Monday, December 21, 2009

Adventures in Babeland - Weekly Gaming Girl Diary: December 21, 2009

Hi, my name is Kara. You might know me from a month or so ago. I write for this blog and have suddenly disappeared! But do not fret! I have returned from a blogging vacation caused by laziness to update you on my video game playing habits! REJOICE!

You missed me, right, RIGHT?!

It appears my last update to the blog was over a month ago..sheesh. I can't even remember what I've been playing in the last month. I'm sure there were good amounts of WoW, probably some Torchlight and definitely some Borderlands. Of course, there's always a constant stream of Farmville to top it all off, but those are all boring and mostly have been discussed before and due to my epically slow progression in games updating the blog on those activities could get boring and repetitive. Instead, I'll update on a new game I got to playing this past week, Left 4 Dead 2.

This past week I was on vacation for the holiday to my home state of Washington. Nate and his wife Cindy also came along and so did Nate's Xbox. We didn't get a whole lot of video game playing in while we were home just due to being extremely busy, but we did get to play some L4D2 a couple nights. I purchased L4D2 a few weeks ago when it was on sale on Amazon, but hadn't really gotten around to playing it. Nate and I sat down one night and started playing the Dark Carnival campaign. Nate really wanted to get the Guardin' Gnome achievement. We had attempted earlier to get the gnome, but failed miserably. This time around using an ample amount of assault rifles and moltovs we got it and were therefore determined to complete the campaign so he could get his oh so sweet pink Depeche Mode t-shirt. I have to say, completing this task was probably single handily the most frustrating, yet the most enjoyable moment I've ever had in video gaming. It wasn't carrying around the gnome that caused the issues, it was the fact that playing on Normal in L4D2 is HARD. I mean, I'm not talking die once, figure out a strategy kind of hard...I'm talking about dying multiple, multiple times and playing through the finale 5 times before completing it kind of hard. At the end of it, I was beyond frustrated, but looking back on it the next day it was so unbelievably fun. L4D2 is most definitely significantly more difficult then L4D. Normal in L4D2 feels like Advanced in L4D. When you suddenly have a spitter, a jockey, a tank and a boomer at one time, it becomes a bit overwhelming. Valve has most definitely achieved the goal of removing any and all strategy from the game that players might develop. While I look back on it now and relive the moment, the excitement and the frustration and feel a sudden rush of how much fun it is, I certainly hope that Valve releases a patch in the future to tone it down just a tad bit. I'm not asking for a cake walk, but trying to get rid of two tanks while a spitter is puking corrosive acid all over you sort of makes your blood boil. I could not even imagine playing that game on Expert.

No comments: