long maps with no closets Realism is ready and waiting.

Pros:

+ Fantastic new areas that breathe new life and length into the classic campaign.
+ Good consideration for both campaign and versus play.
+ New twists on the familiar areas, regarding both navigation and crescendo events.
+ Good pacing of supplies and such considering the longer map length.
+ Downright awesome finale.

Cons:

- Some graphical glitches on Map 1 (models randomly turn into Crash Course escape trucks).
- Map 3's scripted heavy storm can be fatiguing due to its long length.
- One element of the finale/escape may frustrate players who aren't paying full attention.

Conclusion:

Overall one of the best remakes of an official campaign, and as worth playing, and as creative, as a fully original campaign.  Don't underestimate this, it has a lot of changes that I don't want to spoil the surprise of.  Lets you explore almost every area that was blocked off or in the distance that one might have been curious about, and tons more.  While the original is more tightly designed in terms of length, those looking for a longer game will find this most satisfying, with the new elements and areas being on par with the quality and creativity of Valve's efforts.

Pros:

+ Utterly amazing visuals, great reproduction.  It's not perfect of course, but I was still amazed at how many little details matched up to the original game 1:1 despite the different graphical engines.
+ Use of custom sound and music, and fairly easy to understand objectives once you get going.
+ Fairly glitch free, all the collectables, menus, devices and director hints seem to function as intended.

Cons:

- Just endless hordes with next to no fatigue at all.  We died 4 times in a row before we even got as far as working out an optimal "get weapons, then go get health and bile bombs" starting strategy.  It really is crazy hard to do ANYTHING with so many zombies around.
- Visually demanding map, poorer performance on my usual settings than official maps.
- Unsatisfying ending and final objective, with no real surprises at all along the way.
- End Roll Stats were broken (0 for everything).

Conclusion:

I'm trying not to let personal bias affect this too much because I'm not a huge fan of Let's Build maps, but I confess I didn't really enjoy this at all.  I also somewhat wish you had gone for a more traditional campaign using BioShock 1's Arcadia as a starting point, rather than BioShock 2's open multiplayer map, since BioShock was always way more about exploring at a slow, atmospheric pace, whereas this was just all zombies all the time.

This campaign really really deserves a 10/10 for effort but I have to be honest and say I didn't especially have fun at all, and the ending was not suitably climatic or rewarding enough to feel like the gruelling challenge was worth it.

Certainly worth checking out, as other comments seem to imply the intense difficulty is not intended and does not affect all players.

Pros:

+ Mostly great, clean edits.
+ Brings the L4D1 campaigns in line with the L4D2 aesthetic for the L4D2 versions, making them feel more part of the same game.

Cons:

- No Mercy's logo has a noticable rectangular boarder around it on the right.

Conclusion:

Fantastic idea, and nearly perfectly executed.  Just No Mercy's drags it down.

Pros:

+ Solid pacing with a variety of envioronments throughout.
+ A great map for shorter games - bit longer than Crash Course but nowhere near the time investment of a standard 5 map campaign.
+ Unique crescendo in the form of a mini-finale.
+ Great visuals, especially the gorgeous mood of Map 2.
+ Well-spaced out items and map lengths.
+ Excellently designed finale which is reminiscent of an expanded No Mercy Rooftop.  Lots of places to go and defend from, and plenty of scope for moving around during the finale.

Cons:

- Has not been fixed since "The Sacrifice" released, and thus custom music and dialogue from old versions is now missing.  Survivors still respond to the missing radio voiceovers.
- Some pinkypurple missing texture reflections on the walls towards the end of Map 1.
- Some performance issues on Map 3.
- Due to the missing voiceovers, those who play now may be confused what to do on Map 2's mini-finale after the gun is fired.

Conclusion:

One of the best campaigns for Left 4 Dead 1, a real classic with just straight up official-map-esque good gameplay, like Death Aboard, Arena of the Dead or Coal'd Blood.

I'd totally consider this an essential map to check out if one is curious about the great campaigns made back in Left 4 Dead 1's heyday, though the missing dialogue and music does put a slight damper on it and makes me more hesitant to recommend the L4D1 version over the L4D2 port, which is also avaliable on L4DMaps.

It would be fantastic if the creators could take the time to come back and fix the custom audio.  This campaign doesn't deserve to be left to die in it's post-Sacrifice glitched state.

Pros:

+ General map design hasn't been altered.
+ Good for praciticing fighting Witches.
+ Amusing easter eggs and oddities from Left 4 Dead 2.

Cons:

- Not an actual straight daytime version of No Mercy for those just after normal gameplay.
- Visually not so good.  Distant buildings are as dark as they are in the regular version, and while the Dead Center skyboxes are a good idea on paper, they have been implemented poorly.

Conclusion:

Overall it's okay and enjoyable enough if you know what you're getting into.  But I think it could do with a better name than "No Mercy Daytime" because that just makes it sound like a straight day version of No Mercy for variety.  A name that reflects the silly fun stuff added and tons of Witch killing would be better.

Pros:

+ Very faithful reproductions of the original levels.
+ Several memorable levels tied together.
+ New routes through some areas to keep things interesting for a seasoned Goldeneye player.
+ Good map lengths and spacing of supplies.
+ Plenty of consideration for showing the direction of travel for those unfamiliar with the original game.
+ Random rescue vehicle placement is a nice touch and totally threw us off when we were assuming it'd be at the bottom.  Also works well for a layout like the Cradles.
+ Secrets and alternative routes, some as they were in the original game, some added.

Cons:

- Could use some custom sounds/music for flavour.  An elevator without cheesy musak is no Goldeneye elavator!
- I was so psyched for a crescendo running down the runway at the end of the Facility and then there wasn't one.  For shame!
- Several originally optional rooms blocked off.  Not a big deal or anything since there's still plenty of optional areas to explore as is.

Conclusion:

Not a dramatically exciting campaign, just a good fun romp that provides some good Left 4 Dead gameplay on memorable, well reproduced maps, with just enough new twists to keep it all interesting.

