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Left 4 Dead
Cooperation and communication is the key to surviving the zombie horde in Valve's Left 4 Dead.
December 8, 2008 | 5:26 PM PSTby: Jeff Rivera
Kombo's Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don't waste your time. This is why we've split our reviews into four sections: What the Game's About, What's Hot, What's Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.
What the Game's About
For some reason zombies are hot in gaming, film, literature, and geek culture as a whole right now. From books like Max Brooks' World War Z to games like Resident Evil, zombies are getting tons of attention and people seem to have fun plotting out their own zombie survival scenarios across message boards. In Valve's Left 4 Dead, you and up to three more players get the chance to make a survival run through a zombie infested city, and working together is key to survival. Of course, if you and your friends are more of the pesky types, you can also assume roles among the infested and work to prevent the survivors from making their way to safety.
What's Hot
Simple as it is, everything that Left 4 Dead attempts, it just seems to do at a high level of quality. If you're playing with three friends as survivors, the sheer fun you can have working as a team is nearly unmatched in what other games offer when it comes to cooperative play. You'll quickly learn that in order to make it past the horde of zombies, you'll need to learn to trust your teammates and that communication is much more important here than it is in most other FPS games. Never has a game in this genre come along where teammates are so reliant upon one another.
The weapons in Left 4 Dead are kept pretty standard, but even the most basic ones feel like they offer a nice punch. Whether you're blasting zombies at short range with the shotgun or getting some easy shots in with your pistol, the punchiness of each weapon satisfies. Part of this is due to the weighty feel and the accurate physics modeling of the zombies in the game. If you spray across a group of zombies with an Uzi in the leg, it provides a totally different reaction than if you are more methodically hitting them with an assault rifle. It's a small thing, but when you're taking down large numbers of enemies, the variety of reactions really adds some authenticity to the visual aspect and overall feel of the game.
The graphical and sound quality of the game are both top notch. Running off of the Source engine, the characters in the game look convincingly lifelike in both their appearance and their movements. The environments are well designed, and they're peppered with cool touches of style and artistic expression if you take the time to look around. At this point there aren't a lot of different areas to play through, but each one was given a lot of attention to detail.
The thing that really sets Left 4 Dead apart from other games, however, is what Valve is calling "The Director." In Left 4 Dead, each time you play through a scenario, things are different. This is due to how the game's AI handles the distribution of enemies. Depending on how you're playing the game, the AI Director will throw different twists at you and your buddies. The first time you play a certain level is also the last time you're going to see that level play out in that same manner. At times enemies will be spread out in a fairly even distribution, while other times the enemies will be more concentrated in a single area or two. This variation gives gamers a reason to keep revisiting the same levels over and over, even after they've practically memorized every inch of the terrain and architecture.
In the versus mode, the game gives the members of the infected a pretty unique experience. You don't have guns, you don't have much health, and you don't really have any chance at taking down a survivor in a one on one scenario. What the game does is it forces the infected players to wait for the best moment to strike so that they can inflict the most damage possible on a survivor before they get taken out. When you respawn, you'll pick another strategic point and repeat the process. Your goal as one of the zombies is to wear down the survivors enough that the won't make it to the next checkpoint. You will never win in a constant rush scenario, so you really have to be crafty and cautious in your decision making. While some will miss the conventional style of deathmatch gameplay, Left 4 Dead's versus mode is truly a unique experience and worth a look for fans of competitive play.
What's Not
One of the biggest knocks against Left 4 Dead is its lack of overall content. It's true that you'll get unique experiences each time you play, but over time you're still bound to grow tired of the same scenery. The game is fairly limited in the number of levels offered for both cooperative and versus play types. Now, this might be addressed by added DLC content down the line, but at this point the package is a little light.
If you're playing alone, and the AI is controlling your teammates (the AI will always make sure that there are four survivors in play), you'll have to deal with the fact that your teammates are less than assertive. While they generally do a good job of taking care of themselves, they'll never attempt to lead the way or to engage the enemy before you do. At times it's nice to have control of the flow, but it reminds you quite often that you're missing out quite a bit by not having friends along. If the AI would push forward at times, it would feel just a bit more genuine and it would give the single-player experience a little bit more of a sense of unpredictability.
Since the game does penalize friendly fire, there is a high probability that you're going to run across some griefers as you play. The game accounts for this by allowing you to kick people out if they're making trouble, but it won't stop people from pushing the limits and testing your patience from time to time. It's best to keep the game between friends, but undoubtedly you're going to be teamed up with a screwball at some point or another that finds it funny to toss a grenade at the team in a small room.
Final Word
Left 4 Dead is one of the most unique titles to release in quite some time. It takes basic gameplay conventions that are common in FPS games and freshens them up with some very cool tweaks and twists. The AI Director is something that is hopefully translated (*cough* copied *cough*) into other games, as it really boosts the game's replay value quite a bit. The teamwork elements in the game make this the perfect title for playing with buddies online on via system link in a local setting. For those that are willing to give the game a fair shot and round up a group of friends, there's a lot to Left 4 Dead that will provide for some memorable and fun times.
