 Before starting the video, I need to state that back for Blood's release date is October 12th, 2021. I made this video after playing the open beta that lasted from August 12th to August 16th, but even with the game just being in its beta phase, a lot of my critiques and issues hold true and most likely will continue to hold true up to the game's release. If not, this video is pointless. Hello, I'm Dr. Skipper, your unreliable narrator and silly boy with a big and growing up, I wasn't a PC gamer. I didn't start playing PC games until I was 13 when I learned to crack the admin code on my school laptop where I played TF2 with all my classmates instead of doing actual schoolwork because screw that I was too busy racking up backstabs as the spy. But I did grow up with an Xbox 360, that magical little beauty, and the most mainstream Valve game on console was Left 4 Dead 2. I'm going to assume most of you are sweaty little gamers, but for those who aren't Left 4 Dead 2 is one of the best zombie games ever made. And as a kid I played it a ton with my family and it blew my stupid little mind. While other kids had parents that only allowed them to play E for everyone games like Sonic or Super Mario, I was bashing in zombie brains while drowning in spit or goo. Nothing's wrong with that of course, I occasionally play Samario Kart, but I hate to break it to some of you. Your parents were squares. But being a kid I was also naive. I had a ton of fun playing the game, but I didn't know why. I just knew that I was having fun, but when I grew older and played it on my crappy little PC rig with my friends, I grew to love it even more. That was because I realized it wasn't just kid nostalgia, it's a good freaking game. By now you could tell this video isn't just about Back 4 Blood, it's also about Left 4 Dead 2, since Back 4 Blood is attempting to fill in its shoes. And for those out the loop, Back 4 Blood is a spiritual successor to the Left 4 Dead games made by Valve. Back 4 Blood is made by Turtle Rock Studios. And that name might sound a bit familiar because the people who founded Turtle Rock Studios worked at Valve and both of the Left 4 Dead games. In 1999, Kersh Ashton made a half-life mod named Counter-Strike. You might have heard it because it soon became one of the most successful competitive franchises ever. But for the kids who's brains aren't fully there, it's the franchise to the funny surf game. Yeah, that one. But when Valve bought the mod, they offered Ashton a job and he accepted it, joining the Valve family. Later down the line, Ashton, another co-worker named Phil Robb, stepped down from the company to co-launch Turtle Rock Studios. Valve asked Turtle Rock to continue their contribution to the development of Counter-Strike, and Turtle Rock continued to do so. Eventually, the devs got bored one day and made a modding Counter-Strike, which had the counter-terrorists defend themselves against hordes of enemy terrorists who used only melee weapons, which inspired them to think of the Left 4 Dead concept. Rob and Ashton showed Valve the mod, and Valve decided to fund the project and purchased Turtle Rock Studios to help alongside development. However, both companies struggled to work with one another, so in 2010 they split, with Valve maintaining the rights to both Left 4 Dead games, but gave the rights and logos of Turtle Rock Studios back to Ashton and Rob. Gone from Valve in full of optimism with the reputation as the geniuses who made both Left 4 Deads, they began working on their next project, and it was a train wreck. After four years of development, Evolve released, and it was Turtle Rock Studios' solo debut, riding the hype of their past accomplishments. Evolve, from the creators of Left 4 Dead. Evolve showed a lot of glaring issues with Turtle Rock Studios that might have seemed to fly past people's heads at the time, and those same glaring issues are starting to show again. Evolve's a great concept, I admit it, and when looking at the hype, praise and marketing, it looked badass, but when people got to play the game, it was revealed to be tedious, repetitive, and had a serious lack of content. And worse of all, the game was greedy, with an expensive amount of paid DLC and micro transactions, which made no sense when you look at Evolve's past encounters. Valve had a controversy with Microsoft back in 2009 in regards to paid DLC and Left 4 Dead. At the time, PC players received the Crash Course expansion completely free, where Xbox 360 players had to pay 560 Microsoft points. If you remember Microsoft points, then hello dinosaur, it's nice to meet you. We've come a long way. Valve didn't want consumers to pay for DLC, but were forced to put it up for purchase because Microsoft called the shots at the time, since they were on top of the console war. They've since been humbled greatly. Life