Left 4 Dead
Left 4 Dead is the much hyped Zombie-Apocalypse shooter from Valve, the masterminds behind the Half-Life series and the Team Fortress games. Left 4 Dead has you filling the shoes of one of four Survivors of the Apocalypse and you’ve got your wits, two weapons and three comrades to get you out of this mess alive.
I’m normally very cynical when it comes to some games that gets as much hype and advertising as Left 4 Dead, but it being a Valve game, I almost took it for granted. Valve, like Blizzard and Bioware, have never made a crappy game. I didn’t think they’d start now. I decided to drop the $49.99 to find out if this game lived up to the media blitz.
So far, I’d say it does. The game ships with a single player ‘campaign’ that you can knock out in an hour. I know this because I did it. Like any recent Valve game, Left 4 Dead uses the Source engine and looks phenomenal. If you loved the graphics of Half-Life 2 you will not be disappointed. Dynamic lighting, excellent sound and hordes of undead are as immersive as can be.
There are plenty of little touches that flush out the world. My personal favorite things are the notes scribbled onto the walls of the ’safe rooms’ of people reaching out to their loved ones. There’s even some sarcastic ones that made me laugh.
If you love zombie movies you will feel like you’re in 28 Days Later or Dawn of the Dead. Shadows on the wall or that stretch out across the street. Corpses of the dead, and undead, everywhere. Hordes of monsters running toward you in a frantic rush to tear you limb from limb. It’s all there.
I haven’t played much multiplayer at the moment, I haven’t had much time. The multiplayer has two modes; a Co-Op mode and a Versus mode. In Co-Op mode you play the role of one of the four Survivors and you’ve got to make it through the horde. In Versus mode you play as a part of the Zombie legions bent on, well, massacre. What can go wrong?
My only complaint so far is that the single player was so short. That becomes moot when Valve has introduced their “AI Director” which dynamically resets the maps between sessions or if you die. It will readjust the difficulty of the zombies as well as their locations, ensuring that no session plays the same way.
To sum it all up, this has the potential of an awesome new series from Valve. It screams “Episodic” content and definitely could play as a potential competitor to the Resident Evil series of games. The action is frantic, the immersion unbroken through the audible queues of the Survivors. This is money well-spent, I just need to get some friends on for some Co-Op action. If you like fast action First Person Shooters and you like online play you should check this game out.
