14 DAY TRIAL // I've been playing Left 4 Dead 2 once more, this time keeping my eye on achievements and trying to spend as much time as possible with friends through the game's cooperative modes.
But while hunting for achievements can get a little frustrating sometimes, playing through the game's co-op mode can get even worse.
I have a group of friends I usually play Left 4 Dead 2 with, but seeing as how we all have jobs and "pesky" social lives, gaming together isn't always possible.
As such, I started playing with strangers on the web, hoping that people would understand the team mechanics in this game.
Most of the times things went extremely smooth, as people knew how to work as a team, how to delegate tasks and how to set up strategies on the fly (thank God for voice chat and/or Skype).
Unfortunately, on more than one occasion, things got pretty bad.
I'm pretty certain that almost any Left 4 Dead player has encountered people who start walking into wrong directions, those who run straight ahead and into the hordes of zombies only to complain that you weren't backing him up, or those who start disturbing witches or wasting resources like pills, adrenaline shots, Molotov cocktails or pipe bombs.
I had my fair share of such people, but there's one guy I most certainly won't forget.
It happened a few weeks ago, when attempting the Hard Rain campaign, with one friend and two strangers.
We managed to get through the first chapter pretty much unscathed, but the second one, the Sugar Mill, was a whole other story.
Experienced Left 4 Dead 2 players know that this chapter is quite tricky, especially since it is home to quite a few Witches, which are some of the most difficult and deadliest enemies in the game.
At the beginning, we agreed not to disturb any witches unless it was absolutely necessary, and proceeded to navigate the stage.
As you no doubt guessed, one of the strangers started disturbing every witch on the level, which was pretty bad, considering the AI director decided to spawn no more than 3 witches in close proximity.
Witches usually attack the player who disturbs them, but this guy, after annoying them, immediately took a shot of adrenaline and ran back to the safe house, hiding in there, while the witches massacred us.
After we were mince meat, he just said that we were a bad team and promptly exited the match before we had a chance to kick him out.
So, while playing online can be pretty fun, you need to be pretty lucky if you want to encounter smart players that actually know how to play the game with others.