or Dead had no micro transactions and no paid DLC on PC, and the DLC would have been free on Xbox if it was their choice. I say this because with the failure of Evolve and the glaring problems of Back for Blood in terms of game design and monetization, I started to question, is Left 4 Dead seen as a classic because of Turtle Rock Studios or Valve Corporation? I, Dr. Skipper, am making this video because I believe that Turtle Rock Studios are amazing at coming up with game concepts and ideas, but are bad at making actual video games. I believe that Left 4 Dead is the game it is today because of Valve and not Turtle Rock Studios, and that Back for Blood is going to crash and burn like Evolve unless they fix the issues that are hurting their game now, and it might already be too late. But first I need to go back and explain why Left 4 Dead 2 is an amazing game, and may I dare even say a classic? I will, because it is, yeah. Zombie games in the mid 2000s were equivalent to today's battle royale, and a lot of games tackled the zombie idea in different ways. Resident Evil 4 was a third person horror game with a beautiful art style that also had great mechanics, and Call of Duty World at War had a mode that was a first person wave based survival where the only goal was to see how long you could live for. Two very different games that share the same concept of infected enemies, and since then you've had a ton more. Parkour, movement, arena combat, the list just goes on. But what Left 4 Dead did was take the concept of infected enemies and base it around teamwork and cooperation. And after playing Back for Blood I wanted to see how it compared to the Left 4 Dead games, so I decided to get some friends and replay both campaigns to see how it held up 12 years later. And after replaying them, I was shocked and surprised. They sucked. Nah, I'm joking. Left 4 Dead 2 might be one of the greatest co-op games ever made, and is truly a masterpiece. Also from now I'm going to merge Left 4 Dead 1 and 2 to not cause any confusion. In most games today, co-op modes aren't centered around cooperation necessarily. A set of a lot of games are more centered around collaboration toward common interest. You might be playing a battle royale with a group of friends, but at the end of the day there isn't that much incentive for the team to work as a whole. It's 4 people who are looking out for themselves, and this is because everybody values themselves and their stats more than the overall goal of winning. Nothing belongs to the team besides the shared victory. It's your kills, your damage, and your loot, surrounded by three others who could help assist those goals. But at the end of the day, if one falls dead, it's not that big of a deal, and doesn't really change the outcome. This isn't just exclusive to Battle Royale House, of course. A lot of games today are competitive, encouraging you to be independent and not solely rely on one another. While you all might be pushing toward that common goal, there's still a leaderboard encouraging you to be competitive with your own teammates to see who's the best. Now you're not just fighting for the common goal of victory, you're instead fighting each other for gold limbs, most kills, top frag positions, or any other leaderboard stats that could also cause division. Even looters shooters don't care about cooperation. A destiny raid is just everybody running around looking out for themselves searching for their own loot. Fighting a Borderlands boss is just 4 people shooting a hitbox for the enemy to die faster, so the real fight can begin and that's to see who gets the gold weapon. Cooperation isn't required and the job could be done solo. It would just be a bit harder, but nonetheless it could be done. This isn't full loaded criticism to shit on selfish game design, it's just stating the truth. Valorant, Overwatch, Counter Strike, and any other competitive shooter don't solely focus on cooperation. I'm a very egotistical player who strives to be MVP if I can. If a player is putting me in Jeopardy, I rather them just die so I could carry the extra weight. This leads to fun game situations like clutches and 1v3s, but to say it's engraved cooperation is just not true. Left 4 Dead 2 is solely focused on cooperation because of how the game is designed and because players have nothing to gain. The game gives you stats in the safehouse but it doesn't matter, there's no XP for your levels or stars for your battle pass. It's just fun bragging rights and even those don't matter if nobody gets to the safehouse. And Left 4 Dead, you don't have a range, you don't have progression, and you don't have a battle pass. You don't even have a level, you have nothing. The main goal is just to beat the campaign and have fun. And like I was saying earlier, Left 4 Dead's game design is not meant