Pros:

+ Unique aesthetic, not enough snowy campaigns out there for this time of year.
+ Well designed details and original feeling locations.
+ Cool escape idea which was interesting and fun to navigate.
+ Generally lots of nice unique areas throughout the campaign.

Cons:

- Maps 1 and 2 felt a bit overly long.  Maps 3-5 were just right.
- Ladders ladders everywhere but not a drop to climb.  Seriously there were so many ladders all over that were reachable, seemed to lead somewhere, but couldn't be climbed.  The worst offender was the one going up the cliff in that area across from the tower halfway up, had we not turned down to easy mode, the Tank that cornered us would have wrecked us there.
- Speaking of turning down to Easy... the reason was the escape.  As others' have said, a bad spawn, especially from the Tank, can destroy the team in seconds.  The finale is pretty long too so this was a pain to redo.
- Map 2 we seriously ran annoyingly low on supplies... and on Map 4 the game didn't stop throwing health at us!  The former needs a little more and the latter a little less.
- Some general areas that were just a bit bland to navigate throughout the campaign.
- Sometimes the route is a little unclear, or it's very easy to double-back on yourself through an alternate route that you didn't take going forward but accidentally take going back.
- Visually, there was some tearing in the sky and some obvious pop-in in the distance quite often.

Conclusion:

Overall a fairly decent campaign.  There are many flaws but for every flaw there is something unique/interesting/fun too.  At some points I was like "when is this map gonna ennnnnd", and the finale can be a little unpredictable in difficulty, but otherwise I'd say it's worth a try.

As a final note that is neither a pro or con - I personally think the L4D1 survivors would suit this campaign better.  The L4D2 guys look a bit out of place in their summerwear, and the L4D1 have all those Crash Course lines about Canada to draw from for possible random humour custom conversations.

Pros:

+ Super pretty, gives some of the maps a totally new feel, namely Dark Carnival and The Parish.

Cons:

- Dark Carnival's is a bit oddly surreal compared to the others with its huge mountains (still so pretty though).
- On some maps, in particular Death Toll/Crash Course, the skybox colour is so different to the fogging colour, distant scenery clashes and more obviously pops in, or it's easier to see the edge of the map in some cases (Crash Course river).

Conclusion:

Wonderfully made, with great atmosphere for a different feel, but not perfect integration.

Pros:

+ Connects exactly to the end of VC1 which I loved.  Brilliant opening.
+ Continues the great pacing and level design seen in Vienna Calling 1.  Also retains that "L4D1 aesthetic" feel throughout even with all the new L4D2 elements utilised.
+ Great use of story elements and L4D2 survivors for flavour.
+ Lots of original, cinematic events and crescendos.  In particular I love how you make use of the giant crane more than once...
+ Long campaign without getting boring.
+ Extremely pretty.  Great scenery and spectacle and fantastic weather effects.

Cons:

- The intro, as cool as it was could be improved a little.  Perhaps add more zombies behind the gate.  Also I didn't really understand why we got off the chopper when the pilot just said "I'll take you to the safe zone" or whatever.
- GAME BREAKING: On the finale, the Tank punched me over a chainlink fence out of the intended play space.  Add more invisible walls for the survivors above these to prevent it (he punched me from the area with the minigun).  Luckily the common infected could still locate me, so I didn't have to restart the game, but still had to start the finale over of course for unfair reasons).
- While everything for the most part is super pretty, there are a handful of areas where it's way too easy to see either the edge of the map, or the fact that the 2D trees around the edge are... well, really obviously and unrealistically 2D looking.  As an example, in one of the kids' play areas.
- The ending... well I won't spoil it but while it was "enjoyable" it felt completely out of touch with the tone of the rest of Vienna Calling 1 and 2.
- The finale was ridiculously hard in comparison to the rest of the campaign.  It was challenging all the way through but the finale really ramped it up.  You either need to give us an occasional lull to catch a breath, or give out a couple of pre-determined grenade spawns so we can make our own.  As it is the finale can be a little bit dependant on what items the random spawns along the way give.  Incidentally, the bots NEVER picked up any first aid kits we found before the one-way drop point before the Tank area.

Conclusion:

Overall great campaign and well worth the play.  Really great sequel to the original, retains the same style and difficulty while bringing lots of fresh ideas to the mix... and yay we actually get to see the ferris wheel this time!  ...Even if we don't actually get to do anything with it, lol.

I would recommend players try out Vienna Calling 1 (on either L4D1 or L4D2) for a full satisfying experience, seeing as this one leads directly on from the finale of that one.

Pros:

+ Great puzzles with no cheap difficulty moments like the first had.
+ Fantastic continuation of the first, really felt like a sequel.
+ Neat throwbacks aplenty to the first as well, a real sense of place and intrigue to the setting and story.
+ Great pacing and map length.
+ Gorgeous visuals with some really jaw-dropping "wow" moments and rewarding navigation around criss-crossed areas.
+ The same fantastic cruel sense of humour the first had, without ever being unfair.
+ Loved all the Grenade Launcher puzzles, and as a fanboy for the weapon, it was a joy to have one pretty much all the way through lol.

Cons:

- The platforming sections are pretty easy to fall off, which is a tad annoying.  This is more engine limitations than design though.  I really loved all the platforming and climbing bits, especially the furnace, even if my friends and I were all falling off left right and center (problem was the act of getting one person up often pushed the helper off from occupying the same tiny space lol).
- A campaign like this is just dying for custom music if you ever make connections with a musician willing to collaborate (though you did a great job with the official music anyway).

Conclusion:

A perfect continuation that responds to every single inbalance and criticism one could level at the first campaign.  The best puzzle campaign I've played for sure.

Pros:

+ Visually impressive.
+ Varied envioronments and good pacing.
+ Well-managed supplies.
+ Custom survivor conversations.
+ Fantastic finale, open but challenging.
+ Great sense of place.  I love how all the maps really feel like you're travelling through one large area thanks to you not skimping on the background scenery and often having the players pass by areas from previous maps.

