17th Entry - Left 4 Dead

Left 4 Dead (Xbox 360)

This game was one of the best things released in 2008, and I almost didn't know about it.

Poke's roommate (Vars) is a fan of all things zombie, he has movies, books (The Zombie Survival Guide, anyone?) and now he's got a game. (Well not really, I haven't returned it yet.)

If it weren't for Vars's zombie thing, I never would have even seen the demo. But he, Poke and I downloaded it and gave it a run. It was pretty fun alright, but i wasn't about to run out and buy it. Fortunately Poke and Vars bought it and it was definitely worth it. ( I really need to buy my own copy.)

The game's premise is that after a zombie apocalypse, our four Survivors battle their way through 4 unique campaigns in a city, a park, a suburb, and an airport. The game uses a unique "Director" feature that makes the game different each time you play through random spawns based on a variety of factors.

There's the veteran Bill, the college girl Zoey, the cubicle-dweller Louis, and the tattooed biker Francis. I only play as Francis. For the following reason. (from the Left 4 Dead wiki - Francis is notable for often contextually exclaiming how he hates something. Anything, really.)

Among the things Francis hates:

• The Army
• Ayn Rand
• Bats (dislikes)
• Boat lawyers
• Boat people
• Boomers
• Camping
• Churches
• Cops
• Doctors
• Electric fences
• Elevators
• Helicopters
• Hospitals
• Hotels
• Hunters
• Jumping
• Lawyers
• Mazes
• Planes
• Sewers
• Small towns
• Smokers
• Stairs
• Subways
• Tanks
• Trains
• Trainyards
• Tunnels
• Turnpikes
• Vampires
• Vans
• Vomit
• Walking
• Water
• Whispering
• Witches
• Woods
• Zombies

Awesome.

There are also the Infected, which i will briefly describe.

The Hunter is a fast-moving Infected who can immobilize a single survivor unless he/she is rescued by another survivor. It has a pounce attack and a claw attack. One of my favorite classes to play as in multiplayer.

The Boomer is a disgustingly obese bile-filled monster, and can projectile vomit onto the Survivors to attract all nearby Infected. They have almost no health, however, and are easily killed.

The Smoker is an Infected with a long tongue that is used to ensnare and drag away Survivors. It is insanely powerful when used correctly and can certainly take a few bullets. The Smoker also has a claw attack in additon to its primary tongue grab. This is my favorite Infected to play as.

The Tank is a huge, zombified Hulk. It hurts to be punched by and will kill you almost instantly if it hits you with a concrete brick or a car. Only concentrated fire will kill a Tank. If engaged at range, a Tank is rendered harmless as it can do little at range. The Tanks is my least favorite Infected to play as, mainly because of its horrible imbalances.

The Witch is a non-playable Infected. She has glowing red eyes, a distinctive cry (and scream), and has long, deadly claw-hands. She WILL kill you if you are careless, she will also kill you even if you are very precise, because the Director seems to find it amusing to place her below ladders or at choke points. Also, in a game one of my friends took part in, the Director once spawned five Witches forming a death blockade across a doorway essential to progression. If this happens, accept your painful death, for there is no way to escape.

Anyway, this game is fun on your own for a while, I suppose, but the real fun is the multiplayer. 4 humans play as the Survivors, and 4 play as the Special Infected, such as the Boomer, the Hunter, and the Smoker. (Occasionally the Tank as well.) The humans try to get to the safe rooms while the zombies try to kill all the Survivors.

There are only a few weapons. At the start, there is a Uzi, or a pump shotgun. Further into the levels, there is a Benelli M4 Super 90 semi-automatic shotgun, a M16A3 assault rifle, and a Ruger Mini-14 hunting rifle. You can also acquire dual pistols.

Real men use the pump shotgun for all five levels of a campaign. Unfortunately, we can't all be real men, so the other weapons were put in the game.

There are also Molotov cocktails and pipe bombs for taking out groups of Infected. Using pipe bombs is synonomous with "cheating." So is playing on the "Easy" difficulty.

The true beauty about Left 4 Dead is its simplicity. Easy to pick up and play, yet challenging enough to keep a serious gamer busy.

After beating all four campaigns, eventually you will turn to the multiplayer modes. There are a few things that should be known about multiplayer in Left 4 Dead.

First, teamwork is paramount. If you don't have cooperative teammates who will communicate, find a new game.

Your success depends entirely upon your teammates. I don't know about PC gaming, because I'm not a PC gamer, and I won't pretend to be. But on Xbox Live, a good game of Left 4 Dead is precious because generally, your teammates are douchebags, your opponents are douchebags, your opponents are douchebags who use glitches, your teammates are douchebags who use glitches, or everyone participating in the game thinks they are playing Halo 3 and run around yelling about no-scopes and killing sprees. No one cares. Not even your douchebag teammates.

Alright, well its not really that bad, but the average Xbox 360 player is not someone i want on my team.

Second, the only playable multiplayer maps right now are No Mercy (city campaign) and Blood Harvest (park/woods campaign). This greatly limits replayability.

Finally there are several glitches that allow the Infected team to wall the Survivors off from advancing. If this kind of thing frustrates you, you've been warned. It drives me nuts when the other team does this, as you are powerless to move on, until the zombie team realizes they are being morons, and move the block.

Despite its potential shortcomings, Left 4 Dead delivers one of the most solid multiplayer experiences in recent memory. Running around blindly like in some shooters will get you killed here, make sure to remember you're on a team now and need to play as such.

There really isn't too much more to say about Left 4 Dead, other than that you should buy it and that it's full of zombie-blasting goodness.

That said, Left 4 Dead earns an impressive 8.5/10. Play it. Now.
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