to be played solo. Of course you have the sweaty people who do speedruns beating the game solo, but it's not how you're objectively supposed to play the game. And Left 4 Dead you have to play as a team with full cooperation. There's no debate on play style or preference, that's literally how the game is designed. You could be a selfish gun blazing Rambo pushing ahead everybody else only wanting kills, or you could be the limp runt falling behind by not sticking with the team to then be pinned by a special infected, making you incapacitated. And the only way to be saved is by your teammates, making you completely dependent on one another. There's no MVP or star player, everyone is equal and just as vulnerable as each other. The special infected and game director make sure of this. Sticking together is vital to assist your teammates from jockies, hunters, and smokers, but being clumped together also makes you vulnerable to certain infected like the Charger, Spitter, and Boomer. Splitting up makes you vulnerable and sticking together makes you just as vulnerable, adding variety and unpredictability, keeping you on your toes, and also have you sharp between the ears. Back 4 Blood is mostly on par with Left 4 Dead in terms of co-op but has some glaring issues. Back 4 Blood has a currency system for the shops called Copper and that could be spent in each safe house with team upgrades being optional. You could buy ammo for yourself, health for yourself, and equipment for that little special pumpkin that is yourself. Also you could buy high tier guns and attachments. I am not a fan of this. Players are selfish when they have the choice to be and will buy items that fit them and their needs only and rarely, almost never, the team due to upgrades being so expensive. You could buy meds, tools, or upgrades that support the team, or you could buy a cool purple shotgun, a scope, and extra ammo for moi. In some situations you could compromise with other players and all buy a pipe bomb to get past something, but most of the time you are going to be buying for yourself only. Let's be honest, the shop is obnoxious. Items and weapons in Left 4 Dead were always free and disposable so no one would become attached to them. They were also never ranked because if they were people would choose one gun over another for objective value over subjective enjoyment. Now you have items that carry sentiment because they either cost money or have attachments that cost money or have high stats. If you hate a certain gun you now feel forced to use it because it has higher stats than other weapons that might suit your play style. This is the same shit looters shooters do and I can't stand it. The shop causes division makes players think more about money than survival or finishing the mission. If someone on the team dies that's just one less hand to steal loot and guns. And if you have money and see items that are best fit for you, you're gonna buy them. Money! The currency you find is also not shared with your teammates. So in some matches you're gonna have the penny pinching selfish assholes who now have the objective to loot and stray from everybody else so they get splurged in the next save zone. This behavior also translates to random crate scattered around the map with guns and attachments that can only be taken by one player causing more selfish behavior. And they're rarely punished for it due to the special effect of being an absolute joke. You pull that selfish shit in Left 4 Dead the game director will place a hunter or jockey to punish you but in back for blood it's damn near encouraged. In Left 4 Dead the game director was fair and challenging when necessary and this caused a lot of focus, fun, and exhilaration when I was playing with my friends. When someone was pinned by a jockey the first reaction wasn't to get mad about the health bar declining but instead to be shocked and act urgently. Because the game's fun you should be having fun. It's a video game. The common infected are also dangerous and can overwhelm you. But if you have basic communication and common sense it doesn't become that aggravating and still remains an enjoyable experience. And the same applies to the special infected. I hate game designers who solution to strengthen enemies is just to increase their HP. That is lazy and uninspired. The hunter is easy to kill but his strength is that he pounces and pins you down. And if you don't attempt him quickly he's extremely dangerous and this applies to every special infected besides the tank. But that's the tank's intentional design. He's just a huge bullet sponge but it's an event to fight him. But the zombies. On normal difficulty and back for blood the ridden are not threatening and are extremely easy to maneuver. The mobility options are partially at fault for this since it's easy to increase the