Left 4 Dead

[RationalBiker]

I have to tell ya, I'm really looking forward to this FPS/TPS game. First or Third person is selectable in game.

For those unfamiliar, the premise is that you and three other survivors take part in 'movies' where an infection has spread like wildfire and the populace has turned into zombies. The are not real undead-type zombies, just mindless flesh-craving people. And they aren't your George Romero meandering zombies, that are your 28 Days Later zombies that run full out and attack you savagely. The plot of this movie is rather simple; get from point A to point B and live. The four different movies consist of 5 different scenes with each movie culminating at a final stand before your rescue is completed. The game can be played single player with bots, or multiplayer with others.

Some of the things that make this game interesting, at least to me;

1) It's made by Valve and they have a history of making great games. (Half Life series, Counterstrike, Team Fortress, Portal, etc.)

2) The game scales to keep it challenging and interesting depending on how well your team is doing. Yes, you can still lose. It doesn't make it so 'everyone's a winner'. This feature, touted as the AI Director, controls the pacing of the game to keep the movie interesting. It follows a certain set of rules that it will not violate so it doesn't cheat per se. If you have cleared a particular area behind you, zombies will not spawn there 'from nowhere'. However, since zombies can climb through vents, crash through walls or windows, etc., there are plenty of chances that what you leave behind may not be absolutely clear. Additionally, no two movies will play the same. The zombies won't spawn the same way each time. Here's the kicker - if your team does really way, there are grand graphical payoffs that lesser performing teams don't get to see.

3) In pacing the movie, the flow allows for times of intense action and times of relative peace. Valve recognizes that people actually get fatigued if they are in intense gaming situations too long.

4) This can be good or bad according to your perspective, but I take the game for what it is. The game REQUIRES teamwork. If a team member goes maverick, eventually he/she will be faced with an insurmountable volume of zombies that require the team to come rescue him. Players that are about to die stay on the ground in a prone position but they can still fire their pistols for about a minute before dying. The more zombies attacking, the shorter that time is. Team members can use healing kits to revive downed teammates. You can only carry one kit at a time so sometimes you must make the decision to either heal a team member or save the kit for yourself.

5) There are lots and lots of moving zombies on the screen sometimes. From a technical point of view, it is pretty cool how they have pulled this off smoothly given hardware constraints. There are times when you are inside and zombies literally flood through doorways. Fortunately the grunt zombies are pretty frail.

6) A competitive versus mode allows 4 other players to play special boss zombies. The interesting thing about 3 of the 4 boss characters is that they rarely run straight in and attack the players. Instead, they lie in wait and try to plot the worst possible time to throw a monkey wrench into the survivors path. However one boss, the Tank, runs straight in and tries to smash anything it can. No infected player can pick to be the tank, but the Director decides randomly when each player has an opportunity to play the tank. Other infected boss types include; The Smoker - he has a long tongue that can pull players away from their party; The Boomer - a bloated zombie that pukes nasty stuff on players which attracts more zombies and when he is shot he spews the goo all over the place; The Hunter - he does surprise pounce attacks from a distance. A final boss class is not playable by players at all; The Witch. If you see her, don't let her see you. She is relatively easy to avoid sometimes, but if you get her attention she's deadly.

7) In the versus mode, each side plays both the survivors and the infected in turns. Whichever group of survivors makes it further to the end wins.

8) There is a merit/demerit tracking system that allegedly really separates those who can play from those who cannot. Since friendly fire is always on (and cannot be cut off), you don't want folks on your team that will constantly shoot you in the back. Likewise, you don't want people on your team who constantly walk into your already streaming line of fire. Don't kill Boomers when they are close to the team of everyone gets goo and the horde starts coming. Rescue people, kill lots of zombies, and survive yourself and you get merits for success.

There's more, but I'm running out of time. If killing hordes of zombies is up your alley, you might give this game a look.

I forgot to mention, it will be on PC or 360.

Edited November 3, 2008 by RationalBiker