No, not a pro-drug entry, just something that may make you want some.

I play most of my TF2 and L4D with a group of gamers off of Metafilter, you may have seen the [MEFI] tag floating around, that’s them.  It’s a great little community, and one that does not take itself too seriously (usually) and is in it to just have fun playing the games.  There was one of the players, we’ll call him “Cat” to avoid embarrassing him overtly, who was known for running ahead to the safe room quickly, even at the expense of one of the other survivors being consumed by a bulimic hunter.  (The purging thankfully done off-screen)  This inspired one of the other members of the group to try and hold races through campaigns.

The basic premise was to start a co-op on Easy, and record what the closing credits said the elapsed time was.  Blood Harvest is the most linear, so most of the attention focused on that campaign.  In no time, there was an eight-way tie with 14 minutes, and what seemed like a 4-minute-mile-type barrier was created.  Until…

That’s right, we made it in 13 minutes.  Here are the keys to this:

1. Do not stop.  No houses, no checking side rooms if at all possible.

2. Do not stop.  If the trailing player gets incapped, let him die.

3. Actively hunt down tanks during the finale.  If you are in the farmhouse, go outside as soon as the wave dies down and before the music starts.  As soon as the music starts, find him, group up and kill him fast.  In Easy, this should not take very long with concentrated fire.

4. Did I mention not stopping?  Also, take that extra second and run to the side to pick up that pipebomb under that tree.  You will thank me later.

5. The point player will get swarmed, don’t worry about friendly fire, just mow down the zombies around him and keep running.  Passing him is good, and point runners should be leapfrogging half the time anyhow.

While it goes against everything the game was designed for, it is a lot of fun doing these speed runs, it’s challenging and it will also help in Versus. The other campaigns take a little longer, too, but it’s a great challenge to try and beat your own time on them.

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Tags:   L4D · leaving them for dead · speed runs3 Comments