Cons:

- First map's crescendo is just ever so slightly cruel.  The toughest part of the map and right at the end too.  Am I right in guessing that smokers spawn to try and catch you out?  May have been more of a dumb bot AI issue but it wrecked me on single player first time (advanced difficulty).
- Infected (most noticably tanks) have a bit of trouble climbing stairs on the finale, doing the climbing animation rather than just walking up.

Conclusion:

Overall a great campaign, doesn't do anything that'll blow your socks off in amazement but is just simply of a very high and consistent quality.  I agree with the many comments that it is indeed official quality.

Pros:

+ Great and original atmosphere and aesthetics, I certainly got a british vibe from it.
+ Great spread of items.  Precious ones like the tier 3's and defibs are easy to remember when/if you need them, and the rest is nicely placed with several points of access.  While I was not always necessarily able to grab what I wanted in an emergency, I was always able to grab SOMETHING, which actually nicely adds to the desperation of the moment.
+ Lots of good holdouts and easy navigation, not to big, not too small.

Cons:

- Just two small aesthetic issues really - there's no ambience inside much - would be nice if the birdsong etc while setting up got a little quieter inside etc.
- And secondly, just a very very minor thing, the use of the porta-toilets is just a little atmosphere breaking thanks to the clearly american phone number printed on the front.  Super tiny thing, just depends on how english you wanted to make it look as possible lol.

Conclusion:

Overall great fun map with plenty of atmosphere that's indeed very reminescent of The Last Stand.  Lots of choice, yet easy to navigate and perfectly proportioned.

Pros:

+ Great, atmospheric envioronments with well-placed lighting and effective sound design.
+ Nice cut-scenes and optional storyline.
+ Well paced difficulty-wise with some fun events.  Plenty of choice for hold-out moments.
+ Multiple routes through.
+ Large, well-designed finale area.

Cons:

- Storyline never amounted to much.  After a particular scripted moment (won't spoil) I thought the campaign might take a darker or more paranormal tone but it didn't really pay off.
- Maybe a few too many supplies at time.  We were rarely short of grenades.  Since this is a fairly indoor-focused map they aren't really desperately needed at all times so sort of just make it easier.  You're also very generous with them during the two crescendos, eliminating a bit of difficulty there.
- Unfortunately most of the areas of the finale area aren't of much use.  We were able to hold out on the center spot the whole time, and the fact that the escape is right by the radio just adds to the benefits.  Perhaps consider adding two tanks during the second wave.  A single tank is fairly easy to get down before it reaches the middle.

Conclusion:

Overall good campaign with oodles of atmosphere and well-presented story elements that unfortunately don't amount to much.  Gameplay-wise it's hard to fault, aside from a few too many supplies and easy finale.

Pros:

+ Fun colour scheme.
+ High quality textures.
+ Having the cutie mark on the tie is a really neat idea.

Cons:

- The elaborate back design, while high quality, feels a bit much, especially considering the first aid kit covers it the majority of the time.
- I also think the bright blue trousers are a bit overboard and messy in terms of visual design.

Conclusion:

While I'm not into the show, my friend who usually plays Louis is; so thought I'd download for fun (and frankly I'm just desperate for an outfit for Louis since I have alternative skins/models for everyone but him, but no-one makes any interesting/amusing ones for Louis).

I think it'd be neat if you could make a more subtle one with just the pink shirt and tie though (no elaborate back design).  I know it's in Pinkie Pie's character to be overboard, but just a less offensive-on-the-eyes one would be nicer to use on a permanent basis.

Pros:

+ Memorable locations with fantastic visuals.
+ A very original collection of settings that all blend together flawlessly.
+ Great pacing and difficulty.  Official quality.
+ Original music for the entire campaign.
+ Fantastic events and finale, with a great escape sequence.

Cons:

-While the Map 2 electric puzzle is nice, it is a little unclear that's what you're meant to do on a first play.
- Lack of ragdolls on Map 4 (though honestly it's such an old map, if you were to ever fix this now I'd be sad lol.  It entertains me a little to have the zombies become INSTANTLY VAPOURISED by my shotgun blasts).
- Finale can drag on as zombies work all the way up the cliffs to reach you.  On the flipside it is very fun to snipe the tank as much as possible before he reaches you on harder difficulties.

Conclusion:

Just thought I'd come back and review some old favourites since I recently played Left 4 Dead 1 again.

While this is from earlier days before even Left 4 Dead 2 was out, thus it doesn't have much clever or fancy in terms of scripted events or puzzles like many recent campaigns tend to have, it's still one of the best and a must-play for any fan of classic Left 4 Dead action.  One of the best custom campaigns for Left 4 Dead 1 by a long shot (and it's Left 4 Dead 2 remake is just as fun).  On par with Valve's own original official Left 4 Dead 1 maps.

Pros:

+ Original premise.
+ Outdoors areas are very very pretty.
+ Generally decent flow, pacing and difficulty.

Cons:

- Too many indoors areas which are just empty boring corridors.
- Map 3 in general just sort of felt like you stopped caring.  Interiors are nicely designed but the skybox ruins the atmosphere by looking really obviously bare, even through the wibbly-wobbly windows.
- A smaller finale is fine, but the fact that the final gameplay is just a casual exploration to the goal (which kind of just comes out of nowhere) was really odd.
- Bots are terrible at navigating the area up above the alleyway on Map 1, often getting stuck in a loop of hanging off, getting back up, and hanging off again.
- Map 2 occasionally had visual errors where the sky failed to render properly (causing it to "drag").

Conclusion:

Great map aesthetically but never quite lives up to it's potential.  Unfortunately the most splendid bit of eye candy is right there in the screenshots.  The riverside area.  Everything else is mostly corrirors and interiors that are well-made but not breathtaking in the slightest.  Generally decent but rarely impresses.  Looking forward to the sequel and trying out the cut maps all the same.

Pros:

- A nice mixture of recognisable elements and new content.
- Great for fans of long maps.
- Lots of unique events.
- A ton of downright spectacle.  Lots of neat surprises along the way just for show.
- Random elements to some events add replay value.
- Funny survivor conversations that vary on each play too!
- Secret rooms were everything between disturbingly hilarious to hiilariously disturbing.

