Martin Zavřel
The Turtle Rock development studio has an interesting pedigree – the founder Michael Booth participated in Counter-Strike, among other things, to subsequently establish a company that gave the world two successful parts of the cooperative zombie carving of Left 4 Dead. Thanks to that studio, Valve itself bought it – but after a few years the owners bought their independence back. He then tried his luck with a thematically similar cooperative monster hunt in Evolve, but he was buried by exaggerated monetization by microtransactions from the publisher of 2K Games. So now Turtle Rock is trying again and offering basically the third part of Left 4 Dead – although they do not own the rights to the original brand and had to name their game differently, when playing, B4B from L4D is practically indistinguishable. Nevertheless, some evolution and improvement has taken place, not only technically or graphically.
This is not a story game, however the world and characters are thoughtful and have a lot of funny messages. However, a clear emphasis is placed on the action, which is so wild that even if you play in one, the game will give you characters controlled by artificial intelligence (shoes). You influence the non-stop massacre and its difficulty by setting the difficulty, but in the background there is also the famous “AI Director” (this feature is made famous by L4D) or artificial intelligence, monitoring your playing and adapting the intensity of the action to a good pace. Nevertheless, while playing, I had the feeling that the action is too wild for tactical sniper rifle and for adrenaline playing with cutting weapons, the characters are too slow and clumsy – if five or more zombies fall on you from all sides, you practically have no chance to turn around. and solve it fast enough.
Nevertheless, I had a good feeling about the weapons, which allowed them to be varied and improved, but also to play on the PS5 DualSense controller, because “kicking” the haptic response to shots still did not bore me and B4B is one of the games that they use really well. The game also surprised me in places with an atmospheric environment with impressive lighting (rainy fog in the forest, glowing fires of car wrecks in a dark tunnel), you can certainly feel the graphic shift from L4D. The most important shift, however, is the presence of collectible playing cards, which you can then apply as modifiers when starting the level – while the game selects some cards for you at random. If the best cards are hidden behind the highest difficulty, the game will have a fun endgame, which would definitely be an improvement over L4D.
The best cards of the highest difficulty can offer a fun endgame.
Anyway, if you’ve played L4D, then you know exactly what awaits you at B4B. In addition to the traditional cooperative campaign, however, you can also try the PvP mode in beta, where four players take on humans and four other zombie players, but the control of monsters seems a bit awkward and this mode a bit unbalanced. So the core of the game is a clearly cooperative campaign, ideally with friends. You will be able to taste it next week in open beta, or in October with the release of the game, which will be part of the first day Game Pass subscription.
Ondrej Partl
The authors of the original Left 4 Dead and the interesting but reprehensibly killed asymmetric multiplayer Evolve are returning to their roots and the players are trying to serve exactly what they once enjoyed.
In a group of four players, you go on individual “story” missions, in which you have to get from point A to point B, during which you shoot a large crowd of ordinary and special zombies, which are called The Riddens. In addition, you will be introduced to some innovations, such as the abilities of individual heroes or special cards, which adjust the gameplay in various ways or improve your skills (I still can not decide whether I like this system or not). And it’s still similar fun, where you’re sure to get stuck for a few hours, but I’m afraid he’ll get tired too quickly. Therefore, it will hell will depend on the motivation that the authors prepare for the players, when in my opinion the one they offer to taste in beta does not stand up very well. And the local PvP regime, which is downright boring, without an idea and poorly balanced, will definitely not stand.
I don’t want to evaluate the technical condition at all, because it’s a bet, but during the game it happened to me that the sound of the game completely fell out, or we found ourselves in an endless match, because the enemy team disconnected and the title obviously did not count too much. But what I hope most is that the developers will work on the intelligence of the boots, who are downright stupid here.
As a result, I don’t know if I like the game or not. On the one hand, we still have fun shooting zombies with friends, but on the other hand, we are very worried about whether the authors will offer a little. However, due to the mitigating circumstance of the presence of the game at the time of the Xbox Game Pass release, it’s definitely a good idea to try the final product to a minimum.
Dominik Tománek
I was quite looking forward to Back 4 Blood. I left an unhealthy amount of time in both parts of Left 4 Dead, so I was thrilled by the news of the spiritual successor of this series. After the tried beta, however, I must admit that my enthusiasm has waned.
I first tried the game “alone” with random players and shoes, in this case I didn’t have much fun. However, this did not surprise me, because this type of game is built to play with friends. When playing with colleagues from the editorial office, I had a lot more fun. The system of cards and decks could bring a refreshing breeze to this type of game, but the beta has not yet introduced it in too much detail, and I clicked on the cards without interest. It is similar with the announced roles in the team, whose potential is likely to appear in the full version of the game. Apart from the mentioned cards, however, Back 4 Blood does not come with much news. I often felt that I was playing graphically improved Left 4 Dead, which does not have such a drive. I enjoyed the last playable mission in beta by far the most, because it brought the mentioned drive.
I will definitely try the full version in October, but probably just because it will appear as part of the Xbox Game Pass. I was not convinced to buy Back 4 Blood, but I will be happy to get confused and let myself be misled, maybe the developers will convince me in the end.
EVANGELO (bot)
When the Zing newsroom came to our zombie – infested region (here is recording events) to test their weapons, it seemed important to me to serve as their test AI partner. I took on the task responsibly and behaved as expected from the shoes – sometimes some kind of jam in the door, you know. The editors watched even more when I revived some of them after the monsters were killed. But as the difficulty and ferocity of later campaign missions escalated, I also had to escalate a demonstration of my strengths and weaknesses. That’s why I got stuck with a static rotary machine gun and refused to let it go even after the Zing newsroom was waiting for the mission to end in a safe room at the end of it. After a moment of confusion, however, they managed to reveal my most useful trait – as soon as one of them was killed, the game then gave him control over me as a spare life (so he could release the rotary machine gun and finally reach the end of the mission). No one is perfect, but in this ruthless undead world, definitely don’t go anywhere alone: shoes like me are still better than no companion.
The open beta begins on Thursday, August 12. The game is released on October 12 and can be ordered at Xzone.
–
