Fast zombies + friends = winSurvival Horror is one of those genres that refuses to evolve. On one hand, it's mastered its art of having tense atmospheres, creepy monsters, incredible soundtracks, brilliant sound mixing, and so forth, but it's very rare that a game comes along and puts it own unique twist on the genre. The first major evolution to survival horror happened in Resident Evil 4, which focused on a more controlled experience by allowing free aiming, a user friendly camera angle, and a twist on the narrative. The recently released Dead Space offered another twist, giving the player much more control over themselves and focusing more on managing your own inventory, precision aiming, and picking how you're going to take down the incoming mutants. Between Dead Space and Left 4 Dead, 2008 was a major and much needed evolution in the genre, Left 4 Dead taking a completely different approach than anything previously seen in games (4 player co-op first person shooter against hordes of zombies), and while it may be a short experience, it's one that is radically different depending on who you're playing with and each time you go through it, making it a must buy for any fan of the first person shooters or survival horror games.
Story/Presentation - 9/10Left 4 Dead has a unique concept. Instead of focusing on one solid narrative, you're essentially playing through four different films, each involving the same characters, but in completely different locales, with no two campaigns feeling the same. For anyone wondering if the game has a tutorial, in one sense, it doesn't. The developer instead opted to include a cinematic cutscene at the beginning, and if you watch it, you get clued in on different aspects of the game. The terror of coming across a witch in an unexpected place and how to deal with it, the panic that sets in when a large and powerful zombie knows as a tank shows up, even down to the bone chilling howl of an approaching hunter, it's all right there. If you decide not to watch this for whatever reason, between loading screens, tips are shown on the bottom of the screen, and as you come into situations (such as finding weapons, downed friends, etc), the game tells you exactly what to do in the situation. It's all incredibly well done and keeps from breaking the immersion. Each of the characters has a distinct personality, from the tough-guy Francis, grizzled war vet Bill, the tough but cute required woman Zoey, to the token black guy Louis. All of the stereotypical characters from horror movies are portrayed here without being annoying and actually helping to immerse you in the world. Occasionally, during quiet spots, you'll hear a character comment about the current situation, including your own, and all of it comes off as being incredibly well done and natural feeling. There's a bit of film grain thrown into the game for good measure to further indulge you in the movie fantasy. While the story itself isn't incredibly compelling, you do get a strong sense of motivation to push on through each area and while each campaign isn't too long (40 minutes-an hour and a half normally), they feel like they're just the right length. There are plenty of different visual and audio clues that keep you engaged and let you know what type of situation you're about to get into, from the sudden orchestral blares and the accompanying scream of zombies when a horde is about to rush you, to the red glow of a witch's eyes as you walk through that room with your flashlights off, hoping to escape without her noticing. You'll quickly find yourself completely immersed in the world of Left 4 Dead, and the only downside is that there isn't more there, however what IS present is more than enough to keep you engaged for months.
