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… [Continue Reading]

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Left 4 Dead 2 – Cold Stream

I had a really hard time deciding upon my least favorite Left 4 Dead 2 map. I’m so addicted to the game I can honestly play any of them, and they each have their own charm. In the end there were three that I had to decide between. Part of me wanted to say No Mercy just because I’m decently burnt out on it. People pick it WAY too often, especially in versus, and its one of the easiest maps in the game so there’s no real challenge in even playing it. That being said, it’s a damn good campaign… [Continue Reading]

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Left 4 Dead 2 – The Sacrifice

Love and Hate 3 is themed around favorite and least-favorite maps, and even though I’m not eligible to win, I can’t resist an opportunity to talk about Left 4 Dead 2, especially since I can’t do TF2 because I’ve already written about my favorite and least favorite maps in the game. And while I’m going to need time to pick my least-favorite map in Left 4 Dead 2 (they’re all fun in their own way), my favorite is an easy pick. ‘The Sacrifice’ is so different from the other maps that it’s the only map I can replay immediately after a previous run… [Continue Reading]

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Tips for Beating Left 4 Dead 2 and Payday the Heist on the Hardest Difficulty

This article is a combination of two similar posts I made in the Left 4 Dead 2 and Payday subreddits. Both threads were basically the author asking for advice on beating every map in the game and rating them easy to hard. To add some color I also included random screenshots from my Steam folders. Dead Center: Pretty easy. The maps are very controllable and bright and lots of corridors to control the oncoming infected. Solo is a nightmare because bots don’t grab cans for the finale. The Passing : Harder than Dead Center, mostly because each map is really… [Continue Reading]

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The M14

The term ‘battle rifle’ refers to any military-grade rifle that fires a full-power cartridge. They’re heavier than assault rifles, have stronger recoils and often default to semi-automatic, meaning that their usage has died down considerably and they callback to the WWII era of weaponry. That being said, they’re still found in all branches of the American military today, and with the M14 being one of the most famous battle rifles, its lengthy career has made it a standard sight in the arsenals of various first-person shooters. Due to its roots as a battle rifle, it’s a popular choice for filling the “semi-auto… [Continue Reading]

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Great Moments in Soloing Multiplayer Games

As I’ve mentioned before several times, I love watching people solo multiplayer games without bots, especially Left 4 Dead 2. There’s nothing more badass than taking on hundreds of max-difficulty enemies without even the developer-expected teammates backing you up, and some godly players take it a step further and restrict themselves to melee-only or pacifist runs or even invisible special infected with no HUD. But for this article, I just wanted to highlight some of the coolest moments in specific runs that I’ve watched, moments that really highlight how quickly a truly good player can react to a sudden threat and still… [Continue Reading]

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Ways to have fun in Left 4 Dead 2 Pubs

I love Left 4 Dead 2, its one of my top three favorite games of all time. But while I vastly prefer Campaign due to encouraging cooperation and avoiding the more toxic saltiness of the Versus community, a normal pub is just too easy for me. I know I sound a bit arrogant saying it, but I’ve soloed the game without bots, there isn’t much I’m going to fear in a Normal-difficulty campaign with three allies of varying competency. So that’s why I’ve developed a couple “mini-games” that spice things up a bit. I don’t want to do anything that negatively… [Continue Reading]

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SCARs of War

As mentioned in this video, I recently moved from Texas to California. This has given me some quality time to reconnect with my family members who live on the West Coast. In particular, I’ve been spending a lot of time with my younger brother, who I have loads of memories growing up with but he was a little young to really remember me. While showing me his hobbies and life focuses, he revealed that he plays airsoft, and showed me his primary weapon: I was pretty surprised that the SCAR rifle found a way to once again sneak into my life,… [Continue Reading]

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Butting Heads in the Apocalypse

I’ve always loved watching competitive eSports. There’s nothing more electrifying than watching the absolute top players of a community murdering each other with insane reflexes, top-tier strats and telepathic teamwork, all with a pair of announcers following you along for the ride. But for the first time, I’ve found a competitive mode that really bears serious analysis just because of how creative the community had to get to even translate the base game into something eSport-worthy. I’m talking about Valve’s greatest asymmetrical shooter, Left 4 Dead 2. (A short crash course for people unfamiliar with L4D2 versus: Each map on a campaign, one… [Continue Reading]

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L4D2: The Campaigns Less Traveled

Recently my friend aDm soloed my favorite custom campaign in Left 4 Dead 2, Journey to Splash Mountain, on the hardest difficulty without bots. (In particular his amazing run of map 4 was quite cathartic, as we both learned in our personal solo runs that the Splash Mountain ride is undeniably the most difficult portion of the run. I also wish I’d noticed his trick to teleport gas cans to the generator when I’d done the finale.) In the Realism Expert Solo community, its rather rare to find people making use of the large and rich expansion of custom campaigns. Almost everybody sticks to the… [Continue Reading]

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