What the Game's About
For some reason zombies are hot in gaming, film, literature, and geek culture as a whole right now. From books like Max Brooks' World War Z to games like Resident Evil, zombies are getting tons of attention and people seem to have fun plotting out their own zombie survival scenarios across message boards. In Valve's Left 4 Dead, you and up to three more players get the chance to make a survival run through a zombie infested city, and working together is key to survival. Of course, if you and your friends are more of the pesky types, you can also assume roles among the infested and work to prevent the survivors from making their way to safety.
What's Hot
Simple as it is, everything that Left 4 Dead attempts, it just seems to do at a high level of quality. If you're playing with three friends as survivors, the sheer fun you can have working as a team is nearly unmatched in what other games offer when it comes to cooperative play. You'll quickly learn that in order to make it past the horde of zombies, you'll need to learn to trust your teammates and that communication is much more important here than it is in most other FPS games. Never has a game in this genre come along where teammates are so reliant upon one another.
The weapons in Left 4 Dead are kept pretty standard, but even the most basic ones feel like they offer a nice punch. Whether you're blasting zombies at short range with the shotgun or getting some easy shots in with your pistol, the punchiness of each weapon satisfies. Part of this is due to the weighty feel and the accurate physics modeling of the zombies in the game. If you spray across a group of zombies with an Uzi in the leg, it provides a totally different reaction than if you are more methodically hitting them with an assault rifle. It's a small thing, but when you're taking down large numbers of enemies, the variety of reactions really adds some authenticity to the visual aspect and overall feel of the game.
The graphical and sound quality of the game are both top notch. Running off of the Source engine, the characters in the game look convincingly lifelike in both their appearance and their movements. The environments are well designed, and they're peppered with cool touches of style and artistic expression if you take the time to look around. At this point there aren't a lot of different areas to play through, but each one was given a lot of attention to detail.
The thing that really sets Left 4 Dead apart from other games, however, is what Valve is calling "The Director." In Left 4 Dead, each time you play through a scenario, things are different. This is due to how the game's AI handles the distribution of enemies. Depending on how you're playing the game, the AI Director will throw different twists at you and your buddies. The first time you play a certain level is also the last time you're going to see that level play out in that same manner. At times enemies will be spread out in a fairly even distribution, while other times the enemies will be more concentrated in a single area or two. This variation gives gamers a reason to keep revisiting the same levels over and over, even after they've practically memorized every inch of the terrain and architecture.
In the versus mode, the game gives the members of the infected a pretty unique experience. You don't have guns, you don't have much health, and you don't really have any chance at taking down a survivor in a one on one scenario. What the game does is it forces the infected players to wait for the best moment to strike so that they can inflict the most damage possible on a survivor before they get taken out. When you respawn, you'll pick another strategic point and repeat the process. Your goal as one of the zombies is to wear down the survivors enough that the won't make it to the next checkpoint. You will never win in a constant rush scenario, so you really have to be crafty and cautious in your decision making. While some will miss the conventional style of deathmatch gameplay, Left 4 Dead's versus mode is truly a unique experience and worth a look for fans of competitive play.
What's Not
One of the biggest knocks against Left 4 Dead is its lack of overall content. It's true that you'll get unique experiences each time you play, but over time you're still bound to grow tired of the same scenery. The game is fairly limited in the number of levels offered for both cooperative and versus play types. Now, this might be addressed by added DLC content down the line, but at this point the package is a little light.
If you're playing alone, and the AI is controlling your teammates (the AI will always make sure that there are four survivors in play), you'll have to deal with the fact that your teammates are less than assertive. While they generally do a good job of taking care of themselves, they'll never attempt to lead the way or to engage the enemy before you do. At times it's nice to have control of the flow, but it reminds you quite often that you're missing out quite a bit by not having friends along. If the AI would push forward at times, it would feel just a bit more genuine and it would give the single-player experience a little bit more of a sense of unpredictability.
Since the game does penalize friendly fire, there is a high probability that you're going to run across some griefers as you play. The game accounts for this by allowing you to kick people out if they're making trouble, but it won't stop people from pushing the limits and testing your patience from time to time. It's best to keep the game between friends, but undoubtedly you're going to be teamed up with a screwball at some point or another that finds it funny to toss a grenade at the team in a small room.
Final Word
Left 4 Dead is one of the most unique titles to release in quite some time. It takes basic gameplay conventions that are common in FPS games and freshens them up with some very cool tweaks and twists. The AI Director is something that is hopefully translated (*cough* copied *cough*) into other games, as it really boosts the game's replay value quite a bit. The teamwork elements in the game make this the perfect title for playing with buddies online on via system link in a local setting. For those that are willing to give the game a fair shot and round up a group of friends, there's a lot to Left 4 Dead that will provide for some memorable and fun times.
February 8, 2010
