Leveling Down

It’s that time of the year again…as 2009 draws to a close and the holiday season is upon us, cmfl3x and I decided that we wanted to do our own “Leveling Down” gaming awards for 2009 where we choose winners in several categories for Xbox 360 games that have been released in 2009. At the same time, we also wanted to preserve the holiday shopping guide that Leveling Down produced last year but felt that the awards and the shopping guide were too similar.

Instead of separate 2009 awards and holiday shopping guide posts, we’ve decided to combine them this year into one. Every game we’ve nominated within our awards are games worth considering for the holidays, but at the same time, we’re also declaring the winner. Consider the awards as, if you can only buy one game from the nominees of the category, buy the winner. But if you are further interested in other games from the category, you should definitely pick them up as well as they have aspects that all make them worth considering. Game boxes have been provided for all nominees, and all of them link to Amazon, our gaming retailer of the year due to not only their ridiculous gaming deals, but their constant vigilance in price matching practically all competitors.

Our 2009 awards/shopping guide will span all week, with cmfl3x and me alternating posts and writing about a few categories each day. This will culminate on Friday when we both share our own nominations for Game of the Year, and our picks for Game of the Year. I will kick things off today with three categories: 2009′s Best Fighting Game, Best Role Playing Game, and Best First Person Shooter for the Xbox 360.

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I finally took the shrinkwrap off my copy of Left 4 Dead 2 last night, and gave it a spin by playing through the first campaign with AI opponents on Normal difficulty and the second campaign with friends & AI on varying levels of difficulty. My impressions of the retail version of the game don’t seem to differ drastically from those of my demo impressions, but I do have some stuff to talk about so hit the jump if you’re interested in hearing my thoughts on it.
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The last two big holiday titles of the year were released yesterday, and delivered to my door courtesy of Amazon. Yet, after checking out my friends list during prime time last night, it wasn’t quite apparent that these big holiday titles had arrived. Scanning through the dozen or so people online on my list yielded just one guy at the bottom playing Left 4 Dead 2, with no Assassin’s Creed 2 in sight. About half of my friends online last night were playing Modern Warfare 2, which is a pretty respectable number as the night of Modern Warfare 2′s release, about 3/4 of my friends list were playing it. I was surprised to see that even Brutal Legend got more of a spotlight than either Left 4 Dead 2 or Assassin’s Creed 2 last night among my friends. Maybe Left 4 Dead 2 won’t ruin the holidays for me after all and I’ll still have people to play it with when I get to it later.

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Obviously my claim that Left 4 Dead 2 will ruin the holidays is a little far-fetched, but let me explain. While I didn’t love the recently released Left 4 Dead 2 demo, I think the game will still be an enjoyable co-op title. I still have it pre-ordered, yet the primary reason for my crazy accusation is this: Left 4 Dead 2 is releasing 1 week after Modern Warfare 2.

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The Left 4 Dead 2 demo hit the marketplace yesterday for Live Gold members, and I was able to give it a spin. As someone that really enjoyed the first Left 4 Dead, I felt it would be good for me to share my mixed thoughts on the demo. But first, what is the demo all about? The Left 4 Dead 2 Demo features the first 2 (of presumably 4) parts of The Parish campaign, one of the five new campaigns in Left 4 Dead 2. You are able to only play those two levels – either offline with AI (as well as split screen with a buddy) or online with others. The demo menu also shows various other modes that are not available in the demo: Versus, Survival, Scavenge, and Realism. Scavenge and Realism are new to Left 4 Dead 2.

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Many of you probably have seen this already, but if not it’s totally worth checking out. Purportedly this is the opening cinematic from Left 4 Dead 2, and it looks amazing. The first game’s cinematic actually told a lot about the gameplay in the game, something we only realized in retrospect. What does this cinematic have for us?

First, I think the setting looks great: the survivors are in the deep south near New Orleans (or in?) which is pretty awesome, and the music in this trailer does a nice job of setting the tone. In general, it seems like there is a chance that Valve might be expanding the storyline a little more - this time you could play Left 4 Dead without even knowing that the campaigns were linked, but the scene on the bridge where the government is bombing the zombies makes me hopeful there will be more of a storyline in this one.

Secondly, you get a look at some of the new special infected, such as the Jockey who can jump on the survivors and steer them around, and some freaky witch-like character. It also seems like there are going to be zombies with hazmat suits on, so I’m going to assume that molotovs aren’t going to work on them. You also get a look at some of the new melee weapons, such as the chainsaw, frying pan, and bat (there’s another video with the GameStop exclusive baseball bat out there as well).

There also seems to be the same campy humor that was present in the first game, and the survivors seem like they’re going to be as fun to play as the original cast. All in all, I’m getting pretty pumped for this game: my gaming time is going to be SERIOUSLY crunched in a few weeks. Looks like I know what I’ll be spending my $40 Amazon credit on!