Cons:

- People who hate long maps will not enjoy these marathons.  It could easily be split down into a 5 mapper I'm sure, just to add some checkpoints for higher difficulties.  I'd recommend impatient players try it on the difficulty lower than you'd usually play.
- Some people miiight find some of the secret rooms just a tad offensive, lol.
- On the finale, after all of the first three generators were active, the one in the Crash Course-garage-esque area stayed glowing.  This, combined with the lack of director instruction (that we needed to finish defending before we could escape) did lead to some initial confusion after your very clear instructions on the finale up until this point.
- Laggy frame rate in the snow most of the time.
- The 2D edge-of-the-map tree textures are a little too close to be convincing in most areas.

Conclusion:

Overall a great fun map, highly recommended to those who love long, challenging maps (I think the item placement is generous but fair considering the amount the players must go through to get to each safe room), those who loved Goldeneye (of course!), or even those that just want to play a map that has a lot of original ideas and a quirky sense of humour, both thanks to various scripted events, survivor dialogue, and easter eggs.

Again, I'd recommend people play this map on a lower-than-usual difficulty if the idea of losing 30 minutes+ of progress whenever they die does not appeal.  The maps are long but great fun and engaging throughout.

Pros:

- Well modelled generally, all the animations work and such.
- Custom sounds and music (on some campaigns it's actually been creepier with her new voice coz I was like "wait what is that" lol).
- She's much easier to see (may be a pro to some).

Cons:

- I don't get why you gave her that blue tint.  It just looks weird, why not just leave her with her normal colours?  It's actually kind of hard to see the detail on her sometimes due to it.
- No custom wandering witch music.
- She's much easier to see (may be a con to some).

Conclusion:

Pretty good overall, I just really don't get the blue tint at all.  I don't like her being so easy to spot as it ruins some of the challenge that the witch is supposed to give.  I'd rather let the shadows of the world affect her appearence in the same way it does on the normal witch model.

Pros:

- Beautiful modelling with tons of detail.
- Full set of UI images.
- Hair, skirt and tie all swish about with her movement.
- Full facial animation!

Cons:

- Doesn't show up during The Passing's intro (but does on the finale).
- Incapacitated UI graphic is stretched weirdly.

Conclusion:

Tested this on The Passing (as an NPC, not survivor swap) and The Sacrifice and worked fine - yet to try Dead Air  or any other campaigns, and didn't have any problems with animation or getting it to work that I could see.  Will update review after checking if there are any problems.

UPDATE: No problems on Dead Air, not sure what's going wrong for other people.

Aside from that though, love it.  So detailed and WAY more than I ever expected from an anime girl model.  Most just kind of look like a person wearing a big plastic static costume, but this has loose wavy bits and facial animation and everything.  Absoloutely amazing.  Minus 5 points only because it doesn't work in The Passing's intro, and 2 for the stretched incapaciated icon.

Pros:

- Wanted this for a while, it's a perfect "alternative costume" for Nick.
- All his lines about caring for his suit are now somehow extra hilarious as if he's sentimentally attached to his prison jammies, lol.
- Full facial animation and matching incapped HUD icon.
- Doesn't retain his original sillouhette exactly but the bright colour entirely makes up for that in terms of recognisability.

Cons:

- None really.

Conclusion:

Just glad this exists because it had to be done, you know?  And the execution is perfect.

Pros:

- Totally awesome.  Coach looks like a BOSS in this.
- Love the addition of the redundant "Coach" nametag, lol.
- Full facial animation and retains sillouhette.
- Seriously he just looks so cool.

Cons:

- Nothing really.

Conclusion:

Awesome outfit and fits in snugly with the L4D universe too considering his hankering for armour.  Great job.

Pros:

- Don't know why but this just looks badass, simple as.
- Retains Bill's sillouhette and colour scheme.
- Facial animation.
- Feels totally in character - Bill took his jacket off people, things are getting real!
- Is it weird that he looks totally huggable now.  You know in a father-figure bear-hug kinda way.  Probably should have kept that to myself.

Cons:

- None I can think of.

Conclusion:

Simple idea but perfect execution.  Great job.

Pros:

- Generally good texturing work, all looks good.
- Still clearly recognisable as Ro thanks to the familiar colour-scheme.
- Unlike most I've never thought Rochelle is ugly but all the same the makeup does make her super pretty lookin'.

Cons:

- None really.

Conclusion:

Simple but attractive skin, nothing much more to say.  Really like it.

Pros:

- Well made (bare feet must have been tricky).
- Love what you did with her hair.  It's not as long (and potentially glitchy animation-wise) as her beta hair, but it's a ton prettier than her final hair.
- Full facial animation.
- Still reads well as Rochelle by sillouhette and colour scheme.

Cons:

- To me her eyes just looked a LITTLE off.  Slightly glazed over maybe?  I'll retract this if I play again and find it was just dodgy lighting.
- I think her top could be cut a little higher.  That's just my fashion taste though, too low-cut looks silly to me for some reason, lol.  I'm not retracting any points for that mentally or anything.

Conclusion:

Just like Hard Hat Ellis, a fun idea and very well made.  Only retracted a few points off Hard Hat Ellis due to the eyes, but again, I'll edit my review if I notice that problem doesn't repeat itself.

Pros:

- Generally well made.
- Full facial animation.
- Good choice for Ellis.
- Still reads well as Ellis by sillouhette/colour scheme.

Cons:

- None I noticed actually, this is a solid model.

Conclusion:

A fun idea indeed and well executed.  Looking forward to seeing the rest.

Pros:

- Clearly defined icons that allow for fruitful fun while still remaining clear for HUD communication.
- They are adorable.
- I want to hug them.

Cons:

- This does not exist as an actual model mod yet.
- I cannot hug them.

Conclusion:

Seriously, lovely job on these.  The art is attractive but functional, and perfect for those of us who enjoy the various out-of-character silly side of Left 4 Dead the community can produce in comics, animations and gmod videos etc.

