The first thing that I thought when I saw Left 4 Dead was that it was purely made to hit a certain market. It looked like they just went down a list what's popular and made a game.
What do teens like? Zombies - Check
What type of games do teens like? Button Mashing Action - Check
What genre do they play the most? First Person Shooter - Check
What is the easiest way to get their money? Make it multiplayer - Check
What gets their attention? Realistic graphics and explosions - Check Ö
Then, of course, games like this usually leave out the good stuff like plot, tactics, replay-ability, robust gameplay. After all, as long as the fan boys love it, they'll sell $40 million. Who cares about the rest? Publishers usually heap on nice linear play and a poor save system.
The "Check" system is all true about this game. However, through some ingenious programming and project planning, they are able to get over some of the frustrating parts of the last paragraph. The end product was something rather fresh and fun to play.
The first part that probably stands out is that this is a true cooperative, multiplayer game. So, how do you make one of these fun as opposed to just a lot of repetition with just new players changing? You make the levels random. Remember the first Diablo, when you played the second time around, all the walls were in different spots and you got new quests? It's kind of like that. They instead use much better graphics, with buildings taking place of the walls. The quests? Well, really you are only running from safe house to safe house in this game. However, there is much replay-ability due to the remapping and breadth of missions to choose from.
The graphics themselves, are good, but very grayed out. It allows for a little more realness and for some nice change in brightness due to lights, etc., but it also makes you feel like you are watching an old X-Files episode. I guess that adds to the horror field which it resides, but doesn't add to any the game in any other way.
The first person view works pretty much like all FPS games, and by that I mean lackluster. Even on wide screen, you still feel like you have almost no peripheral vision. It would be great to play this game with a VR headset. FPS'ers won't be bothered by this, but newbies and dabblers in the genre will have a steep learning curve. I played with three guy who, half of the time, would have been better off playing with an AI partner instead.
Speaking of AI, the multiplayer is only share-able between four people. If you have three, they throw in an AI partner (or another on-liner.) If you have five, one person is out of luck. Although inconvenient to the fifth wheel, this actually works to the developers favor. Now, they can control the challenge level and AI. The game has a great feel to it where you think that you can accomplish each level with just four people (even when you never do.) You don't necessarily ever want that fifth person, or want to go solo.
Unfortunately, this can lead to bad things too. An over-knowing AI can be a dangerous thing. Zombies tend to do a lot of rushes, which becomes the main challenge of the game. These rushes tend to be overwhelming that (over-) counterbalance a group's strengths. Moreover, there seems to be no advantage during the lulls. It certainly doesn't feel like you can help yourself much with pre-planning or tactical movement. You generally just pick a good spot and start shooting as best as you can. At lull points you can start picking off stray zombies, but it doesn't seem like that even helps you, it just gives you something to do.
That's not to say that the rushes are all bad. They are what provide the tension and challenge of the game. They are probably the main component of the fun. They use these with good pacing of battle as to never let the game get to stagnant. Trying to hold off a horde at the end of a mission can truly be thrilling, especially when the bosses come to play.
The bosses are unique and really add to the gameplay. They like to throw them in with the regular zombies so to heighten the experience. This, as opposed to the classic way of throw a huge boss alone at you with just a lot of hit points. They can come out of nowhere, or have a nice haunting approach which definitely put you on edge.
The fights are a blast for what boils down to two reasons: crazy shooting action and ammunition management. They give you enough ammo to last the entire level, but just barely. More so, they tend to hide it along the way so that when you do get it, it feels like opening presents on Christmas day. The shooting enjoyment is heightened as you get roughly 4 basic types of guns, which work well since each person can use one type (although doesn't have to.) Therefore, each player can make his own niche and handle certain situations better.
There are also some nice audio components. Ambient sounds as well as other parts add to the scary feel. When you start hearing the Witch (a popular boss) mumble-cry, your muscles tend to tighten and you start panning as fast as you can. They even have a nice LIVE headset feature which let's you organize in-game fairly well, although there is a little lag.
There were some other more technical pieces of the game that stuck out. First, you have to go through Steam as the portal to the game. Steam is set up very well to handle being a game server. It's not entirely user friendly but it has all the components to make things work well on your computer and with other players over the net.
When you do get to Steam, one of the major drawbacks will be your download time. Your updates and set up take forever, even on a fast line. If you plan on playing Left 4 Dead on Saturday, I'd plan on getting to Steam and start downloading Friday night.
Nonetheless, for all of you who enjoy a good FPS or love co-op games, this is a 5 star. For all of you who don't, you probably will enjoy this with some good friends but you might pass it by, too. Only small, noticeable flaws keep this from a 5 star in my book.
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