Living Dead Double EXP Weekend

Zombie playlist this weekend.  Is a good chance to pick up the "Delicious Brains" and "Zombie Repeller" achievements, each worth 25G.

Plants vs Zombies

In somewhat of a departure from our usual programming, I wanted to point out a cool PC game that's out now. A friend of mine works at PopCap as a developer and hooked me up as a Beta tester for the latest game he's been working on. It's a fairly straightforward idea where you buy plants to kill zombies (of course, right?) but the game is ridiculously deep. The single player campaign is probably worth 40 hours of gameplay, but then there's a ton more game modes to keep the fun going. It's surprisingly addicting, and easily my favorite activity during boring conference calls at work. Totally pwns Minesweeper. You can buy it at GameStop or download the free trial directly.

In Case of Zombies

Posted to the failblog this morning.

Left 4 Dead Health Packs

Health packs in Left 4 Dead are one of the most powerful and mis-used items in the game. It is very important to understand how to maximize their potential. Health packs serve two purposes:

• Healing a survivor. This may seem obvious, but health packs in L4D only restore 80 percent of a survivor's available health. If you are at 50%, a health pack will give you 40 hit points to heal you to 90% (80% * 50% = 40%; 40% + 50% = 90%). If you are at 30%, a health pack will give you 56 hit points to restore you to 86% (80% * 70% = 56%; 56% + 30% = 86%). The lower your health, the more benefit you will get from a health pack. This also means you can never heal to more than 99 percent. If you're using a health pack on somebody (you or a teammate) isn't red, you are wasting health restoration points.
• Resetting the incap counter. Once a survivor has been incapped and helped back up twice, they start slowly bleeding out. Their screen turns black and white, and they will die on the next incap. The ONLY way to prevent death from three incaps is by taking a health pack. It restores their health and resets the incap counter.

That said, here are some good and bad times to use a health pack.

Bad times:

• Early in a level where you got brutalized by the horde and are at 40-99% health. You aren't moving that slow at this point, you don't need to waste the health pack. Save it for a better time.
• Right after you've taken pain pills. Pain pills temporarily restore all you health. Taking a health pack at this point wastes the pills.
• When your entire team is a similar health/damage level. If everybody on your team is at 20-30% health and moving kind of slow, taking a health pack by yourself will make you too fast. You'll tend to run ahead and get separated.
• Right before trying to mess with a witch. Even the best players in our clan can not take out the witch successfully 100% of the time. The witch's primary attack is an auto-incap and immediately zeros out the survivor's health. As long as the rest of the team is close enough to take the witch out pretty quickly after the intial attack, it often makes sense to send the weakest player in to piss her off.
  
• In Campaign mode on Expert: You should NEVER take a health pack until you've been incapped twice and your screen is black and white. Health packs NEVER appear on the level, only in safe rooms. They should only be used to reset incap counters or to heal before picking up a new pack.

Good times:

• When a survivor has been incapped twice and their screen is black and white. This should always be a priority. Having a dead survivor is almost always the worse of the alternatives. Reset their incap counter so that you have an extra gun, and an extra survivor to revive you when you get incapped.
• To pick up a new health pack. Never leave health packs unused. If you see a health pack on the level, and everybody is already holding a health pack, the player with the lowest health should heal, and then pick up the new health pack. Often times there will be health packs at the site of a big battle. It is usually better to use the health pack(s) AFTER the battle, than before.
• Once everybody is inside the safe room. On Versus, you get points for much health you have. Everybody should heal before closing the door to maximize your score. Don't stand too close to the door while survivors are healing though, because the Infected can still get you until the door closes.
• When you are the weakest link and speed matters. If you are the only survivor who has significant damage to the point where you are slowing down the party, and where the team would do well to progress quickly, then you should heal so that you can keep up. This typically means you are below 30 percent health, and you are in a wide open area. Because of how the horde spawn spots are set up, there are not too many places in L4D where speed is more important than saving health packs. So use them wisely.

Remember that the way we play L4D in Versus, both teams can hear each other the whole time. You basically have to announce that you're using a health pack so that your team mates don't run off ahead. Once you've announced it, you've basically advertised to the Infected that your team has spent one of its four precious health packs (and are now weaker for it), and that your team will be sitting in one spot for a while waiting for you to heal (and be vulnerable to easy Infected attacks).

Left 4 Dead Tank

The Tank is the single most powerful character in Left 4 Dead, but takes some time to learn how to control effectively. I've covered the basic controls previously [link], but there are some other intricacies as well.

Control of the Tank can be passed to another Infected player. It is rumored that using LT to throw at another Infected will transfer control to that player. I have definitely seen control of the Tank passed off after the first player timed out and lost control.

If the human players lose control of the Tank entirely (both time out, or AI doesn't transfer to a second player), the Tank will be taken over by the AI. If there are no humans around, the Tank has been known to stay where he was last controlled until disturbed by humans. This has some interesting consequences. The AI Tank will then effectively just wait in hiding as a nasty surprise to the Survivors, because the typical Tank warnings (scary music and shaky screen) will not appear before the attack.

Left 4 Dead Etiquette

Just as your mom told you, you should always mind your manners when playing on Xbox Live, but the way that Left 4 Dead versus games are setup requires some special considerations to be taken.