Pros:

- Good pacing and general overall design.  The basic gameplay was solid, classic Left 4 Dead.
- I for one LOVED your choice of soundtrack design.  I'm a big fan of when slightly melancholic music is used to instill a sense of quiet dread or hopelessness.
- Great scavenge finale.  It's huge but has choices.  I noticed a number of the cans nearer the boat required exploring some complex interiors to locate so it balanced out.  You could either get the far easy to find ones or the closer more fiddley ones.

Cons:

- On Map 2, there is a hole at the construction site that is impossible to escape from.  If intentional, these kind of obstacles are not fair on the player.  We wasted a lot of time and health simply on the basis that it's difficult to swallow one's pride and kill themselves so they can respawn in a closet.  Takes you out of the game.
- Map 3 has numerous places where you can escape from the intended play space of the map and reach the boundries.  I didn't explore too far for fear of reaching an inescapable area.  I also crashed to desktop in one of the pools, but my friend didn't so this may be a freak occurance.  There's a hedge you can jump over a bit before the pool event, and behind a building within the area of the pool event (requires climbing on a... forklift I think it was).  Send me a PM if you'd like some screenshots.
- I like the event on Map 4, but the horde music drowned out your custom music.  The whole thing was very confusing and it wasn't until afterwards that I discovered the "narrative" of the event, and that the dog barking wasn't part of the music.  Was sort of a clusterfudge of sound.  If you can find a way to disable the horde music here, that'd be awesome (must be possible since Valve did it on The Parish 4 for the float event).
- The finale may have glitched.  Hordes and (one lone) Tank only spawned after I put a can in, making retrieving cans a cakewalk after I had cleared out each horde.  This seems to exploitable to be intentional (though since my friend had quit, and I was alone with 16 cans to collect, I appreciated and exploited it, lol).  Also, I'd recommend putting a bit of clipping to make it smoother to reach the fuel tank.  It's annoying having to jump to reach it just because you're about two inches too far away when on the dock.  Finally finally finally - it was a little confusing at first.  Because the on-screen text says "fill the generator", I spent a long time looking for a generator before noticing the boat.

Conclusion:

Overall a solid campaign.  Some issues to sort out but doesn't ruin was is essentially a really fun experience.  It's not got the groundbreaking narrative custom campaigns tend to be going for, but this is a must-have for fans of the pure, gameplay-focused custom campaigns from the days of Left 4 Dead 1.

Pros:

Full of original, near-bug-free, traps and challenges.

Excellent pacing and design.  Almost everything is beautifully hinted at before it's truly thrown at you.

Good cut-scene work and subtle narrative with an awesome ending.

Cons:

Pick-A-Door trap pits are a little mean.  You should be able to be recovered from the other side after the correct door is found.  First time this was an instant death due to grabbing the door-side ledge that my friends couldn't reach.

On map 3 safe room, we crashed to desktop several times when grabbing melee weapons in the safe room.  This was probably a server issue, as it happened when picking up a riot shield - no CSS/unused weapons appeared on my local server game.

Almost a bit TOO challenging.  I'd recommend that you advertise this - my friends and I had to turn down our difficulty from our usual preference to finish without getting frustrated.  The maps are just very long and the hardest part is usually right at the end.

It's possible to run out of the map 4 elevator after the switch is pushed, trapping the player.  Hard to believe but this really did happen by accident as I ran out to grab something.  Not game-breaking, as going idle will make your character catch up when the bot warps, but worth consideration.

Conclusion:

Suggestions: You could reward gas can collection more than just extra items - for example, perhaps a gas can slot could raise some barriers during the bridge crescendo to protect from death charges.

Add some ambient "rabies" music to the cut-scenes, like you did for the intro.

Add some wall decorations of some kind to attract the players' eyes up to the hanging cars - they're not just an amazing set-piece, but also integral to gameplay, so need to be spotted for sure.



Overall absoloutely fantastic campaign, a must-play, though very challenging too - I recommend people play on a slightly lower difficulty than they're used to on first play to avoid frustration unless you've got a lot of patience and time on your hands.

Pros:

- Visually stunning and expertly crafted with tons of unique and great views along the way.
- Good length for a quick game.

Cons:

- A little too easy, the finale in particular is really easy to beat by camping by the escape elevator.
- Ugly grid texture in one spawning tunnel that is viewable as a survivor.

Conclusion:

For a more informatively written version of the above look at my old comment down below back before I was a member... I thought I'd just re-review this now I do have an account so I can give it a rating, lol.

Pros:

- Visually pleasing.  A TON of detail and a great sense of realism.  You captured the tone of a zombie apocalypse around christmas time perfectly.
- Wide and open but with plenty to explore all the same.

Cons:

- Serious optimisation issues due to so much being on display.  Had to turn my settings down (and on lowest shaders the skybox gets missing textures).
- Didn't even get to play it properly.  My friend crashed to desktop with no error twice while we tried to set up, and after she gave up on it, I proceeded to crash to desktop too less than a minute into the survival.

Conclusion:

Seems like a great map but apparently I'm by far not the only one to suffer poor framerate and crashes.  These seriously need fixing and if you do update it (or I get a non-crappy game out of it upon a replay soon) I'll be happy to rerate it.  It gets 40 alone just on the visuals and attention to detail though.

Pros:

- Wide and large, plenty to explore.
- Great custom models and touches.
- Multiple interesting places to hold out.

Cons:

- No loading screen or map preview.
- Treehouse is clearly intended as a hold-out spot, but zombies couldn't find their way up there, and we frequently got hit by the anti-cheat Spitter goo.
- It is possible to escape from the intended playable area of the map by jumping across the roofs and get stuck.

Conclusion:

Great map, but was kinda ruined by the navigation glitch with the treehouse considering we spent a good 10 minutes or so setting up in and around it, just to be killed by automatic spitter goo in the end.

Pros:

- Very pretty, plenty of nice visual touches.
- Lots of interesting and different buildings to explore and hold out in.
- Breakable presents are fun times.

Cons:

- Serious slowdown issues when outside.  I had to turn my settings down from my usuals to get a good framerate.
- A couple of buildings just lead to dead ends when explored, making them feel a little pointless.

Conclusion:

Had a fun time on this, and a difficulty similar to the official maps too.  Only dragged down really by the framerate issues.