Gameplay - 10/10It's never felt so good in a game to be completely terrified by not knowing what was going to happen next. Just when you think you have the jump on situations, the AI Director throws in something unexpected. You could be staying back and shooting at zombies in the distance when a smoker appears from the trees and pulls one of your survivors in, rendering them helpless until a teammate rushes to their aid, meanwhile a boomer sneaks up on another person and vomits on them, triggering a rush of zombies, when you finally hear that chilling scream of a hunter that you can't see since you're so occupied with everything else. Left 4 Dead does an excellent job of keeping you on your toes. It's a nice touch that the included bots are incredibly solid and never seem to do anything stupid (aside from ignoring you when you try to direct them to a molotov or pipe bomb that's out of their visual range). The controls are precise, and while many games nowadays are reliant on Ironsights, the developers behind this title understood how chaotic things can get and give you incredibly precise aim by just shooting from the hip without ever having to raise your aim. Instead of having aiming as a secondary fire function, you've got a melee attack that's used to bat away enemies, giving you a few precious moments as they stumble away in a daze to get off that needed headshot. While some would complain about how you can't do anything when three of the super infected have you in their grasp (Smoker, Hunter, and boomer, for a moment), that's part of the fun. Instead of letting you try to fight against a hunter that's pinned you to the ground, the camera is pulled back as you see it beating you fiercely, forcing you to call out for a teammate to come to your aid. If they don't make it, instead of just dying, you're gone for awhile, and then you'll randomly appear in one of several closets located around each map. It forces you to keep alert and constantly think about what you're going to be doing and what the costs could be. There are several different weapons that you'll come across, each having their own strengths and weaknesses that become more and more apparent the more you play the game. Just to give you a clue, in a 4 player game, it's incredibly useful if you all have different weapons, or at least the 3 main ones. Last, there's the multiplayer game, which allows 4 humans to play as the survivors, and the other 4 to play as super infected, choosing where to spawn and forcing them to coordinate since each one has a powerful attribute, but suffers from at least one glaring weakness. Teamwork and communication is vital to overcome a team of crafty survivors, but the game is far from unbalanced when you're playing with people you know or can at least strategize with. A nice addition is that each of the trophies is pretty fun to earn, such as hitting a hunter with a melee attack as he's preparing to pounce, to killing a witch with a single shot. While you'll be able to get some of the achievements from simply completing levels, to make the most of the game, you have to do some things that you wouldn't normally think about, but quickly becomes fun to do, such as trying to singlehandedly take down a tank. Everything feels incredibly well in the gameplay, from the execution of the concepts to the controls, even down to small details, such as the lighting effects of the flashlights to the distinct looks of the super infected in comparison to the normal ones, not to mention the loads of replayablity between the campaign and co-op modes, along with the promise of downloadable content in the future.
Sound - 10/10You're creeping through an abandoned warehouse, looking down at your life to see how much health you have left. The rest of your team was taken down in the last major attack. In the distance, you hear a deep bellowing yell, from something incredibly large. Suddenly, you feel the earth shaking around you as a timpani drum beats. You check your ammo counter and reload your shotgun, listening for all of the shells to be inserted and that locking sound meaning you're ready to go. At this moment, you hear a human voice yelling for help somewhere behind you. Standing for a few moments, you turn on your flashlight and fire a few shots into the darkness, then turn as you hear the powerful footsteps from something unseen approaching behind you as you rush to help whoever it is that's trapped, in hopes of getting some assistance. As you reach them and hear the door click, you turn around and hear the sound of earth being ripped up behind you. Instantly, you know that it's a tank approaching you and your friend, when from out of nowhere, you hear a haunting chorus of screams, then the dramatically swelling orchestral soundtrack well up. Not only do you have a tank on your hands, but you've also got a horde of zombies approaching from somewhere, as your teammate mutters something under their breath. Moments like this are what make Left 4 Dead's audio shine. Not only does the game have very solid sound effects, from the distinctive sounds of each weapon to the positional audio setup, but the subtle, yet well laid out soundtrack works to enhance the tension. Each of the super infected has a certain song that plays, indicating when they're approaching along with their own distinctive sounds they make, from the cry of a witch to the coughing of a smoker, you'll quickly finding yourself listening for those sounds amidst the chaos of hundreds of zombies regular screams. The weapon sound effects all give you a real sense of power, and while they don't have any real brands of guns, who cares when a sniper rifle is a sniper rifle and an auto shotgun is just that? That's what it all comes down to at the end of the day, and trust me, the sounds in this game will continue to haunt you even when you're no longer playing the game. The voice work is excellent, and it's nice that they went for creating personalities for each character by giving them dialogue that fits their look instead of trying to hire some random professional actors. There's a lot of small effects present, such as the coughing from when you walk through the ashes of a recently killed smoker to the screams for help if they manage to get you in their grasp. Each character also yells out automatically when you come across an item the team may want to pick up, along with giving you details on their status "Cover me, I'm reloading!".
