Platform - PC
Left 4 Dead is the Zombie game that has been anticipated for a long time by all Zombie Enthusiasts, and why not? It’s one of the first properly programmed games for co-operative game-play which doesn’t require any 3rd part add-ons. One would think that in this day and age that sort of genre would be common, but unfortunately in late 2008 it was only realised that co-operative game-play against AI is something people would enjoy.
The game appears to be based in today’s day and age and the characters are based in a zombie apocalypse of which infection started 2 weeks prior to date. Who knows what happened in those two weeks, how the infection started or even how the game characters met – there are no specific details about how you came to be where you are, just the fact that you are here and now you play. Some may argue that this is a good thing because there’s no waffling or rambling on -- it’s all game. However, we here at Cyb3rGlitch are always open to ideas about how things become what they are, and the lack of a story line (literally) is somewhat disappointing.
From the above clip, it's evident that you can get into the game without prior knowledge. The introduction gives you a vivid idea of how to play the game. However, this introduction shows how you get to where you are for the first campaign (starting on the roof), that being No Mercy, however there are no prequels or introduction scenes for the other 3 campaigns, and basically when you start playing, it’s straight into the game.
The only thing you don’t see in the intro there is the boomer, which vomits some vile bile (see what we did there?) on the survivors, attracting hordes of zombies. The only reason we can think of is that the boomer was not actually in the original designs. Prior to the boomer, there was the howler, which basically would see the survivors; run away and howl to signal an attack from a zombie horde – you can see the similarities to the boomer’s approach.
Left 4 Dead comes equipped with 3 game types – Single Player Campaign, Co-operative online campaign and versus. The first two are self explanatory, in that you play with 3 other players, AI or Human, and work your way through one of the four campaigns. Versus gets interesting because you play through the campaign(s) again, however four more players can enter the game and become one of the special infected, that being the Smoker, Hunter, Boomer or Tank.
To date the game has undergone a lot of patches and updates – a hell of a lot, in fact. There are still several subjective issues in the campaign mode and versus mode. One most people mention is the poor amount of damage the smoker takes, even though it’s hard to get a survivor and keep them at your clutches. Another small point is that when you are a tank, and lit on fire, you are slowed down as well as taking damage constantly – it becomes very hard to bestow a significant amount damage as a tank when lit on fire, which is what a tank is/should be known for.
The game managed to keep a constant thrill factor through out game-play. To be honest, the thrill does subside mostly once you get into the game and you play through it for the pure fact that it’s fun, and that you’re with other real life people. Replayability is on the very high, and that’s mainly due to the remarkable AI director, basically allowing the AI to move anywhere on the map and deciding what to do depending on the environment around them and what the survivors are doing. It doesn’t stop there; the developers “explored ‘procedural content generation’, creating an AI Algorithm that would generate endless amounts of content for players to costume,” making the game different every time you played it.
As well as that, many textures were used more than once on objects; however a simple method was used to modify the texture slightly so that it seemed like a new one – “so for the cost of two cars you get four different car models and an unlimited amount of colours.” The technology used in the game is remarkable.
Because this is using the source engine, it is very well optimised in terms of hardware and plays well on almost all machines. Besides being optimised well, the source engine has been known for its amazing modding and mapping capability, and although there are not a great heap of these around, we are certain to see some in the near future – currently we are waiting on a Left4Dead SDK release.
There are only a couple things that a lot of people would not like about the game, and it’s nothing to do with the game itself, it’s the community. Because this is an online game which anyone can play, you will, at least once in a while, have some person, young or not, come in and ruin the game for you because they have nothing better do to with their time. For example, you may be going for a “No Friendly Fire” achievement and someone will purposely shoot your team. It’s recommended to know the people you’re playing with, and expect people who can’t play or are idiots when playing a public game. So far, however, there have been very few cases of this; it looks as if the majority of the gamers have truly bought it for the gaming.
Oh, did we say achievements? Yes, I believe we did. The game comes with an accomplishable 51 possible achievements (50 on the XBOX360), some extremely easy and some pretty much near impossible. The main idea you have to grasp is that you must stay as a team, doing this will ensure your survival which is about 3 or 4 achievements on its own. Remember that you can unlock almost all the achievement by playing the game on easy – though not admirable, the others players won’t know.
All in all we think this game has a lot of thought, time and effort put into it. With the amount of updates coming, it’s clear that developers are keeping a close eye on players and the over all experience. As said the game is very replayable due to the AI director and by playing with different human players all over the world, the game never gets old – very much like Team Fortress 2. We’re expecting an update pack with new features - such as survival mode and more versus maps – in mid April.
Good game-play, good graphics, good technology used as well as Zombies. A masterpiece in its own right.
Rating: 8.3/10