Pros:

-Good atmosphere.  I love that it's so dark actually, makes a change from the "hollywood" nighttime of most campaigns, and adds to the scary atmosphere.  However, the sky could use some detail.  Stars or a moon.  Loved the morning sky in map 3, but could use a 3D skybox of scenery to surround the ruins, since you can clearly see there's nothing but sky beyond the map at a few spots.

-Nightmare events are totally awesome, as are the general other illusions you put in (won't spoil for first timers).  This is what I was hoping for out of "Haunted Forest" and after that I was like "Man guess it isn't really possible", but you proved me wrong.  (Not a slight at HF, excellent campaign, but way more goofy than what I was after).

Cons:

- The endless hordes are indeed really annoying.  Give us an instructor hint to tell them when they're endless (for example on the road towards the ruins).  And more hints on where to go.  Puzzles are fine, but for a game like L4D they need to be very intuitive.  Showing us where to go in the maze on map 2 with a distant glow would enhance the section, as it would be about finding your way there through the maze rather than... running around in circles with no idea where you're meant to be going.

- No intro.  Considering the fanciness of the rest of the campaign, I should hope this is already planned.

Conclusion:

Great campaign.  Very fun, especially with friends to go through all the crazy stuff with you.  Will polish up nicely if you work on the criticisms given.

Pros:

- Great atmosphere.  The huge, dark envioronments make you feel very lonely, even with your team mates.
- Original, inventive crescendo events, although...
- That's to say nothing of the finale, which was a fantastic extension of the ideas introduced with Crash Course's finale.  I can't believe no-one's reviews even mention this.  It's a brilliant, fun, original finale, and after the fun I had on the rest of the campaign, did not dissapoint at all considering the safe room graffitti narrative leading up to it.
- The journals lying around are a nice touch too actually.  Generally speaking the sense of narrative was brilliant.  The abandoned evacuation center of the school was the best example of this.
- Despite the large envioronment I never got lost or confused on where to go.

Cons:

- I didn't care myself, but I can understand the criticism of the maps feeling very empty.  There are large areas with not much in them.
- Either I missed some journals or the backstory really didn't amount to much.  They were interesting but just sort of... stopped.  I didn't really get involved in your characters at all, which is something I would have liked to have done.  It's still interesting from a standpoint of seeing how the infection was affecting people (even if it is technically fanfiction, lol), but all your characters were... almost too professional about the situation.  It's something that I hate about some sci-fi writing.  All the technical stuff and information is there, but none of the heart.  These are real people, and I wanted to know more about how they really felt.  Leave the journals as they are, but maybe add a few more from the characters about what was going on for them personally.  Or maybe such things were in there and I just didn't find them, in which case I apologise.
- No intro movie.  With the epic finale, journals and excellent wall writings, this is the one bit that ruins the professional feel of the map's narrative.

Conclusion:

I wanted to come and leave a positive review, even though it was ages back I played this, if nothing else to spite all these negative ones I'm seeing.  I adored my time in this campaign, I really got involved thanks to the great atmosphere and care and attention to narrative.  The maps ARE very large and empty, but the brilliant crescendos and finale more than make up for that.  I'm giving this a pretty high rating of 90+, but honestly, I just really enjoyed this campaign from start to finish.

Pros:

- Good pacing and varied envioronments, no "ugh when will this map end" moments.
- Barrel finding is a fantastic idea and adds to both game length and replay value (we really spent a good additional 30 minutes simply on map 2 because we had 9/10 - never did find it though).
- Great length for those seeking a long campaign.  Longer than standard but not fatiguing.
- Very original finale design.

Cons:

- Map 1 is not friendly to lone players due to the switch puzzle.
- In comparison to the rest, the finale ramps up the difficulty VERY suddenly.  The horde is constant, meaning fighting Tanks is very difficult - this wouldn't be so bad, except the each one takes a while to defeat - and regardless of whether you've killed the previous one or not, they continue spawning at the allocated times, so it's very easy to end up with a horde, 3-4 tanks and not a single one on fire.  Of course, molotovs would fix this, but the constant horde makes it much more sensible to keep a pipe or bile bomb.  Scattering some additional molotovs - even dynamically - around would be very useful to allow the player just a bit more chance to make sure the previous tank is dead before the next one appears.
- As said the end cut-scene is a little dissapointing.  If you CAN look into some fire, explosions, or the shuttle speeding up and leaving the silo, that would be awesome, but I understand that Left 4 Dead is probably more limited than your average full-blown source mod.

Conclusion:

Overall this is an excellent map, and a worthy successor to Coal'd Blood.  There's lots of optional extras, secret rooms and alternative routes to find, puzzles that satisfy without being too complex as to distract from the arcadey gameplay of L4D, and a hard but original finale.  I'd highly recommend this, though knocked a bit off the score for the map 1 puzzle being un-single-player friendly.

Pros:

- Great, Crash Course style "mini campaign".
- Map 1 is nice and challenging, not to mention well-paced, took several attempts to beat it on my usual advanced with 1 other human teammate, but no frustrating fails.
- Good finale set-up.

Cons:

- The fact that you come out the safe room the same way you went in yet the sewers are suddenly different is... really weird, lol.
- This may be a one time thing (no-one else has mentioned it) but no Tanks spawned on the finale at all.  I'll let you know if this is consistent on subsequent plays.
- End cut-scene could still use a little tweaking, but that might be a lag issue - even Dead Center's messes up sometimes.

Conclusion:

A great small campaign for those wanting a short game.  I always really enjoyed Arena Of The Dead, so great to see something new from you.  Anyone who enjoyed the rooftop action of that will love this too.

Pros:

- Great atmosphere.
- Well-paced.  Bad forest maps tend to get boring, but you manage to mix up the settings well enough.
- The Parish-style Rolling Finale is great, I've been waiting for a long time for a new one of these.
- Awesome use of sounds.  The odd unexplained ghostly noises are very nice, especially on map 1.

