Video games: 'Dead 2' full of life

Torrential rain hits hard just as we double back through the Witch-infested sugar field. I align the barrel of my shotgun head-level with the charging crowd and fire every shell into the obscuring vegetation. Suddenly, a blood-curdling scream fills the air, followed quickly by another. It's already too late by the time we realize we've startled two Witches. ...

"Left 4 Dead 2" is swollen with action that will leave your controller sweaty and worn, and emerges as one of the most powerful online co-op experiences I have ever had. This trek into zombieland boasts more intense combat, finales, crescendos, settings, enemies and game modes than last year's title. Four players banding together for survival is still the focus, but the conditions have become far more chaotic.

"Left 4 Dead 2" drops four new charismatic zombie-killers in the Deep South, where they endure five uniquely awe-inspiring locales. Players gleefully hack and blast their way through everywhere from abandoned carnival grounds to the Big Easy itself, with each campaign carrying a distinctly different atmosphere of dread.

Other useful items and firearms equally expand gameplay. Use a defibrillator on a fallen friend, pump yourself with adrenaline for a life-saving speed boost when you're in the red, or throw a vial of boomer bile at a charging tank and laugh with twisted delight as nearby zombies tear it to shreds. The standard weapon types of shotgun, automatic and sniper rifle, now feature a broader variety with unique characteristics as well. All these additions, combined with the brand new grenade launcher, allow your band of survivors to methodically customize your strategy like never before.

The augmentation of both the infected and survivors makes for some of the most enthralling, white-knuckle multiplayer you'll play this year. Versus stays fresh and balanced with six special infected types to choose from instead of the original game's three, and even more maniacal laugh-inducing coordinated strikes. The new competitive multiplayer mode, Scavenge, has survivors scrambling to collect gas cans to stop a countdown timer across six maps, with the infected doing everything in their power to stop them. As a survivor, you'll cry out in anger as the tie-breaking gas can explodes after a Spitter pukes on it. As the infected, you'll cheer as a Charger pummels a gas can out of Coach's arms during the suspenseful overtime. This fast-paced, round-based multiplayer will have you lurking in game lobbies (which have been greatly improved) until the actual apocalypse hits.