Graphics - 9/10For being four year technology, it's amazing how Half Life 2's source engine is constantly being pushed beyond what we though was previously it's threshold. There are lots of excellent lighting effects, dynamic shadows, flares, animations, and other things that really help give Left 4 Dead its own identity, elevating it far beyond just looking like a Half Life 2 mod. If you check out the developers website, they also mention that there were many choices they made in the game to create a more tense, yet fair experience. Originally, the areas you were walking through were darker, relying on pure lighting to let you see what was happening, but throughout testing, they found it was a complaint that kept arising. To fix the issue, they opted to use dark colored fog, which lets you see some of what's happening in the distance while keeping you guessing as to what's lurking out their in the fog, and it's still a pretty dark game. Another change that shows the attention to detail is that, in order to enhance the feeling of each area being an abandoned and forsaken place, the world itself has a pretty downtrodden feel to it. In the No Mercy campaign, instead of just putting you in an urban environment with abandoned houses, they threw graffiti on the walls, have a lot of slick looking textures in the outside area's, giving the illusion that there was recently rain, cars placed sporadically, especially police cars and those with alarms, which helps to enhance the feeling that something is incredibly wrong with this town and you might want to take heed and follow what everyone else did: Leave while you still can. The graffiti on the walls, if you have a moment, involves more of the humor that was shown in Portal, while other things reinforce the feeling that something went horribly wrong. The models for the survivors and infected are all incredibly well done, and the rag doll physics help as well, letting you know when you pulled off a powerful shot by sending a zombie spiraling through the air or off the side of a building. There's a film grain effect applied over everything to give the illusion that it's almost like watching or living a horror movie in a first person perspective. Since you're going to be spending a lot of time looking at your gun in the game, it's nice to know that all of the weapon models are well done. The flashlight and shadows work to not only to let you see what's coming up, but almost plays a psychological game with you as you enter an area with it on and see a shadow up ahead, only to find out it was cast by a bottle.Speaking of the flashlight effects, instead of just having a flashlight attached to your eye or something, which is how most games feel, L4D attaches it to your weapon, meaning that if you're reloading, it's temporarily cast in a different direction, leaving you vulnerable to the front if any danger approaches. Whenever you die, you get to watch the chaos happening to the other players in a third person viewpoint, giving you a different view of the action and it's actually kind of fun to look at. While many of the levels involve a house or some sort of indoor environment, they did an excellent job of varying the textures and placing of items, keeping each one feeling fresh and new and really letting you kind of get a hold on where the good hiding spots are after a short while. The only downside to the graphics, which is understandable, is that if you're running this game on a pc, the framerate will drop down (it's still completely playable and not everyone is going to notice it) during some of the more chaotic scenes, such as the finale chapter of Dead Air, so just be prepared for that.
Overall - 9/10A 9/10 for a game that's only 4 hours long?! How can that be possible?! Simple. Left 4 Dead takes that 4 hours, gives you 4 different difficulties, a compelling survivor vs infected multiplayer game, the promise of new content in the future, and an amazing AI director system that changes up the placement of things to keep everything fresh every time you play. I can promise you that you will never have the same experience twice, and it's further elevated when you're playing with friends or people that know what they're doing. It's still a blast to play with people who are either new to the genre or aren't as skilled, since the director always seems to throw out just enough craziness to test your limits, occasionally pushing you past them when you're faced with improbable odds, but it rarely feels unfair. The only times that are guaranteed to happen are the major triggers which the game alerts you of right before you activate them by telling you "press the switch and prepare for the horde!" The sound, multiplayer, graphics, controls, and everything feels well done, well implemented, and well thought out, opting for a fun gameplay experience that sticks to the quality over quantity approach. While some of you may be put off by how brief it is on your initial playthrough, you'll find yourself constantly coming back for more, and it's nice since it's the kind of game where each chapter has a definite beginning and end and it's brief enough so that if you pick it up and play for an hour or so, you actually get to feel a sense of reward at the end. Left 4 Dead is definitely a must buy title for any gamer, regardless of if you're a fan of first person shooters or not. It's almost guaranteed to have something here that you'll fall in love with and find yourself coming back for more zombie action when you least expect it. Just remember to turn off the flashlight when you hear that innocent cry. There's a reason why they call her a witch.
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