Cons:

- Map 2 is ridiculously long in comparison to Map 1 and 3, I thought.  Not sure where but this COULD be a 4 map campaign.  I imagine on versus successful teams will see the round over before you even reach the mansion.
- I admit the mansion was more humourous than scary, whereas the forest was actually quite creepy due to ambient noises.  Though I don't know whether you were actually going for scary or just "fun" halloween style scary.  Map 1 was actually pretty creepy though so this came as a surprise.
- Finale tells you to run to the helicopter, but a boat rescues you (I'm guessing just a leftover from copying elements from The Parish).
- Quite a few jarring invisible walls here and there.
- The valley below the bridge being in the 3D skybox on map 1 looks really damn weird if someone falls.

Conclusion:

Generally a good fun map - I agree with the "halloween" vibe a lot of people are praising it for.

Pros:

- Interesting, varied design.  Every map is different, and well paced, though The Cliff is my favourite by far, great fun on versus too.
- Great length if you're after a short game.  It has all the variety and flow of a 5-mapper, with the overall length of something a bit longer than Crash Course.  For this reason I love speedrunning this map when I've got 15 minutes or so to kill.
- Very unique finale setup.
- Uses blank orange and grey textures, which gives it a nicer, more professional feel than most of the other orange maps out there that use the default development textures with the writing and numbers on.
- Plays on Left 4 Dead 2 perfectly, for anyone who doesn't have the original Left 4 Dead.

Cons:

- Bots cannot escape in the finale (understandable why though), and Boomers will suicide if they spawn up high.  Could use some infected ladders on the central tower.
- For some, the shorter length may be offputting.
- I personally find the boat a little dull, especially after the awesomeness that is The Cliffs.
- There is one game-breaking glitch I've had occur on a few plays (but I play this map a LOT so it may be very rare) - anyone dead at the end of Map 3 tends to spawn stuck in the walls on Map 4.  Without using cheats to noclip out, it's impossible to finish the map, as even bots will never warp out by themselves.

Conclusion:

This has been one of my favourite maps (in fact it's probably joint 1st place with a couple of others for me), so I felt I should review it, even though I've been playing it for almost a year now.  For me this is the definitive "basic" map for Left 4 Dead.

I really hope to one day see a Blood Orange 2, be it a revamped version of this or a totally new campaign of a similar style.  You did an awesome job with this and frankly, I would just love more of the same to play!

Pros:

- The map design is as excellent as it was on L4D1, and the addition of daytime for the latter 2 maps gives a much better sense of pace and progress than in L4D1.
- Finale is well suited to a scavenge conversion, but...

Cons:

- Finale is just ridiculously difficult.  I normally play on advanced with one other friend, and we had no serious problems in maps 1-3, the difficulty felt balanced and good for advanced mode, but the finale just wiped us every time.  We started to expect a dodgy server, but only you can tell me - is there meant to be such ongoing spawning behaviour?  I saw two hunters at once frequently, and the SI just kept spawning in almost as if it was survival mode.  Not only that but the utter lack of warning at the start of the finale almost garuntees your failure first time.  At least give (if possible, I'm not sure how scavenge finales are made) a good 20-30 seconds before commons start spawning so the players can get a handle of the area.  I also recommend trying to lure the player towards the area with kits and supplies first.  I didn't discover this area until about my 5th attempt, after I realised the cans on the 2nd floor of the building should probably be done first as they're in a fiddley position.  Upon seeking them out I was like "Oh, there ARE supplies after all".  You need something to lure players to always enter this area first, or else you'll get many a ragequit at the seemingly impossible odds you've set up.  Let the chosen difficulty decide how hard the finale is.  If the SI spawning behaviour is your doing, there's no need for it.  It just frustrates and confuses since players are used to the behaviour given in the official campaigns.  If you want to make a "Hardcore" map, that's fine, but you should advertise it as such and not save it JUST for the finale.  As said, I normally play advanced, but to finish the finale I had to switch down to not normal, but EASY.  That's too damn hard.

Conclusion:

This is an excellent campaign and definately worth playing, though right now I find it easier to recommend the Left 4 Dead 1 version.  I'm giving this only a 65.  It would be a 90, but the finale just really drags it down.  If you rebalance the finale in the future I most certainly would re-rate it.

Pros:

- Daytime is refreshing and a real signature style for L4D2.
- Gameplay is fantastic and one of the closest campaigns to match the quality of the official maps.  As great as it was in L4D1.

Cons:

- However, makes barely any use of new L4D2 gameplay in campaign/versus.  While there's nothing BAD about it playing the same as on L4D1, it was still a little bit of a dissapointment.  This feels more like "Death Aboard - Day" than "Death Aboard 2".

Conclusion:

I kind of like this simple daytime version of Death Aboard for when you're not in the mood for a night-time campaign, but at the same time I feel it's a bit of a missed opportunity for such great maps to not use the new features.  If you ever consider working on it more (though I'd love if you kept this as a "vanilla" daytime version), here's a couple of ideas I personally thought woulda been cool:

- I love the multiple routes, but blocking them off sometimes with director logic would encourage taking a different route on each play.
- Map 2's and Map 4's door-opening crescendos could be rolling ones to the safe houses.
- Map 5 could be at night in a storm like someone said (plus it does make no sense that you could use a lighthouse during the day).  I also thought it could make a good Scavenge finale (the huge scope of the cliff would keep it just as epic-ly long as it already is too.  Just a possibility, it's still a really strong survival finale as is.

I'm giving this a good rating as it still deserves it and hasn't aged at all, but there is a lot of missed potential here I believe too.  Highly recommended to L4D2 exclusive players, but those who played it on L4D1 shouldn't expect any surprises.

Pros:

(Firstly I warn, this review contains small spoilers of the campaign - I recommend not reading it if you haven't played it yet).
- Super creative and original - every room is unique and you never stretch out each idea with repetition so it becomes unfun.
- Good use of the default ambient music to create atmosphere at no extra file size cost.
- Boss battle is super fun and very amusing too.
- Presumebly from the clues given (I've only played once), a well-hidden gnome adds an extra challenge and replayability.