distance by simply running away due to the game having a sprint mechanic. Also since it's easy to evade the ridden melee weapons suck complete ass. You can make builds that make melee viable but the cost of having melee being your only strong suit because of the card system. But overall melee is impractical and unnecessary due to how powerful the firearms are and how gracious ammo is. Which is disappointing in comparison to Left 4 Dead where melee was practical and fun. A lot of the time I was running and gunning with no urgency. The guns are extremely powerful and I'll admit they're fun to shoot but I never had a really worry. And the moments that required more of my effort and attention were more annoying instead of being thrilling and action oriented. And the special infected and pack for blood sucking complete ass doesn't help this either. The ogre is a laughing stock when it comes to filling in the shoes of the tank. And that's because he isn't fun to combat at all. Every time I encountered him I just ran past him so I didn't have to deal with his bullshit health bar. I don't know if the ogre is going to be a common special infected or if he was just only used for that campaign mission but I just hope to never see him again. What a joke. The snitch is annoying and poorly designed. Embarrassing actually especially when compared to their inspiration. The charm of the boomer was that if he gets too close he throws up on you learning the horde which also impairs your vision. But if you catch him far away he's one shot one kill which prevents him from throwing up on you. It's fair and balanced. It also punishes the player if they aren't vigilant. But if you're paying attention to your surroundings you can catch the special infected off guard and they will do the same to you vice versa. But the snitch isn't just annoying and uninspired it's poor game design. No matter what you have to alert the snitch so there's no charm or fairness. You can't prevent it or outsmart it so it comes off as an annoying obstacle instead of a dynamic fair foe. Even though the witch was strong as hell and would knock you in one hit you had ways to outsmart or prevent her. Giving options to the player without screwing them over is good game design. The snitch sucks. What a joke. The blood bruiser is arguably the worst out of all the special infected. He's a tall bullet sponge that spawns in a shit ton and that's because the game director is terrible. The game director is so poor that you might even have to deal with two of these goddamn headaches at once. So I just had to re-record this real quick you could hear the fan you know but yeah but there's there's not two there's three of them. Three. Three. In the same place. Three. They really are the worst to deal with. They're boring, tedious and unfair. I don't feel thrilled and rushed to combat them like I do with a tank. I just roll my eyes and load four clips into it. Also that hit point is so hidden that they might as well just remove it. I really can't stand this guy. What a joke. The wretch sucks as well. It's attempting to be a spitter by spewing goo but it's just unpredictable due to its suicide charging. The reaction time is too high and the bland audio design gives you no way to predict them. The charger also had a short reaction time but it was easy to detect and hear them when they were charging. In worst-case scenario he pins you down your team could just give assistance and deal with him quickly. The hawkers are okay actually. They shoot a goo that makes the player stuck in place and the only way to get out is by having people untangle you unless you have a card that allows you to do it yourself. I hate these fucking cards. Overall these special infected are a joke when compared to the fantastic roster of Left 4 Dead and it makes no sense how the creators are so toned deaf if they were the sole heads behind these games. Ah so now we have to talk about game design. The reason Left 4 Dead is so cherished is because it's simple. Simplicity and complexity is Valve's strong suit. The game is easy to pick up and understand. You have a primary, a secondary, health, and utility. And all you have to do is follow the objectives to get to each safe house without dying. This creates a fun game loop out of simple foundations. Back4Blood also has the same objective-based design but not the simplicity. I like innovation and gaming. Running, stamina, and ADS are additions that are necessary for the modern audience and they fit well in Back4Blood. Some of you Halo fans might be shocked by the idea of praising innovation due to how that community bitches about sprinting an ADS. But in modern gaming there's some stuff that you might call innovation that I call unnecessary. And that's the card system. The corruption cards are annoying. It's a cool gimmick but should be