Left 4 Dead

“If it’s not one of us, kill it!” -Zoey: Survivor

Oh yeah folks, it’s an old fashion zombie shoot’em up game…with a twist! Instead of just running through a game shootin’ zombies, you’ve now got the option to do it with three of your friends or if you’d like, become an infected (one of the zombie bosses) and attack the survivors. Do I have your attention now? Good. Keep reading or your brains will be eaten.

First off, lets show you how good the game is. The game came out, available for the XBOX 360 and the PC on November 17, 2008. That left a little over a month for the game to be out in ’08. Here are how many awards it’s already won for ’08. Oh yeah, its that good.

G4TV’s X-Play Best of 2008 Award for:

Best Shooter
Best Multiplayer Game

Not bad huh? There’s more!

Gamespy Game of the Year 2008 Awards:
Third Place for Game of the Year
PC Action Game of the Year

Need more?

IGN’s 2008 Awards:
Best Shooting Game for the PC
Best Sound in a Game for the PC
Best Multiplayer Game for the PC
Best Online Multiplayer Game for the XBOX 360
BIT-TECH.NET Game of the Year and the Edge Awards 2008 Best Online Experience.

So, all those awards in less than two months and you haven’t picked this game up yet? Alright, let me fill you in on why you should.

Who doesn’t like killing zombies? It’s like killing Nazis, except that they’re dead already. Everyone loves to kill zombies and Nazis! Left 4 Dead is the ultimate zombie apocalypse experience.

The beginning of the game plays an awesome cinematic of four survivors left in a city. They are running from the horde of zombies chasing them as a few zombie bosses, including a hulking tank, chase them to a roof. Once on the roof, the IT guy, Louis says “We made it! I can’t believe we made it.” Then the war veteran, Bill says “Son we just crossed the street. Let’s not throw a party until we’re out of the city.” Here is where our game begins. Four survivors, on a roof top, in the middle of an infected city of zombies. You play as one of the four, Louis, the IT man, Bill, the war veteran, Francis, the bicker or Zoey, the college chick.

To start you get a main weapon like a shotgun, hunting rifle or oozie and a pistol. Later you can upgrade your main weapon and pick up a second pistol but that’s for the Director to decide. You can also carry a pipe bomb or moltovs. Throw a moltov’s and you’ll start a large fire to eat up the infected and pipe bombs have a loud flashing beacon on them to attract the horde and blow them sky high. Keep that in mind since zombies are attracted to loud things, like car alarms and…well, you.

Throughout the game, the AI in the game has a Director built in. It will watch the progress of the survivors and direct the film or game as it were. Left 4 Dead is like an interactive zombie film and it plays like one. For example, if you stand around and do nothing the Director will send hordes and zombie bosses after you to help persuade you to move along. If you stay moving, the Director may award you with pain pills (temporary health) or a second pistol or even a Med-Kit! Lucky you.

Each campaign consists of five maps. The beginning and end of each map is a safe room where you’ll be rewarded with more ammo, better guns and Med-Kits…if you’re lucky. Through the campaign’s you’ll be faced with mini events. These events force the survivors to work together in a small event where they have to survive a large wave of attacks. Then at the end of the campaign you have one large event that needs to be completed and trust me, its not easy. The entire game forces the survivors to work together as a team. If you don’t, you’ll lose. The zombie bosses chase you and get it, a lot. The smoker, will use his long tongue to pull you from the group which then will force a teammate to save you because you can’t save yourself. The Hunter will pounce on you and force a teammate to save you. The Boomer will barf on you and alert the zombie horde to you or whoever was barfed on.

Then there is the Witch. The Witch is a crying woman that needs to be avoided, not attacked. The game changes pace around her as you have to shut off your flashlights and sneak around her. She can be taken down but she will incapacitate the person who wakes her instantly and then kill the rest of the team. Being incapacitated means you fall to the ground and wait until a teammate helps you up. Lastly is the giant tank who over powers the team and forces you to work together to take him down because he has a ton of hit points.

The bottom line with the co-op mode (or single player mode, both are the same but co-op is more fun) is that you have to work as a team to survive. The zombies know how to kill you and it’s easy for them. Campaigns are great fun and the game comes with four of them. However, this is a game by Valve. That means they’ll release more of them down the line.

Now, on to multiplayer mode! If you thought Campaign mode sounded fun how about taking on four human survivor players as the infected bosses?! Oh yeah, now you can run around as a Smoker or a Boomer or even a Tank. The Witch is the only non-playable character in multiplayer. In this mode, you play through a campaign like before but you switch back and forth after each map. You play through as the survivors and live or die. If you live, great! If you die then you get the chance to kill the people who just humiliated you as they become the survivors and you become the infected.

All in all, this game is amazing. The four survivor characters have a lot of personality and tons of lines coded to play at different instances that will leave you fond of them. It helps while playing because you don’t want to see them die so you’ll do all you can to save your teammates. That and you don’t want to be the guy that lets your team down now, do you? The sound in the game is amazing too. The music picks up at key points in the game and doesn’t play all the time so I recommend leaving it on. The graphics are fun and dark and really sell the zombie apocalyptic scenario. The fun is endless. Each time you play though a campaign the Director is changing stuff so nothing is in the same place as it was before. Add in the fact that Valve is known to keep producing content for their games and you’ve got a heck of a good buy.