Left 4 Dead

"Solid LAN play, but not much else"

Unfortunately, my many years of gaming has not often exposed me to the zombie apocalypse genre of games. When reading this review, please keep in mind this fact, so I really do not have anything to compare Left 4 Dead against. In fact, when I heard of Left 4 Dead, I was not too inclined to purchase the game, until I had heard lots of good things from my buddies from Team Fortress 2.

The first aspect of Left 4 Dead that I was exposed to was the single player mode. Starting the game as a fifty something man standing on the roof of an apartment building with three strangers, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Picked up a pump shotgun and a medkit, and opened the door that would begin my Left 4 Dead adventures. I will admit that playing this game for the first time is a rush. The first time I saw what seemed like an endless flood of the undead racing around a corner, I was almost overwhelmed. Then later on, I encountered special infected, including the hunter, smoker, boomer, witch, and the dreaded tank. Playing this game for the first time is similar to playing any intense first person shooter, like Doom or Quake: you are scared, your adrenaline is pumping, and you cannot get enough.

However, at some point, you start getting the feeling that you have had enough of this game. At this point in time, there are only four campaigns, each with five scenarios, and each having the common characteristic of a final scenario where you call for rescue and have to fight against hundreds of undead and usually a multitude of special infected, while waiting for the rescue vehicle. Playing through each campaign for the first time took me about an hour, and at this point, relatively familiar with each campaign, I can run though one in about half that.

Valve did about as much as they could to try and increase campaign replay value by doing a few things. First off, achievements. There are several achievements that require you to complete campaigns with several stipulations, for example completing a campaign without getting healed, or using only pistols. So if you are like me, and enjoy completing achievements, you will end up playing campaigns several times. The second aspect that Valve implemented is to randomize each campaign to a certain degree. For example, every time you play a certain scenario, special infected will appear at different places, and you will encounter large hordes at different places. So you cannot really predict exactly what will happen each time you start a campaign. Nonetheless, each time you play a campaign, the game play becomes more and more repetitive and boring.

When you buy the game, you will no doubt notice an achievement challenging you to beat a campaign on expert, followed by beating all four campaigns on expert. Currently this is one achievement that I am working towards, however, I am convinced that due to bad team AI, this is largely unachievable playing with three AI characters, which is becoming increasingly frustrating to me. On expert, your teammates do a terrible job of defending you, releasing you from special infected, and overall just have terrible strategic programming. I will often find myself with nearly full health during a scenario, only to have my teammates incapacitated several times or dead, mainly because of their terrible strategies and play style. And as the old saying goes, a team is only as good as its weakest player. Alas, I cannot take down a tank by myself.

So, once you are familiar with single player, it's time to move on to the multi-player. Multi-player is definitely a mixed bag. You have the option to play normal campaigns online against AI infected, or you could choose versus mode, where players can take control of either a survivor or special infected.

Here's where multi-player can get a bit sketchy. Playing this game at a LAN or with people you know is quite possibly one of the most enjoyable first person experiences you can have. There is generally more communication, better teamwork, and it's just a LAN experience unlike any other. Jumping into a quick match, however, can often lead to problems. The quick match option, more often that not, will put me into a server where my ping is huge and I have to leave the server. It's quite annoying to have to leave several servers to find one that has a decent latency. Also, unlike most multiplayer games, teams can only be as large as four, so having even one inexperienced player on your team can easily lead to a very uneven match, which happens all too often. In a quick match, you often have to deal with a complete lack of teamwork and bad decisions, which often leads to frustration.

So in my opinion, nothing in this game other than multi-player LAN is really too solid. However, the game has only been out for a few months, and being that it was produced by Valve and is available on Steam, you can expect free, major updates in the coming months and years. At this point, it is known that Valve is currently working on additional content for this game, so only time will tell whether or not this game becomes more respectable.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 01/30/09

Game Release: Left 4 Dead (US, 11/18/08)