Left 4 Dead

"A Co-operative Shooter of Unparalled Excellence"

{{Left 4 Dead is a first-person shooter developed by Valve, available for Xbox 360 and PC. Players choose one of four characters, and play (online 4-player co-op, or offline) through four separate scenarios (or "movies").}}

If you can't play online, don't buy this game. If you normally hate playing online, try this game. Otherwise, buy, buy, buy. Left 4 Dead is best compared to Gears of War 2's Horde mode, or Resistance 2's co-op; it's a game designed to get players working as a team. Mission accomplished. It succeeds on a level far beyond either Gears or Resistance, providing players with a tremendously balanced, constantly changing experiencing.

The four scenarios, each requiring about an hour to run through, are endlessly replayable - two reasons: 1) the AI director, Valve's sometimes ruthless "scripting system," will place zombies (the Infected, here) and Boss characters in different locations every time. It'll mix and match. It'll send smokers to pick-off stragglers with their long tongues. It'll place tanks, massive, muscular infected capable of dishing out huge damage, in small closets and in the thick of corn fields. Witches, one-hit killers alerted by flashlights and footsteps will shriek into your speakers and out from under the stairs. And then there's the boomer: a fat infected who will throw up on you, a trigger for zombie waves. 2) Different players, different experience.

On the normal difficulty, you'll find yourself playing with a lot of...mavericks, shall we say, but as soon as you make the jump to Advanced, the number of lone-rangers will decrease significantly. The fact that they don't just altogether disappear can actually be a good thing. The amount of ammunition you have, the aforementioned "Boss Infected," the layout of the maps, the blindspots, all these things contribute to an environment where players will need to depend on each other just to live - when you're knocked down, "Incapacitated," only another player can save you, same goes for being roped in by a Smoker. This might sound limiting, but because players need each other so much, there's a genuine effort to get everyone through alive. So instead of howling at the mavericks who run off alone into dark barnyards and abandoned train yards, thank them for providing a tense and unique situation only someone of their caliber can. Really, it's just like the movies we watch. Everyone knows splitting up is a bad idea, but someones gotta try it, right?

If cooperative gameplay isn't your thing - and remember, this is real co-op we're talking about here, a rare thing - there's always the versus mode. And much like the campaign, this isn't the expected flavour. Two teams of four face off, taking the alternating roles of Survivors and Infected, and try to make their way through two of the four campaigns (the other two are, sadly, unplayable). The first thing you'll notice is how differently the Infected control: sluggish, or twitchy. Then you'll notice how quickly you die (i.e. one shot, unless you're the Tank, but that option only comes along now and again). Then you'll notice the 30 second respawn time.

Having fun yet?

I paint it poorly. But know ahead of time that communication is the only way to win a round as the Infected. This brings us back to the cooperation element. If you don't have a headset, buy one. You'll want it. For the campaign mode (especially on Expert), and for the versus mode.

Now that you've made it this far into the review (and if you've followed the game at all), you're probably undergoing a content scare, making lists in your head:

- 4 Survivors to play as
- 4 Infected to play as
- 4 scenarios
- 6 weapons (4 guns, two explosives)

Don't worry. I know it doesn't read like much, but the point is that you'll play through it over, and over, and over again. No one complains about Scrabble being limited, do they? If you own a PC, you can be sure that there'll be some add-on content coming down the pipeline, either in the form of Mods, or from Valve themselves (likely free anyways). For 360 owners, the extra content will make it's way there too, though maybe not as quickly (and surely not for free).

Keep in mind though: single player = not worth it. The lack of story, dynamic "characters," tension, and humour that the online game creates do not translate at all offline. For what Left 4 Dead is, it's near perfect, but there are a lot of things that cut down it's accessibility: the lack of modes, the lack of any reason to play it alone (not cheap, them games), the very different multiplayer, the hard reliance on your teammates: it's clearly not for everyone, but it doesn't need to be either.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/02/08

Game Release: Left 4 Dead (US, 11/17/08)