Mise said:
He has a point, though. If you "need" to complete a campaign run to "fully" experience L4D, why doesn't the demo include a full campaign? More importantly, why release a crippled, half-assed demo that gives an inferior image of your product in the first place? The vast majority of ye old shareware games always included at least one full episode/campaign/whatever, so the player would get enough gameplay to decide whether you wished to buy the full version or not without giving too much away for free. Demos are meant to be playable commercials of the game itself, and if they are lacking for whatever reason, they drive customers away and the company is only shooting itself in the foot. And if the closest legal thing to the full game leaves a bad taste in a players mouth, it's completely justified and reasonable to give the game a pass unless convinced otherwise. |
I actually pointed out that I didn't disagree with that in my initial reply to him. The demo could have been put together significantly better. I'm not saying it was perfect at all.
I also don't think you absolutely must finish a campaign to get the full idea, but some folks take a bit longer to catch on to the game's main principles than others. The teamwork and cooperation required sections are when the game shines and folks who aren't as quick to pick up on how to engage these features rather than fighting them are going to be confused and frustrated as they quickly get bored of it. The dev commentary actually talks about this quite a bit and they made quite a few changes to help these folks figure things out, clearly they didn't get it exactly right and the majority of blame should fall to them for that, I've never said otherwise (although it has been assumed that I did).
This goes back to my point that the folks who give the game a chance and finish at least one level come to understand it even if they don't think it's their style of game. This type of reaction is somewhat expected when a new/revolutionary approach is used in a genre. This is the first FPS game where you are truly at the mercy of your teamates and their skill for your long-term survival. Not everybody is going to pick up on the nuiance and strategy involved and it will seem boring to those folks.
The thing I simply don't get is why if they find the game so boring do they feel the need to come trash it? There are plenty of games that I didn't like that I thought were overhyped that I didn't feel the need to trash. This kind of persistence on a topic the person claims to be disinterested in doesn't really make much sense to me. What benefit is gained from this?
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| To Each Man, Responsibility |