optional or tied to specific game mode. Having it in the base game ruins simplicity, adds confusion, and taints some of the art style. Trust me, we'll be talking about that art style in a bit. But when it comes to player cards, you should 100% assume bad faith. Like I said, this isn't a Valve game and I can smell microtransactions from a mile away. The cards offer buffs and bonuses to the player while also having some restrictions. And where some might call it customization, I call it a headache. I don't give a fuck about pre-made loadouts assorting my inventory or grinding for more cards. I like it simple. Kill zombies and have fun. And when you introduce cards, you introduce metas and overpower builds that abolish the game. Battlefront 2 is an example of a poorly designed card system. It's a fun game but you pretty much have no options because of how strong certain cards are while others aren't, making them not viable at all. Also, I'm not sure if the cards in the back of the blood are gonna be for purchase, but if they are, we're gonna have a pay-to-win situation on our hands. And speaking of paying, I hate weapon skins. Turtle Rock has a reputation of selling shit skins, like guns that are literally blue, and I see this happening in this game as well. I think cosmetic customization is a good innovation, but also adds problems with developers not understanding player worth and getting overly greedy. We'll just have to see how it goes at launch, I guess, but the odds are definitely not in their favor. It feels good to get this shit out the mud, nigga. The game director and AI are horrible. You have gotta be fucking joking. I stated this earlier, but I'm gonna elaborate. Anything above normal difficulty is unplayable unless you have a team stack. This is because of the Brain Dead AI and the Brain Dead Game Director. Left 4 Dead's Game Director is amazing, adding fun, fast-paced game situations, like random but fair hordes, weapon and health spawns, and game variety with the special infected. And this is because Valve worked on it. In Back for Blood, I had trouble playing with a friend when we didn't have a four-stack team, due to how poor the friendly AI was. Written AI is also bad being overly stupid and the Game Director's solution to this is just to spawn four times the amount on higher difficulties, while giving you trauma with no trauma stations or meds. Quick note on that. The trauma and three strike system are the worst part of this game. The game punishes you when you take damage by giving your player trauma, which adds this annoying red bar at the end of your base health bar, which prevents you from healing that area. And if by the grace of God you find a trauma station, you have to pay the same currency you use in the shops to decrease that trauma. I lost a survivor run because the Game Director didn't give my team a trauma station after we got to a safe house. The trauma station is stupid and unnecessary, but at least put them in the fucking safe room, instead of just scattering them randomly. If they weren't scattered, just put them in the safe room, let the player actually have fun. This should be a corruption card at worst. Why is it a game mechanic? It doesn't add tension, it just pisses the player off. Also, the three strike system is stupid, unnecessary, and alienating. You have three attempts to finish a campaign. If you die three times, fuck you. You aren't going to the last safe house, you just lose the game. And since the game AI and the Game Director are bullshit, the pressure of three attempts doesn't make the game fun and makes it dreadful. Look, I'm a gamer. I like to goof around with friends, and this three strike system just adds unnecessary pressure and limitations and doesn't let me express and goof off. You're a fucking zombie game. Stop taking yourself so goddamn seriously and let the players have fun. Like the cards, this should be optional or a gimmick mode. Take it out of the base game and get it out of there. A game's identity determines its legacy in the future. Hey look, another assassin's creed. Oh, a Far Cry? Oh my god, a Call of Duty. All games that are fun when playing in the moment, but will be forgotten with time, leaving no legacy to be cherished. But it's been 12 years since Left 4 Dead 2 launched and we're still talking about it. And that's because the game nails its identity. The game has aged greatly for how long it's been released, and I'm surprised it isn't even at all gross to look at. And that's because the amazing simplistic art style. But let's not jump the gun, alright? I have to talk about the game's marketing before I dive into the art style because the trailers ooze with personality and pitch the game so well. The first Left 4 Dead trailer is fantastic. Might I say even revolutionary. It does everything that establishes the game's