Left 4 Dead Review

Valve has been known for creating some of the most memorable games to grace the PC and more recently the Xbox 360. Left 4 Dead is the latest hit game to be released from the company and brings together the joy of slaughtering hundreds of zombies with the ability to share the fun with your friends. Never has killing the undead been so much fun in a video game.

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Pros:

• Cooperative is excellent
• Hordes of zombies to be killed
• The Director always keeps things fresh

Cons:

• Not enough content
• Only two of the maps are available for versus
• Friendly AI is sometimes unhelpful

There have been a good number of games created about the zombie apocalypse, but none of them compare with Left 4 Dead. Unlike other games such as Resident Evil and Dead Rising, Left 4 Dead just throws you into the chaos and doesn’t give any long winded explanation as to why certain events are taking place. The only knowledge that you have is that there are zombies and they need to be killed, which is pretty much what makes the game as much fun as it is.

Left 4 Dead opens with a cinematic that shows a group of four survivors as they make their way through a city infested with zombies, only giving the player the information that it has been two weeks since the outbreak occurred. Here you meet the characters of Left 4 Dead, Bill, Louis, Zoey, and Francis. Each character has their own unique personality that is shown throughout each of the game’s four scenarios. Bill is a grizzled Vietnam veteran, Louis was a store manager before the outbreak, Zoey is a young woman who looks like she has never held a gun in her life, and Francis is a tough biker. All of these survivors play the same, but they offer their own dialouge along the way.

Along with the four survivors, there are some interesting infected in the game.  These infected, known as boss zombies, have special abilities that make them different from the typical zombie that just chases after you.  The Boomer is an overweight zombie that will throw up vile on the survivors that will alert a horde of zombies to your group.  Hunters will leap at you from long distances and bring you to the ground as they try to tear you apart.  Smokers are tall wheezing zombies who will use their long toungue to latch onto survivors and drag them from a distance.  One of the game’s deadliest infected is the Witch.  Don’t let this creatures appearance fool you, it may look like a small zombie that could not hurt anyone, but it will down anyone with one hit.  Last, but certainly not least is the Tank.  The Tank is similar to the Hulk, as in it will destroy anything in it’s path and will put a hold on your plans as every player must work as a team to take it down.

 

Finales are where it really picks up

There are four different scenarios in Left 4 Dead that all make fighting through the zombie apocalypse quite enjoyable. No Mercy is the typical zombie situation in which the survivors must make it to a hospital where evacuation is supposedly awaiting them. Dead Air has the group moving towards an air port where planes are dropping from the skies. Blood Harvest is a more grimmer scenario where the survivors must hold out in a farm house while waiting for support to come. Lastly, Death Toll puts you in a small town enviornment where the group must fight for their lives at a dock house where a boat awaits them. Each scenario can last anywhere between 45 minutes to a few hour depending on the difficulty settings. The last level is where the action really happens, also known as the finale.  Players must wait for rescue to come as they fend off the infected for around ten minutes.  Now none of these scenarios are related story wise, but they all offer their own spin on the zombie outbreak.

The thing that sets Left 4 Dead apart from the pack is the ability to play the entire game cooperativley, even when playing alone you have the help of bots that will take the place of actual players.  The AI allies work well most of the time and will help you along the way, but sometimes they will act strange at some points.  For example when two survivors are downed a bot sometimes runs between the two, not reviving either.  Adding even more fun to the notion of killing zombies is actually pretty simple, add three of your friends.  Playing cooperativley has never been so much fun as it is in Left 4 Dead.  Team work is essential as you traverse through each of the scenarios, especially when you hear the dreaded sound of a tank heading right towards you.  Players are able to revive downed comrades and can share items such as pain pills and med packs to restore health. 

In addition to the superb cooperative play, Left 4 Dead offers a very different versus mode.  In versus two teams of four rotate between playing as the survivors and the infected.  While one team tries to make it to the safe house the other tries to stop them at all costs.  Every special infected is playable in this mode, except for the Witch.  Players can throw up on unknowing victims as the Boomer and can pick of a stray survivor as the Hunter.  Each team is scored based on how many survivors make it to the end of the level and how long it took them to make it there, among other factors such as how much health is remaining for everyone.  Players take turns playing as the infected every level to try and get a higher score than their opponents.  The only negative thing about this game mode is that only the No Mercy and Blood Harvest scenarios are available for play.  This does seem odd that all of the levels are not playable, but versus does not suffer too much as a result.

