Left 4 Dead

"Your Social Life Just Got Delayed- Permanently"

Everyone likes playing a game where you get to gun down numberless hordes of disgusting baddies. And people like getting together with friends to gun down numberless hordes of disgusting baddies. That is what Left 4 Dead is about. This game is just so impossibly addicting that your outside social life will just cease to exist. Your only friends will be your game console, the controller, and your 3 closest human friends with whom you will massacre the zombie hordes. As far as Co-Op gaming goes, it just doesn't get better than this. Even the somewhat repetitive campaigns available in the game will not get boring. And to make it even better, the developers at Valve had found a way to make the experience different and cinematic every time- a rarity in a co-op game. You can't go much wrong with this game.

GAMEPLAY

As I said before, this game is all about co-op and blasting zombies, who are called the Infected in this game. The game pits the Survivors against the Infected. Valve did an excellent job with designing the gameplay. The movement of your player character is smooth, and the way it feels when you shoot the weapons just feels right. The gun sounds are solid and they recoil just the right amount to make them feel powerful, but not so much as to give them horrible, Ghost Recon-style inaccuracy. It's a blast (literally) to stand in the open, assault rifle in you hand, and slaughter all those zombies who charge into your sights. That is the real meat of the gameplay. Of course, there are a good number of toys available for your amusement: a standard pistol with unlimited ammo, which you always have and can dual-wield; a sub-machine gun; a pump-action shotgun; an automatic shotgun; an assault rifle; a sniper rifle; and a mounted minigun with unlimited ammo. There is not a lot of diversity with your arsenal, but the weapons you have will do just fine.

To add some diversity to shooting zombies (which is possible, by the way), you have to contend with Special Infected, who are mutated forms of the normal infected who have special abilities. Obviously. There are 5 different types. The Hunter is a sneaky and vicious infected who will ambush and pounce on unwary teammates, trapping them and leaving them helpless unless a fellow teammate saves you. Then there is the Boomer, a bloated, slow infected who make suicide runs into you team formation in order to vomit on you- and this vomit attracts the Horde of normal infected. The Smoker is a very stealthy zombie who can snare Survivors with his tongue and drag them away to be strangle or teared apart; since he usually attacks from long-range, his attacks can be the most troublesome. The Tank is a hulking brute of a zombie who has tons of health and extremely strong melee attacks; all 4 of the Survivors will need to gang up on him in order to take him down. And then there is the Witch; her appearance is deceptively benign, and unlike the other Infected, she will not actively try to take down the survivors. Only if you disturb her while she cries will she go after you, and she will make you pay for waking her up- and then some.

The gameplay is designed so that you need the help of your other teammates in order to survive. If you get incapacitated or trapped by a hunter or smoker, the only way to survive is if your teammates help you. If you are set upon by a boomer or tank, you are in for a lot of hurt if your teammates don't help you, although if you are an extremely good player, you could theoretically make it out by yourself. Unfortunately, this introduces a big flaw in the gameplay. If trapped by a Hunter or Smoker, you are completely helpless, and if you happen to get stuck with moron teammates, you are doomed. Let's say that you are making a dash for the rescue vehicle at the end of a campaign, and you are the only one left. Just before you make it to the vehicle, you get pounced by a hunter, and since nobody else can help you, you wind up dead, which is extremely aggravating since you were about to finish the level. It would be nice to be able to help yourself against these infected, but you can't, which means that you better pray that you get good teammates. Fortunately, most of the obnoxious 10 year-olds are playing Halo 3, so most of your teammates will be good.

The game comes with 4 difficulty levels (among other things in this game of which there are 4) that can be chosen: Easy, Normal, Advanced, and Expert. The difficulties are reasonably challenging and the game is fun on all of them. Expert difficulty is much harder than anything you're probably used to. The Infected are more numerous and do nearly 5 to 10 times more damage than on Easy. Of course, the experience isn't always the same. The game makes use of an A.I. program called The Director. The Director analyzes what the team is doing and changes up different game elements for originality, such as changing the position of ammo and health caches and spawning more enemies to catch unaware players.

If you are playing on single-player, the friendly A.I. is actually very good. They are careful of Special Infected, are excellent shots, and always aware of their teammates status. For example, if one of your teammates is low on health, and another is doing fine, the better one will heal the other one with his/her medkit. During co-op, if another player drops out of the game, the A.I. will take over for their character. One of the neat features of this is that whenever you want to take a break, you can just go idle; the A.I. will take over for your character, but you won't exit the game.