identity in just four minutes and 24 seconds. It sells the tone while showing you the game's mechanics and zombies. Everything that happens in the trailer can happen in-game. It also displays other iconic additions like the amazing sound effects, character callouts, special infected, and diverse cast and voice acting. You have these interesting characters being displayed for people to remember. People love to attach voices to people like me with this stupid fucking bird you has loved so much. World at War failed with this, adding generic soldiers that nobody gave a shit about so they spiked it up. They added polar opposite personalities who are now adored today. Takeo, Nikolai, Dempsey, Richtofen. You know these people. They're iconic. And Left 4 Dead has that as well. It has the same exact thing. Bill's this grizzled Viennamban is also the team leader. Francis is a sarcastic but cool biker guy rocking sick ass tattoos and a pump shotgun. Lewis is a naive but optimistic sales worker with no combat experience at all. And Zoey who is a college student for films living her fantasy of a cool zombie movie and holds down her own. All different people unite under shitty circumstances and they nail the chemistry between everyone. The dialogue, campaign events, and character development has made this group iconic and memorable. Then there's Left 4 Dead 2's trailer. In the modern age of gaming, sequels are hugely worse and uninspired, attempting to ride the coattail of the original. This is not the case of the game or the trailer. Left 4 Dead 2 has a great trailer and it might be one of the best pieces of video game marketing of all time. Where Left 4 Dead 1 had scary vibes with a horror-like atmosphere, Left 4 Dead 2 does the complete opposite. You see a crew with nothing in common take the offensive, showing off everyone's personality while once again showing off the game mechanics, mission locations, weapons, infected, and everything that makes this game so fucking amazing also making it look like a fun zombie movie. It also has an amazing soundtrack in the background and I'll talk about that in a second. Ellis is this gun-crazy southerner but is also a clumsy young kid. Nick the mobster, the cheapskate, has come way too far to die now. Coach who is Rick Ross if you never took on rapping and Rochelle who's a reporter but also supports her team being the most positive person and is the least enjoyed by the fandom. Both trailers are amazing to show the fear, fun, action, and thrill of both games and a single trailer for each game. A single trailer each. That's insane. Then you have Back 4 Blood. The reason Left 4 Dead trailers work so well is because I was trying to pitch the game as a zombie movie. Every mission has a kick-ass poster. The ending of the missions have credits and the trailers were cinematic. Simplicity and complexity. Something valve nails. Turtle Rock's trailer is typical, boring, and disappointing. Making it look like any other shit-generic zombie game that's came out in the last five years. Looking at you stated decay too. Which makes no sense. This is the same dev team that made both of these old trailers. How do you fuck up this bad? Adding no soul or heart. No one from the main squad even stands out. LeBron James? How do these people even relate to each other? Are they held by circumstance? Why are they fighting? What's the dynamic between the characters? Also don't give me that bullshit that it's just a trailer. You'll find out in the main game. Left 4 Dead's trailers did that. The helicopter made of chocolate is a great moment. Ellis and Rochelle's elevator scene. Louis asking Bill to run or shoot. Bill and Francis, Bill and Zoe. And these are just from each's own trailer. One trailer per game. There is no excuse. The dev team is literally riding the hype that they made both previous games. So why is it so poor? You literally made them. You have no excuse. It's linear and boring and that's because the cast sucks. None of them have the charm of each Left 4 Dead cast members and are overly complicated. Hot, we said. No more paddling up shit creek. Well, at least you still got a paddle. Would you have the paddle, right? This place feels like pineapple on pizza. Just... What did she say? Oh my god! This would be a thing is too much attention. Oh, shut up, man. Shut up, Lane. I don't respect you. Just what I needed to be. Dumping boring expedition wanting you to care while having no dynamic with each other. You are right, Darren. I need to tell you, I need to hear myself say it. When the collapse came, I saw it happen and I did nothing. I was scared. No, you don't understand. It was my family, my parents. I watched them die and did nothing. Check the fuck up. Simplicity Turtle Rock. We should have four, four people to get attached to. When you give us too many options, it creates