 

The effects of the infection can be seen everywhere

Left 4 Dead’s AI Director changes the game with every play through, making players’ lives frustrating and exciting enjoyable at the same time.  Weapons, items, and enemies will always spawn at different locations in the scenario based on how the player is doing in the game.  Fly through the first level?  Well don’t expect the second level to be as simple.  Hordes of zombies will swarm the survivors if they remain in the same location for too long and sometimes the better weapons such as the Assault Rifle, Hunting Rifle, and Automatic Shotgun will not even spawn in a level.  This keeps the game fresh and offers much replay ability for a game with only four scenarios.

The only thing that stops Left 4 Dead from being a perfect game is the lack of in game content.  The four scenarios do offer much game play, but more certainly would have been better.  Never has a game been so much fun playing cooperativeley with friends.  The scenarios all offer their own unique take on the zombie apocalypse and are layed out very well.  Left 4 Dead will certainly keep players busy for a long time, hopefully new content will help the only flaw with the game in the near future.

Impressions: Left 4 Dead

Left 4 Dead is Valves’s latest game that allows up to four players to join forces and survive a zombie onsalught.  The demo features two chapters from one of the game’s five scenes, which lead the player on a path from a rooftop down to an ungerground subway system. 

The game’s combat is typical of a Valve shooter and feels much like Counter-Strike and Half-Life.  There are a variety of weapons at your disposal, pump action shot guns, automatic shotguns, assault rifles, sub machine guns, and sniper rifles all make killing hordes of zombies an enjoyable experience.  The game can be played single-player, but the real fun comes from playing four player co-op with some friends. 

At the beginning of each game players have their choice of four different characters to play as;  Zoey, a young woman who probably has never held a gun in her life.  Bill, a war veteren who can fight just as well as the other young survivors.   Louis, an electrical store manager who joins the group to escape the city.  And my personal favorite survivor, Francis a tough biker, who gives people named Francis (like myself) a chance to feel cool.  All of these characters play exactly the same, aside from a few dialogue expressions in certain situations.  

 

Your life is in the Director's hands

 When I had first heard of the game’s Director AI system I was a little skeptical.  I mean how could the game know what the player is actually doing and then change the game based on that?  Well I am glad that I was wrong because no two scenario playthroughs are the same as a result.  For example say your team is not holding up too well against the zombie apocalypse, well it might spawn a pile of weapons around the corner for you to equip.  I began to experiment with the Director and got some interesting results.  For example, in the first level of the demo your crew is held up on a rooftop while zombies populate the rooms below.  If you go down the stairs or jump through one of the windows on the roof then you will be open to attack, but I decided to sit up on the roof to see what happens.

Now I do not know if what happened was a result of the game being on the hardest difficulty, but I was ambushed by zombies who jumped onto the roof from a near by building.  I was not expecting that to happen at all.  On the second level of the demo, which was an underground subway tunnel, you have the oppurtunity to pick up some more firepower.  I grabbed a sniper rifle and camped in a corner picking off zombies from across the tunnel without them noticing me at all.  After about five minutes of sniping the undead I was caught off guard when I stopped looking down the gun’s scope…a horde of zombies was rushing me and too be honest made me jump.

I have had so many memorable experiences play the demo for Left 4 Dead and it only offers two levels to choose from.  I cannot imagine the fun that the final game will offer with the added game modes and scenarios to play through.  This game promises to be a great title for anyone interested in horror games or those looking to shoot up some undead zombies with their friends.

Impressions: World at War

With the latest installment of the Call of Duty series being released tomorrow, I just thought I would offer my impressions of the public beta.  After reading Brendan’s impressions on the game I can agree with him on some points, such as the lack of originality, but I also disagree for the most part.

 Let’s get this out in the open right away, World at War pretty much is Call of Duty 4 in World War II.  However that is not entirely a bad thing.  Call of Duty 4 is still one of the most popular games being played across all platforms and will probably continue to be played for many more months.  Game modes from previous Call of Duty games make an appearence, such as Search and Destory and Capture the Flag, as well as some modes that were only featured in Call of Duty 3, like War mode. 

 

 

Gameplay like everything else is not changed too dramatically but it does seem to take more shots to take someone down that in Call of Duty 4.  My biggest complaint about the game though is that no matter where I spawn I get shot at and most of the time die as a result.  Here is a short little rant, get ready.  When the beta finished downloading off of the Xbox Live Market Place, I joined a game of Team Deathmatch and selected one of the default classes.  This part may seem outrageous, but I literally took one step and was instantly sniped by one of the players on the other team. 

Aside from being killed without having the oppurtunity to return fire is quite frustrating in a game like Call of Duty, but the game for the most part is pretty good.  The addition of Co-op play and the newly announced zombie survival mode promise to give World at War longevity in both the online multiplayer of shooting fools in the face and getting a group of friends together to slaughter Nazi zombies.