Carnival Kill the Noobs

Alternatively titled “Breaking the backs of wicket and aabicus”.

On Saturday some residents of SPUF managed to meet up online to play versus against each other. However, some of us got practice before this. Namely, aabicus, wicket, owels, and me (majer63).

Since wicket (known as hugthebed2 on the forums) wanted a challenge, we loaded up the carnival campaign of Expert difficulty. I don’t want to show off, but I’m absolutely, positively, 100% TERRIBLE and this. That’s not to say I’m just bad the game, far from it in my mind anyways. However, I’m able to recognise my shortcomings, one of which is not shooting teammates. Normally this doesn’t matter, but expert changes things from “T’is but a scratch” to “Your arm’s off”.

All to say that I did very little shooting that campaign. Sorry, but I didn’t trust myself to shoot anything unless there was zero risk of hitting anyone…except for those times I still managed to shoot aabicus in the back.

Now, we all had some growing pains as a team. Me and owels had to get used to the game after now playing it for a while, and aabicus and wicket had to figure out which one was carrying me and which one was carrying owels. Moreover, the two noobs disappointed our free rides when they learned that no, we do not know the shortcuts and cannot make those jumps, forcing the entire group to go the normal way.

And then we died and had to restart the whole thing. That’s okay, we didn’t get that far anyways. Several tries later, and our corpses make it to the bottom of the cliff. A few more tries and we make it to the safehouse.

Next chapter, we all get wiped horribly. Well, now we start from the safehouse and not that car, so we have that going for us. Next attempt is much better, but even the power of aabicus and wicket combined isn’t enough to save me and owels. This isn’t that bad, but aabicus gets caught and proceeds to die. It’s all up to wicket, and wow is he good. He suddenly goes from trudging through the zombies to help us out to sprinting through the map, killing infected left and right. We’re all cheering him on, and soon enough the safehouse is in sight. We’ve won this chapter, hooray!

Or so we think, as not even one metre away from the door he gets hit by a smoker (or was it a hunter or jockey?), and it’s back to the original safehouse.

We beat the chapter the next time (finally), and can finally proceed to more pain and suffering, no refunds. I suppose that’s what you get for picking up carnival tickets from that suspicious looking zombie in a dark alleyway.

Me and owels actually start to improve here, and we all make it to the rollercoaster in one piece. I finally accomplish something useful here and turn off the stupid alarm, ending the whole “play as a human rollercoaster, choo choo!”.

Now begins chapter 4. Apparently, me and owels are acting too friendly, leading aabicus to ask the big question. Do we know each other outside of SPUF? Well, the answer to that question is [REDACTED].

We hole up on some high ground and wait for the gates to open, and once that happens its just a rush to our deaths. I’d like to say that my sacrifice (and owels’s) helped aabicus and wicket to make it to the safehouse but…they really were pointless and entirely avoidable.

None of that matters though as we all get to spawn in the final safehouse, regardless of who died previously (hooray for corpse teleportation and off-screen defibs). I end up killing an employee, so I quickly conclude that I’m never coming back to the concert. aabicus warns me to stop typing that out and move or be eaten by the horde that will spawn behind us, so I’m forced to run. Whether the game bugged or was simply taunting us, I don’t know but that horde never did show up, not that I had a problem with that. Take what you can get.

Now, as you’ve all probably noticed from the pictures, I have a ton of mods installed. One of which turned the background of the stage to a nice gif of cute idols. Being the good anime-lover I am, I take a few short (long) seconds (minutes) to stare at it and take screenshots of best girl Maki.

Now, the smart thing to do in my mind is grab all the fireworks boxes and stack them in the middle of the stage to throw around as needed to stop the hordes of zombies. Of course, my inexperience clearly shows here as that plan is quickly overruled in favour of standing on the giant tower of wood and ladders with the sniper rifle. Surprisingly, this is really effective and not a single smoker came and grabbed me.

I would like to say I actually beat the map, even with all the carrying that was done. Moreover, what better way to finish off the article than a picture of our heroic escape? Well, remember that first picture?

Yeah, there was a tank that decided to run in front of the helicopter door after aabicus and wicket got in, leaving me and owels about one second to realise what happened before a giant fist hits us and incapacitates us, leaving us to be eaten.

While the whole thing was very difficult, I never got frustrated during it. Playing with other people from SPUF is really fun. Usually it’s just me and owels playing easy/normal mode together, so pushing myself was really fun. If anyone hasn’t played L4D2 before, I highly recommend it, especially if you can play with friends. As for me, I’ll happily hop on if aabicus and wicket (or anyone else) is up for another game of carry majer63 L4D2.