By Laz | 24/11/2008 - 16:31:37 | Views: 2664
It was a cold and dark night. Distant shrieks of pain echo between the eerie concrete apartment buildings, The Penetrating scent of decay fills our lungs. There's 4 of us, and thousands of them. One way or another we'll have to try and reach the other side of the road. Looking down from the rooftop, staring at the endless masses of infected, grunting, searching, It becomes hard to find the courage. Looking the other way, hearing some horde closing in on our location, leaving us no option. We have to keep moving...
We kick in a door, and start running, Our flashlights revealing the secrets of the darkness. Blood splatters have become a familiar sight, but the smell is something no-one could ever get used to. We hear grunting in the far end of a dark hallway, and as we point our flashlights down the hall a door breaks open and spews out countless infected, running, screaming, wanting to have dinner. We greet them, guns blazing, the infected corpses pile up quick.
As we are finishing off the last few, we get hit in the back by another rushing horde, but a Molotov tossed in the right direction works wonders, a flaming wall appears, yet the infected still rush through, murder on their mind. The few that do manage to get through the fire, stumble a couple of paces, as they burn to a crisp. That's one side covered.
As more infected close in on us, one of us is grabbed by the 40ft long tongue of a smoker, constricting him, dragging him away from us. I try and catch up to him, wanting to knock him free, yet as I came closer, the flames stop me dead in my tracks. I see my friend getting dragged through the flames, screaming for his life. I feel helpless, sad, I feel .... "TAAAAAANK!!!!!", no time to stand here and feel sorry, We hear the thundering footsteps of a giant approaching.
His fists are in for a party, and we're all invited. as he rounds the corner, we start running, the flames have died down, and as we run out, I can still see the smoker chewing down on my now lifeless friend. As I blast him to hell, he explodes in a fine mist, reeking of an intriguing mix of vomit and tobacco.
The tank is still approaching, we try and make a run for it, and the tank hurls a massive chunk of concrete towards us, hitting 2 of us in the back, I ... I think my back is broken, I can't move my legs, I can still see the tank running after the last of us, who is making a desperate run for it. As I see hordes of infected running towards me, and I grab my pistols and try to take down as many as I can, I will be dead soon...
No this is not an Intro movie, a back story, or fan fiction. This is one of the many stories I went through the last few days, playing Left 4 Dead.
Left 4 Dead is a 4 player coop game, where you, and 3 of your friends team up, and try to escape the jaws of death. You play as 4 people who have survived(so far) the big zombie apocalypse, and you shoot zombies. That is L4D in a nutshell...
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Single player. Yes you can play this game alone. Your team will be complemented with 3 AI bots, who will help you to the best of their ability. But, as we aren't running this game on a HAL9000 computer, their best is still kinda crappy. Don't expect to finish it on expert all on your own.
Online Coop. Here you join up with up to 3 other people, and try to finish a campaign, one stage at a time. Teamwork is very important in this game, lack of it will come round and bite you in the ass within 2 minutes. So you better communicate, talk to each other, and watch each other's backs.
Versus. My Personal Favorite. In this mode you play 4 vs 4. Each team takes turns playing as survivor, while the other team gets to spawn as special infected, trying to slow down and kill the survivors as fast as possible. The team that got the most far, wins.
In any of these modes will you ever play 2 identical games. Left 4 Dead has something Valve likes to call "The director". It's an advanced piece of AI software designed to adapt the game on the fly. He is the who decides when a tank comes, where the hordes come from, and how many hunters to send after you. This gives the game a unique aspect, and the infected still the element of surprise, even if the survivors have played this campaign 20 times already.
Your enemies consist of 2 types. On one hand you have your normal run of the mill infected. Your default zombie so to speak. Their major strength lies in numbers. You will never meet just one of these. They come crawling out of every corner at the most impossible moments. But they go down easily, if you have enough bullets.
On the other hand, there are the special infected. These are infected that have more specific abilities, and in some cases take a lot more effort to bring down.
First, the hunter. An agile Energetic type of infected, who spends most of his time crouched, hiding in the darkness, climbing rooftops, lurking, waiting. Oh, and they can jump. I mean really jump! You do not want to meet one of these alone, when they get a chance to jump you, they will pin you down on the ground, helpless, while clawing your face of. If you do not have a fellow survivor nearby to knock him off, you will die.
Secondly, the Smoker. This tall infected has an enormous tongue. Especially length-wise. This guy can use his tongue to grab a survivor from 40ft away, constrict him, and drag him towards himself. once you're in his claws, you'll start losing health, until another survivor either knocks you free, or shoots the smoker.
One is the Witch. Basically an Emo Zombie chick. She sits in a dark corner, crying. The doesn't like light, or people around here. Just do as your mother always thought you to do. If you see someone smelly crying in a corner, just leave them be, and walk around them. You can ignore the witch, but be carefully, she is startled easily. When she is, she'll come running after you, making your ears bleed by screaming as hysterical as she can, clawing at you whenever she gets close. Some people have claimed they married a witch. This is still unconfirmed though.
And last, but not least, actually more like most, The TANK! This beefed up, bunch of infected muscle has grown 2 legs, and and urge to destroy. Think The Incredible Hulk, but lose the green. He comes plowing down the hallway, wanting to destroy anything that isn't infected. This guy is hard to take down. really hard. He also hits hard, really hard. I think that kind of sums up his personality. I can't imagine him going to see a movie, or join a book club.
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So know you know a little about the game, the atmosphere, it's possibilities, let's talk about the downsides. There is one big downside to this game. As it has been mainly developed for console, there are some elements that feel weird and unnecessary for a pc game. It's especially the automatic matchmaking system that receives the most flak for doing what it does.
You see, you cannot pick your server yourself, you can create a lobby, invite your friends, then when you want to start, the game looks for a random empty dedicated server where you can play with your friends. Most of the time this results in a server with a bad ping for half the players, or joining one that is full, ....
There is however a way to get your trusty old server browser back so you can choose where you play, using some clever console commands.
The Graphics are not way over the top, pushing your computer into spontaneous combustion, yet, it runs on the well known source engine. So expect half-life2 level graphics, yet they still look fresh, and there are some awesome sights in the game. In the airport campaign finale, there is an elaborate plane crash just as you leave the safe room. Much kudos to the level designers that built that.
There are still a lot of minor issues, mostly concerning little things, like animations, tanks getting stuck, (you will probably not hate this bug), and some others, but generally they don't really annoy you unless you start looking for them.
All things considered, I find this a very engaging game, there's just something about coop games that makes them so much more fun, and I hope more games will follow the example. Although a good game in my book, there is still room for a lot of improvements, especially in the User interface, and perhaps the diversity of the weapons. Also waiting to respawn as an infected can become a drag. But I guess it's needed for the balance.
If you are a fellow survivor, and you read this, run for the Z-spot. It's safe there!