too much complexity and doesn't work. While Payday 2 is a great game, the only way to get attached to those characters is by researching them on your own, not in game. And people don't want to do homework on shit that's uninteresting on first impression. You have a roster of people that come off obnoxious and forgettable because the dialogue is annoying and generic. And the subpar voice acting doesn't help us either. Except for this guy. His voice by Rigby. When Ellis was pinned, I knew that shit. The actor put there all no screams and stood out from the rest of the crew. When Francis was low on ammo, I knew that shit. Coach and Rick Ross, God, I hear you from a mile away. You're a beautiful hunk of a man. But in Back for Blood, I get annoying Deadpool-esque deliveries over a ham radio to robots. I feel that in it. Don't feel good. The cast isn't likeable. And it's going to taint the game's legacy. But now the art style. The Ridden might be the most ugliest infected I've ever played against. They are on par with Sunset Overdrives infected in Fortnite Save the World. When playing Left 4 Dead, the thing I loved most was how fun it was to see and kill all the zombies. They all had unique clothing, depending on the settings of the map and they had personality. You guys remember those cool-ass clowns in Dark Carnival? Are the hazmat zombies? Or the mudcrawlers? That shit is awesome. The regular comic infected told a story. They looked like normal people in an infested world. Not these biohazard knockoffs. The Ridden are cheap and generic. And while we're at it, the Ridden is a stupid-ass name. Also, something else that made the Left 4 Dead zombies memorable was the dismemberment. Because it was so detailed and awesome. Limbs blown off with shotgun shots, shooting out blood, squirting out blood, intestines falling out depending on the caliber of the weapon, spine shelling with people's backs blown out, blood splattering, that's cool. But it's fun instead of this shiny jelly shit. There's effort put into the gore. Back 4 Blood doesn't have this. Like I said, the blood looks like jelly. When I have a chainsaw in Left 4 Dead, it's a fucking meat locker. I want that. If zombies were equivalent to food, this is a dried-out steak. Look at the comparison of gameplay. In Left 4 Dead, it feels like every shot has an impact. The animation and design of the infected come off as not just copy-paste. It is copy-paste, but it doesn't feel like it. In the moment, it feels real, giving you immersion. The game has a fucking soul. These aren't lazy, programmed AI monsters that got shit out by a dying game director. These are zombies that want to kill you and need to die. Having the appearance of real people who are once not infected and they stand out from the crowd. Look at this guy. Looks like it could be in prototype 2 or that shit biohazard mode in Siege. It's ugly, bland, and uninteresting. None of the special infected match the world's setting. They just look like alien abominations. That would be in some Resident Evil game. The Hunter's jogging gear, the jockey's weird body, the boomer's fat appearance, charges overall, smokers tongue, and the tank's muscled nature. And all the other characteristics of some of the other special infected make them stand out. Look at the trailer. This is the spitter equivalent. What the fuck is this? Art style is important because you have shit that ages greatly like Left 4 Dead. Playing this today is awesome. It still looks awesome. And I don't get that from Back 4 Blood. When it's 2021 and your special infected look like Fortnite saved the world's infected and you're trying to fill the shoes of what was once your peak, you failed. It's embarrassing. What's the tone of the game? It's so bipolar. Do you want tension and realistic themes or do you want a wacky unrealistic game like Sunset Overdrive? Left 4 Dead was wacky but still grounded. So disappointing. But now we have to talk about the thing that is most important to why Back 4 Blood doesn't live up to Left 4 Dead. And that's the sound design and the soundtrack. Left 4 Dead's gunshots, medicine noises, character dialogue, zombie sound effects, and zombie cues are magnificent. The infected are oozing with personality, making unpredictable noises that still ring in my head 12 years later. Nick Shrieks give me nostalgia. Ellis telling me they're spit or goo. That jockey on me. All this has given me nostalgia. The crisp reload animations and the melee noises. Oh, I love those melee noises. And the special infected cues is what makes them stand out. The hunters screamed. Jockey's laugh, boomer groan, and the yelling of the tank. It adds personality. Back 4 Blood doesn't have this. The most personality the game had is when a zombie would scream the fucking N-word. What did you call me? What did that zombie say? And that got