Most people prefer playing as Infected, so if your team is playing as Infected first each round, you should have the courtesy to play the second half of every round you participate in so that everybody has a chance to play as Infected. It is in poor form to play a round as Infected and then drop out for the second half.

Because there is no Matchmaking system like in Halo, and because rounds automatically startup without a lobby system in the middle, there is no built-in opportunity to change teams. The only way to re-balance uneven teams but keep the overall party together is to pass a vote to return to the lobby. If one team is getting blown out and they propose a lobby, it is in good form to follow that vote, even if you're on the winning team. Another reason why a lobby may need to be taken is if more clan members have joined during the game, and there are now extra players just spectating. A lobby will allow them to spawn a second game.

Not everything is bad etiquette, however. Talking excessively, pretending you're on the other team in voice chat, laughing hysterically when you pounce on somebody, are all part of the fun of having a parallel Xbox Live party running. Just remember that it works both ways!

Left 4 Dead n00b Q&A

Q: It's pretty easy to pounce survivors, why do you say the Hunter is the hardest to learn?
A: The Hunter doesn't do any damage from the pounce and does damage relatively slowly. If the Hunter is knocked off or killed quickly, the pounce basically doesn't hurt. An effective Hunter finds isolated victims where he can spend some time clawing at them after the pounce.

Q: The Boomer seems clumsy, how do I use him effectively?
A: The Boomer is a huge target and is easy to kill, so it's important to spawn someplace where you can barf on the survivors as soon as you reveal yourself. Good examples are in the next room, around a corner, or on a rooftop. Bad examples are way out in front, down a long hallway, or way behind the survivors where you have to run for a long exposed stretch to reach them.

Q: Why does it take so long for the Infected to respawn?
A: This helps to balance the teams and encourages the Infected to be smarter about their attacks. All of the Infected (except for the Tank) can recharge their attacks if they aren't killed. The Hunter can actually recharge health as well.

As an Infected, you should go into hiding after your attack so that you can recharge and attack again. As a Survivor, you should exploit the long respawn time and cover as much ground as possible after you kill the special Infected.

Q: I'm not sure how the smoker works. Everytime I tongue someone it never seems to drag them and then it gives away my position and I'm dead.
A: Wait until your smoker reticle turns red before attacking. It's very unlikely that you'll grab somebody unless your targeting reticle is red. If you drag them over a rock or through a big tree, it will break your tongue. Doorways are usually ok, if you have a clear shot and don't get them caught on the doorjam. A good survivor team will break the tongue before you can do damage. In general, the smoker does best at pulling a survivor back or from the rooftops...it's much harder to attack survivors from in front. No damage is done until you get them all the dragged to you or they're hanging. A long drag backwards is SUPER useful, even if you don't do any damage. That usually separates the survivors or makes them backtrack.

Q: Once you've pounced with a Hunter or dragged somebody in with the Smoker, do you have to use LT to secondary attack?
A: No, you will automatically damage them when they're dragged in or pounced. You can basically go get a beer at this point.

Q: What is the best way to knock off a Hunter or Smoker?
A: LT (melee) is VERY versatile. It will knock off a Hunter, block a Hunter from pouncing, break a Smoker's tongue, block a Smoker's tongue from locking on, or push a Boomer far enough way to kill without getting barfed on. LT does not do any damage to Survivors, so it's a safe way to save your teammate without hurting them.

Q: If pounced by Hunter or dragged by a Smoker, is there anything you can do?
A: Once you're pounced, you're helpless, there's nothing you can do. Which is why, above all else, you can't be by yourself.

Q: What can I do to get better as a Survivor?
A: I'd recommend playing through the No Mercy and Blood Harvest (1st and 4th) campaigns on your own a couple of times. It's the exact same layout as versus, so you'll learn the maps. The other two campaigns are beign released as versus maps in the Springtime. You can just play on easy for a while, you mainly want to know the maps inside and out. Spend some time exploring so you know which rooms have stuff in them and which are just death traps. Most of the rooms are death traps that you don't want to wander into, but you want to pay special attention to the ones that have health cabinets on the wall, or ones that you find advanced weapons in. The cabinets are always there, but the AI director will decide whether to spawn pills or health packs. The tables for advanced weapons are always there, but the weapons aren't always there. Second pistols, molotovs and pipe bombs spawn at the AI director's discretion, they may or may not be there again on your next play through.

Left 4 Dead Basic Infected Tips

Hunter: This is the hardest infected to learn. But the best tip is that you only have to press LB once to get crouched. After that, you can RT to pounce as many times as you want without crouching again. If you fall off a building however, it undoes your crouch. There is a recharge time to the crouch, but it's not very noticeable after the first time.

Smoker: Your reticle will light up red when you're in range and able to hit a target. Don't bother smoking otherwise, it just gives your position away and forces you to recharge.

Boomer: Remember that your dead body can blow up on survivors too. The Boomer's attack takes a VERY long time to recharge, and the Boomer is easy to kill otherwise. Most of the time if you've not been killed after your barf, you should try and get into the middle of the survivors and have them kill you at close range. You can use your LT to attack them while you're running around.

Tank: This is perhaps the second hardest infected to learn. The first thing to learn about the Tank is that his primary attack is RT and that there is a delay. After you hit RT, there's a slight pause before the Tank actually swings. Anticipate for that. LT is used to throw stuff, but nobody in the clan has really figured out how to do that effectively yet.