Cons:

- Some confusions, such as the "EXIT" message.  I had no idea what that meant or what it referred to.  Was it the result of playtesters finding it hard to remember the way out of that corridor?  If so you should clearly mark the exit with a memorable piece of scenery/landmark rather than an ugly, random message.
- The credits are a nice touch but not really necessary... I'd rather have my statistics to be honest, even in a weird linear campaign like this one.  Also, they contain the Left 4 Dead 1 credits rather than 2, and when they finished the game never returned to lobby.
- When the UFO left at the end, I didn't notice but reportedly the people I was playing with said everyone but me died just as the end cut-scene triggered.  It left floating survivor corpses where the ufo was at it flew off.
- You can defeat the boss by simply shooting the jockey...  The first time we died at the hands of the horde after shooting out the eyes, and it made no difference at all to the attacks or patterns of the horde.  If you're gonna make the eyes shootable, give us a reason to do so over the jockey.  Also the horde is a LITTLE unforgiving.  We normally play advanced, but on new campaigns play normal to garuntee a fun experience with no frustrations - in this case we switched the difficulty down to easy to finally win.
- Definately needs a checkpoint.  I like the novelty of a one-map campaign, but this is just too hard for one big thing.  You don't need to put any supplies in the safe room, just something so you don't have to play the whole thing again upon failure.  The boss fight is too hard if you're gonna punish the players with that for failure.  Well, unless you were particularly going for a hardcore experience.  Either that or give us more than one defib, and preferably closer to the end.
- On a less minor note, it would be nice if you can fix the skybox for people with lowly computers that cannot handle high shader settings.

Conclusion:

Overall a great fun challenging campaign, filled with original ideas and technical marvel - and best of all, no glitches despite this.

Pros:

- Wonderful envioronments visually.
- Brilliantly designed.  A good mixture of solid L4D gameplay with simple but challenging platforming.  It would have been so easy to just recreate the levels, but that wouldn't have made for a fun campaign - what you did was genius - a full L4D campaign with the most recognisable landmarks from the first world thrown in.
- Inclusion of classic Mario elements like hidden blocks, pirahna plant enemies, flagpoles, and other lovelies.
- Very small filesize.

Cons:

- Bots have a terrible time with platforming (not much you can do about that though).
- Finale was somewhat easy.
- Low gravity areas not marked.
- Fire traps on Map 3 are a little hard to judge.
- Some visual bugs - the void is occasionally seen, as well as some skybox things someone mentioned.

Conclusion:

Truly excellent campaign - one of the best homages and best campaigns in general.  My suggestions:

- Mark low gravity areas (as someone said).
- Block off the elevator in finale once you exit - it's too good a camping spot.
- Consider editing the castle.  The fire is quite hard to see (and avoid).  Perhaps using Mario style sprites/custom models for the rising fire might be an idea?

And a very huge, random idea - flying bullet bills to dodge in the sky area?


Amazing job though.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Pros:

- So very varied and original.  Not a dull moment, every map has something new.
- Very difficult for seasoned players.
- Lengthy.
- Music really adds to the experience.
- The second half of map 4.

Cons:

- Some dodgy visual stuff - namely bright white props, grass problems, missing fire, and lack of detail on distant scenery.
- As ambitious as it is, many of the original elements are still a little buggy.
- The difficulty may be offputting to some.  The maps are just too long for how many tanks and witches you allow to spawn.  I spent 4 hours playing it on advanced with one friend and two bots, (we can both clear expert campaigns) and we spent two of those hours just replaying map 3 and map 4, only making it a scratch further each time.  I had to lower the difficulty to normal AND turn on cheats just so we could finish with our sanity.  As fun as the map is, it the difficulty started to grate after a bit.  Something to consider, because map 3 is so hard I fear some people may be put off and quit, never seeing the awesomeness that is map 4.

Conclusion:

My suggestions:
- Either reduce the tank/witch spawning a bit, or shorten the maps.  I'm leaning to the former, as the length of the map is part of what makes the humour on map 4 all the sweeter.
- Add some more music in.  It really sets the mood in the openings of each map, but then it's gone for the rest.  Perhaps when you start to scale the spiral staircase on map 3, and for any/all of the "rides" involved in map 4.  A custom ending music would be great too considering... well, yes.
- Generally polish up the visuals.  A lot is gorgeous but a lot is jarring and ugly looking.


Overall fantastic work, so much fun, and without a doubt the most sucessfully ambitious and original campaign avaliable for Left 4 Dead right now - just a little too difficult.

Pros:

- Lots of interesting gameplay - the HL2 envioronments are a lot less straightforward than L4D ones - even though those who play this will have played HL2, it was still an interesting challenge to navigate.
- Lots of neat little touches - the "extra ambience sound effects" (won't spoil) you added in the apartments were awesomely creepy, and the recreation of several memorable HL2 moments (most notably flaming barrel related) were great.
- At first I thought the amount of barricades were cheap and wanted more HL2-related horde callers in context with the original game, but as I went on I realised every single one had been placed in a totally unique and different area to defend.  There are a lot of choices.  I played on advanced with bots and died a couple of times, but then explored a bit more, found different spots and suceeded much more smoothly.  Was very satisfying to explore and experiment.
- The finale was very unique for the first half, and AWESOME for the second half, great job.
- As a bonus, your guide for installation was very clear.

Cons:

- Bots wouldn't respond to items in first room, so they had a pretty hard time on map 1.  They also got stuck in a couple of areas with ladders and as a result cost me the round thanks to a single smoker.
- Some maps are stupidly short in comparison to others, but this is understandable as you can only work with what HL2 gave you.
- I admit I was dissapointed we didn't get to go through Kleiner's lab, but I realise why you had to change that.
- Tank music didn't play in levels or finale.
- Alas, it is a slight fiddle to install which is a shame.
- This'd also be awesome in versus but I see it doesn't support that according to the icons.

Conclusion:

To put it simply to anyone reading - THIS CAMPAIGN IS WORTH THE EFFORT OF INSTALL.  A fantastic port of HL2's opening chapters, and downright interesting and engaging gameplay throughout.

This does not deserve 100, but I am going to vote it as such, since it sure as hell doesn't deserve what it has at the time of writing (54).