removed quickly. Back 4 Blood's audio design is generic and subpar. How do you fuck up this bad if you made the old games? Like, listen to the shotgun. It sounds like a pistol. But now to the soundtrack. I don't know how Left 4 Dead did it, but when I hear a car alarm go off to then hear that shriek with a text that says you'll learn of the horde, I feel panic and excitement at the same time. The music when a horde is about to come is some of the most thrilling sounds and music combinations that you will ever hear in a video game. Left 4 Dead's a fucking movie. And a good movie always has a fire-ass soundtrack. When I turn the corner and hear that tank music, I clench my ass cheeks, look for cover, and hold down that goddamn mouse, but like, my life depends on it. You fucking idiot. When the evac is here and I'm the last man standing, I feel like the protagonist and it's my movie. It's fun, man. It's so much fun. And Valve knew this. They knew that the music would bring the highs and the lows of the game play out, giving a rollercoaster of emotions, which gives you these champion moments that feel victorious. And when those credits roll, ugh, I still get chills. Even when you die, that somber music that kicks in and everything muffles around you is so impactful. These little details start to add up. This is your movie, and you could be the main character, the side character, you could be who you want, you could be the sacrifice, you could do anything. I never felt this when playing Back for Blood. Killing zombies is fun, but it felt like a video game 9-5. There's never those movie moments where the drums roll and you have to haul ass while trumpets are blasting in your ears. There could have been, because there's some fun moments in Back for Blood, but a piece always felt missing. When someone dies, there's no sad music with an X mark splattered with blood. There wasn't that tank music, or the charger screams, or the witch music. It felt incomplete. That's my biggest issue with Back for Blood. I get the concept, it's a fun concept, but it feels like a zombie. Like, it grabbed the face of Left 4 Dead and skinned it off, now trying to wear and pass off as it. There's so much potential. I want a cool Left 4 Dead zombie game, because getting the boys together and sitting down and playing that game, reminding me how much I love Valve games, it made me feel like a kid again. And with everyone growing up and sweating their asses off in battle royales, you rarely get that anymore. I got to have fun with friends and live in a movie. I want Back for Blood to be that. I want to have those screaming moments of highs and lows. I want them to have that comeback where they prove that they were the minds behind Left 4 Dead, and that evolve was a mistake and will never happen again. But that isn't going to happen. This game will probably be another evolve. It's going to have micro transactions, sell bad skins, and I've come to the realization that they didn't make Left 4 Dead the game that it is today. That was Valve. Like I said, Turtle Rock are good at coming up with ideas, but this game has proven that they can't execute it properly. And to be honest with you, I'm tired of a comeback story. It's getting old. I want a game that is great and full of heart on arrival. It's cool that Battlefront did it and other people did it, but let's not have this be a standard. The comeback shouldn't be a standard. Games should be what they are day one. Left 4 Dead 1 and 2 were a year apart from each other and they knocked out the fucking park. Those games are amazing and they remind me today why I love gaming and Back 4 Blood did not fill in those shoes. Nonetheless, I'm happy I made this video. Playing Left 4 Dead again was a blast from the past. Games need to be fun like this again and I'm happy you made it this far to the video. You might be getting a bit scared. Oh no, he's going to beg me to subscribe over and over. Nah, it's your choice. I had a lot of fun making this video. I had fun coming up with the concept and getting the band back together to play these games for this video. And if you appreciate it, it's your choice to tag along for future projects I do. This isn't a one-off thing. November is going to be packed with a shit ton of games and I'm an opinionated narcissist. So if you want to click that little red button and stick for the journey, you won't regret it. Or uh, you might. Who knows? If you have any opinions or have anything to say about this video, talk about your memories. Let me know in the comments down below so I'm not talking to a brick wall. Thank you to the channel members, you guys are the real winners and allow me to do stuff like this. I really, really appreciate you sticking with me. Thank you. Also thanks for 55k. With that, I'm Dr. Skipper and I'll catch you in the next video. Goodbye.