hehe13

Title: hehe13
Link: https://www.gamemaps.com/details/21211
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1714796990
Author: Chen Chen
Survivors: L4D2
Notes: This is a troll campaign and is only enjoyable if you enjoy unconventional twists of the game to torture you, if you're quick to the draw with kicking special infected, and you have friends to play with. If you don't match all of the criteria above, you're likely to have a bad time. Note also that it is very possible to end this campaign early in the second map (out of six).

This is the thirteenth entry into the hehe series and it doesn't look like the author has any intention of stopping any time soon. It's another six-map campaign that breaks the barriers of the typical campaign and forges its own. As usual with hehe campaigns, it is laid out as six short and disconnected maps. The maps are only really unified in the fact that it is very jockey-centric and there also seems to be an underlying motif involving a K-pop artist.

The first map barely qualifies as a legit hehe map and only really serves as an introduction to the campaign. It begins in the same vehicle that hehe12 ended (the back of a truck with a jockey prop) as it floats above the ground for a couple of minutes while you don't do anything. Once it lands, there is a building to approach. All you have to do is simply wait while the music plays and the turrets take care of any infected, then once you hear the saferoom door sound effect, you're free to enter it. Honestly

Map 2 is a short little map that serves as an introduction to the main idea of this campaign, which is to throw jockeys at you while taking away your guns. That's right, you won't have any weapons to use for the next three maps and you're expected to dodge jockeys. To be fair, there is a turret around, but here it seems to be more inclined to shoot survivors than jockeys. If you activate the switch on the right, a platform will be sent across the gap and you'll be able to cross, but you'll have to avoid jockeys. Usually this means you have to get your kick function ready or rely on your friends to get pounced first, then run past them and get into the saferoom. If caught, ledge-hanging is a good way to get the jockeys killed, since the survivors can then be rescued.

It is very possible to end the campaign early through this map. If you push the left button instead of the right, you'll get a camera zoom-in on the saferoom while some music plays. If you let it stay like this for a minute or two, the saferoom door will close and the campaign will be won. I'm not sure why this is a feature, because you downloaded six maps so you might as well play six maps, but I felt it was worth mentioning. 

The third map is a step up in difficulty and annoyance factor. This is where you'll start to hate the no-weapons jockey feature. This is a spiral design typical of many other hehe maps, usually involving the player dodging tanks and branches thrown by said tanks. Here, you are still deprived of your weapons and now jockeys will instantly spawn in front of you. You'll have no defense against these jockeys except Louis, a very bad support character because his weapon does so little damage, he only looks in one direction, and he doesn't shoot consistently. Even with four people, I don't think this map is possible without kicking jockeys via console. At certain points it will just spawn four jockeys and all four players will be defenseless. I suspect that this campaign (as well as probably all the other hehe campaigns) was made for a modded server, probably with low gravity and/or 8-survivor support, so I assume it wouldn't be that bad if you played it on a custom server like that. But as it stands, I don't see any realistically feasible way the average player could be expected to beat this without typing "kick (1)jockey", "kick (2)jockey", etc. over and over.

The fourth map is where you'll hate life. If you thought the last map was bullshit, just wait until you try to dodge instantly spawning jockeys while also trying to jump across moving platforms. You can time everything correctly but because of the shitty jockey latching mechanic, fail every time. There's really no way to get through this without being extremely lucky and have great timing on the rotating platforms. It's not impossible as we did get one person across to the end, but you may have to restart this a number of times only to have one person make it to the end.

The fifth map is the closest to a real map as this campaign gets, aside from maybe the finale. The gimmick here though is that it's a total nightmare on the eyes. Every texture is this bright gray color, and it's impossible to differentiate where walls are without seeing the huge swarm of infected. Oh and believe me, it's obvious that the infected rates are boosted for this map. You'll encounter dozens of commons at a time while getting bombarded by all six specials. As if the terrible visual style weren't enough, you're constantly getting swarmed and charged, pounced, and ridden into spit. Thankfully though, it isn't too short and not impossible to get everyone inside the saferoom because there are quite a few supplies like bile jars and molotovs here and there.

The sixth map is not that bad and is probably the best out of all of them. The worst part is just the beginning, where two or three last jockeys will spawn out of nowhere and probably ride you. But if you kick them or get someone to free you, the worst is over. Really the only thing you effectively need to do is get a gun, go down a corridor, and then fight a suped up version of a tank (with a skin showing him as the K-pop artist), then get to the saferoom at the end of the arena. This was by far the most fun and with molotovs and tier 2 weapons strewn around, it's the most legit part of the campaign. The campaign ends when you enter the saferoom so you don't even need to faff around with running to a rescue vehicle.

Difficulty: I'm not sure how to even qualify this campaign's difficulty. I mean, I don't think it's actually possible to beat the third map without using the console command to kick jockeys, so there's that. Plus, the only real legit maps are the fifth and sixth ones, where 5 is aggravating and 6 is downright easy by comparison. Since this is a troll campaign, there isn't much I can say except that if you have difficulty with any regular campaigns, avoid this. In some cases, it might be preferable to play certain maps on Expert because you'll die faster (which can be a good thing if you're prone to having to restart over and over).

Final Verdict: Well, like every campaign where it's not possible to beat it without abusing the kick function, I'm not inclined to rate this highly. I assume this is for modded servers so I guess if it's for people who don't like playing normal campaigns, I guess someone got a kick out of it. I suppose removing all weapons and items doesn't help the author's cause, but it's pretty clear that criticism has never stopped him from going through with his ideas. Personally I don't play Left 4 Dead 2 to have all my items and weapons taken away from me, and then be expected to avoid jockeys while relying on AI to do my job for me...shittily, I might add. So no, I don't think this is a very good campaign. The finale is the only decent part, but there are better maps to have you fight a tank.

Rating: 0.5/5.