What started out as an innocent night of video gaming with friends turned into something much more epic (yet maddening).
It began with the PC version of Left 4 Dead 2 and two friends looking for a good time. After choosing the shortest playable campaign, the two friends found themselves in an epic struggle for victory. However, it was not fated to happen.
The first two levels turned out fine -- minimal damage and a high-ranking kill count. But the turning point came when they reached the finale.
It took many tries, many of which ended in near-victory, but still a failure. In one of these attempts, one of the friends managed to survive while her other three teammates were slaughtered before her very eyes by hairy gorilla-like zombies called Tanks (picture a more humanoid Donkey Kong on steroids for his whole live--then add images of rotting flesh and a ghastly roar). This player managed to pour the remaining tanks of gas in the generator in order to cause the bridge to freedom to lower, but was somehow struck down by the very hand of God. That is, she was pounced on by a Hunter.
"It was EPIC," her friend says, in good humour, despite losing miserably the first many tries.
Eventually, after both players were booting off the server (in which they both used a long string of profanities) they managed to start a new game, starting from the finale scene, but all their hard efforts were lost.
They were not in woe and extreme depression for long! Somehow, not long after restarting, they managed to gather all the gas tanks, survive getting beaten to death by the mutated Donkey Kong's fists, and even scored a few achievements along the way.
One of their teammates, controlled by what is known as a "bot" did not survive.
"We laughed while he called for help," the other player, not quoted above, said.
Later in the evening, the second player got together with other friends for a nice friendly bout of Left 4 Dead 2 again, this time on the Xbox 360 system.
While her game earlier was on the Normal difficulty, this one was truly a challenge --on the Expert difficulty.
It began well enough, it didn't involve as many attempts as first thought to arrive at the first checkpoint, known as the Safe Room. In the second part, though, things got ugly.
The female player reports that "the boys were screaming like girls! I'm sure even the 'Director' --the program that controls what appears in the level-- would've been rolling its eyes at how sad we were."
And sad they were. It took many attempts in the second part to make it through. Along the way, they ran into at least 4 Tanks, a Witch, and multiple instances of blind shooting and friendly fire. But eventually, they made it all the way to the finale.
"Oh God...the finale...Where do I begin?" the female player asks herself. Her eyes shadowed. Her soul clearly lost and broken from the trauma.
"The Horde would NOT stop coming for us. And then the guys kept throwing the gas tanks on the roof of the kiosk in the mall's atrium! You just wanted to kill 'em off and do it yourself," she says, nearly brought to tears of frustration.
After much diligence and sheer dumb luck, however, the team managed to complete the finale and escape the mall.
The female player, and her male friend (interestingly playing as the only female character) did not survive the zombie siege.
"It makes me cry just thinking about it. All that blood...all those health packs used."
Needless to say, she'll be back to playing the game by tomorrow night. Because zombies are the future. And just plain awesome.
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