Left 4 Dead (PC) Review

Left 4 Dead has been recently released on steam as a trial demo from valve over the past few weeks. I know many players, including my self wore that demo down to the core. Watching the trailers for the first time made me think ‘Wow.. now they really have overdone zombies and made a game from it.’ After the dead rising games I thought they would have left the genre to die.. How I was wrong. Extending the zombie horror games into this amazing work of art. Now the full game has been released there was no other choice than to immerse yourself into the glory of slaughtering mindless amounts of infected zombies.

The campaign is well written although quite short with four different scenarios. Using a newly developed randomizer, known as The Director; No two plays are the same, no matter what you do. The game play is basically you and three other friends fighting your way through horde after horde of zombies. This may sound quite difficult and repetitive but the simple knock back with a melee and then shoot serves the player some justice against their numbers. The Director brings you to face one of five ‘boss’ monsters, each with its own unique abilities. The smokers, boomers, hunters all cause you to crawl to the edge of your seat and stick reluctantly close to your team-mates. Without them, survival is near impossible. Coming face to face with a tank causes a rush of panic-stricken team-mates fleeing for their lives. While making your way through the hordes you come across a sweet innocent girl crying for your help… well so you may think; startle this little girl and she WILL turn on you, charging and ripping her way to your demise. Only the most skilled mouse jocks can really tame the wild bitch without getting downed straight away.

There are four characters in the game, Louis a wise office worker, Francis, a tough biker, Zoey, a young woman from a wealthy family, and Bill, a hardened Vietnam vet. Your goal; just to survive and reach the safe house at the end of each four scenarios. At the end of each scenario you get rolling credits, displaying all of your stats, and if one of your team mates is unlucky enough not to make it they’re featured in the credits for your amusement. R.I.P Zoey, since we all know the women will die first. Saying all of that, there is a certain amount of give-aways that make the game predictable. Certain noises and sounds aid you and your team through the campaign and online multiplayer, they make it easier to determine what you might have to throw or slaughter to survive.

Right now to the fun bit, the weapons! Through out the game there are certain weapons that aid you; most scenarios start with you put in with a stash of the highly valued medi-kits and ammo. Also a choice of Uzi or shotgun, it doesn’t matter which you choose because they’re equally powered. You might be lucky enough to come across a table with 3 different ‘power weapons’ on, the M4, Auto shotgun and the sniper rifle. Finding these is a pain in the ass; I think I only got them about three or four times throughout the online campaign. I think my favourite weapons were the pipe bombs and a makeshift Molotov that saved me many a time.

Because this is such a team orientated game if you choose to be brave and go it alone you will be supported by three npc’s. They play the game safe and always hang back and wait for you to push forward, keeping you alive and topped up for whatever may come. Don’t get me wrong, they’re really well programmed, especially since The Director tries its best to throw a randomized game sequence at you every time. They can’t follow the same routines like most bots would in other games; they have to actually think. Online they’re a piss take, they ARE wall hackers; I don’t care what anyone thinks, you’re mindlessly crawling round a wall and they spot you a mile off and own your ass in one or two shots. Perfectly directed fast pace high performance game play makes this an extremely exciting play, let alone scary.

Although I feel like I must say something about the online match making, they have based it off a xbox match server list. Not a normal, find a server and join. It’s completely random unless you join through a group. The servers have been very laggy lately although they have been getting better. It’s hard to get into a game with one mate and a bunch of randoms. It’s just a case of ‘QUICK JOIN’ situations over the steam chat, this is a major downfall for me because it’s a team game and it’s hard to play with friends.

Although the source engine produced by valve is a little dated it still does a pretty good job at producing some good looking nasties. They took Counter Strike:Source and Team Fortress 2 and mixed it all together and came out with this. No one plays those games for the graphics; just the game play that is getting exceedingly better every game they make. They manage to make the ‘boss’ monsters look very intimidating and use the lighting of this very dark and dingy game they don’t look much from afar. But up close you can see the ugliness of these infected pests.

The engines done well in churning out dozens of infected in things most commonly named surges, where swarms of them just come out of nowhere. The engine struggles to keep up in match’s with a lot of infected and ‘boss’ monsters but it does it’s best. The surrounding environment doesn’t do much for the eye, a-bit edy and could do with some anti-aliasing, the character models and cut scenes really don’t help this game out one bit, it’s all game models and no cinematic. I don’t know about anybody else but I experienced some bugs in the character models and texture stretching. All in all it’s not a game for its looks and stunning appearance.

During the game there’s no real sound track that’s played throughout the game, just the typical fast paced horror music that makes you and your mates think ‘oh shit’; Well I know it made me jump quite a few times. Everything from the screams of the infected to the possessive wails of the witch and the huge thuds of the tank steps is enough to send shivers down your spine. I think the most terrifying experience for me was first coming face to face with the deep panting of a hunter, then the screams it produces while flying through the air at you. The voice acting is a ‘Meh’; the characters have some cool lines that are quite funny, but overall the zombies in this game win the spotlight.

A play time of around 50 – 90 minutes per scenario and only four scenarios the game doesn’t take as long as you would expect to complete; but depending on the game settings and player skill you can go over the same part of a scenario two-six times. Thanks to The Director it makes sure it is never the same every time. Sometimes it gets dull and boring. But then you come across vs mode. Oh yes, the best part of the game. Who wouldn’t want to choke people, spew on them, stomp, crush, rip apart… Just everything you could want to do as a monster. The best past is becoming a hunter, or even a tank. It just brings hours of exciting game play ahead. I played the demo, which consisted of two parts of a scenario, about 30 times over. Spending hours on end trying to make it without dying once, it never bored me. Even when I found it impossible it is just… Addictive to say the least.

So if you want hours of fun game play this is extremely re-playable and fun, so if your not to bothered bout graphics it’s well worth the buy. I know I’ll be spending many hours on this game in future all-nighters to come.

This review was written by guest writer, Charlie.

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