Part two of our harrowing crime drama has been posted online for your benefit. Savor the tension.

I am writing this post for two combined reasons, the first being guilt from not writing Tuesday’s post, and the fact that I volunteered to do it so Noah would have more time to play Left 4 Dead 2 . . . with me.

So see? It was selfish.

I am horribly behind on NaNoWriMo. My deficit is now up to around 14,000 words . . . which is basically a lot of typing. With each passing day, this gap grows wider, and I find myself completely uninspired. The mantra of NaNoWriMo is, essentially: quantity over quality. That’s something I am having difficulty coming to terms with. It’s even led to a bizarre dream in which I was writing the story at the order of Erik Bouchard, the manager of Eyeskream. I was suddenly fired from this position due to the poor quality of the writing, and the fact that a superior candidate for the job had appeared.

Kanye West, driving a chrome Batmobile.

Yeah. It was basically a sign.

I am having trouble coming up with subjects that might equally compel (bore) all of our audience, so now I am going to talk about Left 4 Dead 2, the rest of you are excused.

In short: it’s fantastic. I was trying to figure out whether I am enjoying it more than the first one, which I can almost assuredly say that I am, but not due to game quality. When Left 4 Dead, the original, came out, I was actually totally out of it on pain meds due to a surgery. I could hardly remember great sections of the campaigns that I played, which I am sure that I enjoyed them, but do not actually remember the extent of my enjoyment.

There are just so many incredible new elements to the game, that it’s actually difficult to describe them all in a cohesive series of organized paragraph, so instead, I will fracture them into a list format.

-Improved pacing and tension. Aside from the plot being more cohesive and interesting (as far as I can tell thus far), the gameplay is much more intense. The “finalies” now involve moving your way through the endless attacking horde to reach a goal, which is incredibly exciting and feels monstrously more epic than anything in the first game.

-More weapons, more upgrades, awesomeness. The AK-47 is my new favorite. Sweeping a room clean of zombies with this bad boy just feels right.

-Gore. Yes, I am a psychopath, but there is just something incredible about blowing holes in the ferocious zombies . . . and watching them keep coming at you.

-Melee weapons. While I don’t use them much, they are still a delight.

-New special infected. The wandering witch is interesting, I like how the tank incapacitates survivors and keeps chasing after the others, the jockey is horrifying, the spitter is devastating, the charger is hilarious, especially when it takes a player off of an edge and to their sudden doom, and of course, the female boomer. Can you say hot?

It’s a great game, and I am having an awesome time with it. I will be waiting for Noah to get home today like an eager puppy so I can play it again.

Don’t forget PiB tomorrow!

-Nathan

“I just got hit with the burnin’ shit!”