STORY/CAMPAIGN

The game comes with 4 co-op or single player campaigns for your enjoyment. There are 2 urban campaigns and 2 rural campaigns. Each one can take anywhere from 45 minutes (on Easy) to 2 hours (on Expert). While this may not seem like much, the game developers threw in 50 achievements to earn, which will make you want to play the campaigns over and over in order to earn achievements. That, and the co-op gameplay is extremely addictive.

Each campaign follows the same general premise- you need to get to an evac zone for survivors that is a distance away, and you and 3 friends need to kill your way to the end. Pretty simple, but not really. Over the course of a single campaign you can expect to kill around 200 zombies on average, if not more. To top it off, you can choose to play as any one of the 4 playable characters; Bill, Francis, Louis, and Zoey. Each has his/her own dialogue and personality (which can be pretty hilarious at times), which was well implemented for a multiplayer game. At the beginning of each campaign, you just select which ever one you want, if that character has not already been chosen.

One gripe that I have about the campaigns is that there are only 4 of them. Maybe someday Valve will release new DLC for their loyal fans. Maybe.

SOUND

In a co-op or multiplayer game, it is unusual for a musical score to be implemented. However, this game does it perfectly; not only does it fit the mood of the game, it also can help you out with the gameplay itself. For example, when your team is approaching a Special Infected, a unique musical cue will play; an experienced player can match each cue with a Special Infected, such as a Boomer. That way, you can tell what's ahead or about to set upon you before you actually see it. The same goes for when somebody (accidentally) attracts the Horde.

The musical score is mostly made up of alternating pieces, such as an ominous piano in the distance, or a pulsating techno beat when you are attacked by the Horde. The gameplay applications for the music are especially helpful.

MULTIPLAYER

If you ever get bored of the co-op mode, there is still an adversarial mode known as Versus available to you. In Versus, it still the Survivors against the Infected, but surprise, surprise: You get to play on the Infected team! That's right, its now your turn to take the role of either a Boomer, a Smoker, a Hunter, or even a Tank and stick it to the survivors. There are still 4 human players controlling the survivors, but there can be up to 4 Infected players. Playing as the Infected is awesome, as long as you get a Special Infected character that you want. At first, only 2 campaigns are available for Versus, but a short update will allow all 4 to be played. The game mode is simple; the Survivors have to make it through the campaign, and the Infected have to stop them. After each round (which ends when the Survivors are safe or dead), the teams switch, so the former Infected are now the Survivors. However, playing as the Survivors in Versus in fairly uninteresting, but much harder now that you are up against human players.

The big problem with Versus mode is that the members of the Infected team can't choose what Special Infected they get to play as. The roles are randomly assigned, which is extremely frustrating if you don't like playing as a certain Infected character. So, if you'd rather be a Boomer than a Hunter, there's no way you can voice your preference; getting the one you want is a luck-of-the-draw sort of deal.

GRAPHICS

Not as advanced as, say, games with the Unreal 3 engine, but still excellent. Since you are too busy fighting for your life, the graphics don't matter too much. However, just like the music, certain graphics are changed depending on the way you play the game. Subtle lighting cues are always changed to reflect your situation or the obstacles on the road ahead. Although, the music cues are a lot more useful.

Despite how smoothly the characters move, the character animations are slightly stiff and don't always match the terrain, but this is not a real problem.

PERFORMANCE

The game doesn't usually suffer from lag problems, but when it does, it shows. Lag won't severely effect the game unless your ping is only at 1 bar (red), but sometimes when you are at 2 bars (orange), the game may hitch for a split second periodically. Ideal connection strength is 3 bars (green). The most lag occurs is when you are facing a Horde of 50 or more zombies, which will slow down the game if your connection is not so sharp. I rarely had severe connection problems with the game, but if you have a fairly erratic connection quality, then you will face these problems more often, but not for most of the time. For the most part, the game plays quite smoothly.

EXTRAS

Survival mode is an add-on for the game that pits you against the Horde, but this time, the goal isn't to escape; it's to last for as long as you can. There are several scenarios from each campaign to play Survival on, as well as a new one, called "Last Stand." You and your team are competing to see how long you guys can stay alive. Different 'trophies' are awarded if you manage to beat a certain time. Survival mode is actually pretty difficult; even getting a bronze medal can be challenging on certain scenarios. This is mostly because the Horde becomes more numerous and more Special Infected are spawned as time goes on. There are some times where you are pitted against 2 Tanks.

OVERALL

This game is, quite simply, a co-op masterpiece. The developers have implemented so many great and innovative features, and the gameplay is just so addicting. And who doesn't want to play as a zombie? So many good features like this are what make the game so great. While some gameplay designs can be aggravating, they are far outweighed by how awesome it is. The game can and will cause many sleepless nights for you. This is a strongly recommended game for co-op junkies are survival-horror enthusiasts alike.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/12/09

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