Mostly for fun (and because I?m tired of studying calculus), I bring you my personal review of Valve?s Left 4 Dead for the Xbox 360 (also available for PC).
Left 4 Dead is another game from publisher Valve based on the Source engine, the same system that brought you Half-Life, Team Fortress and Counter-Strike. Developer Turtle Rock Studios (who developed Counter-Strike) creates what can easily be described as 28 Days Later: The Game (+ more guns).
You play as one of four ?survivors,? or people lucky enough to be immune to a infection that reduces the entire surrounding populace to brain-craving olympic sprinters. These zombies yell and scream in ways that would make death metal vocalists blush and will unnerve you (read: creep you out of you?re the the kind of person that thought The Ring was scary) the first couple times you hear them, but stupid enough to keep running into a funnel of bullets (read: just like people who thought The Ring was scary).
The non-existent plot basically consists of four survivors making mad dash after mad dash through a city or forest trying to reach the safe room at the end of each level. Along the way, cooperation among players is paramount (as in, the core gameplay mechanic). Mobs of rank-and-file zombies will bum-rush the survivors and special, ?boss? zombies will render a survivor helpless and require a teammate come and save them (or they?ll die, and if your teammates let you die, slash their tires because that?s only fair).
Players get the usual assortment of shotguns, automatic weapons and improvised explosives to fend off the zombie hoards. In both online and local (i.e. offline) play, there are always four survivors with the computer controlling whoever isn?t steered around by a player. This manifests as both handy and controller-breaking frustrating. Allow me to explain:
I was playing on normal difficulty with a friend with the game controlling the remaining two survivors. As we moved down a beaten path in a forest, the game-controlled players shot seemingly-random bullets into the tree line. Their shots killed special zombies that I did not even know were there. After continued play, I realized the AI must use a combination of heat vision, infrared sensors and GPS monitoring in the number of special zombies they dropped.
Then I raised the difficulty. Zombie bites hurt more. They absorbed more bullets. And my computer-controlled comrades started wearing their pants on their heads. They absolutely refused to not stand in the open during an attack or to press forward when my character is fighting to just remain conscious (artistically communicated to the player through black and white vision). They wore their shoes on their hands and their underwear on the outside as I desperately tried to keep a Hulk-inspired monster from beating my face in. It seems that Turtle Rock Studios only tested the friendly AI through ?Normal? difficulty and then proceeded to throw a party, spill PJ on the keyboard and actually cripple the friendly AI on harder difficulty settings.
Speaking of AI, another core part of Left 4 Dead is the dynamic ?AI Director.? The director is basically an algorithm that changes where the weapons, health items and zombies are in a level every time you play. It can also adjust the difficulty (within certain bounds) on the fly, which usually results in getting a hundred angry zombie willies violently shoved in your ear. While having a fresh experience each time definitely keeps replay value high, only having four unique campaigns (consisting of four levels plus a dramatic finale where the survivors are rescued via helicopter, armored vehicle, boat or airplane) does tend to get repetitive.
Online play is the major attraction for returning players. It allows players to see how the other half lives by playing as the special zombies. Players can be the Hunter (a leaping, screaming death merchant that gives the world?s worst purple nurples), the Smoker (a zombie Yoshi that uses a tongue that would make Gene Simmons jealous as a insta-noose), the Boomer (a morbidly obese bulimic whose vomit attracts crowds of regular zombies) or the Tank (the aforementioned Hulk zombie).
Getting the hang of using these zombies are intuitive (mostly), but the huge, on-screen instructions get in the way of experienced players and are of no good to novices once the action starts (and ends with a survivor?s shotgun between their teeth). Once your zombie is blown to pieces (and you will be blown to pieces), you must wait a flow-breaking 30 seconds before getting another shot. As Ben ?Yahztee? Crowshaw suggested, being able to play as a regular zombie in lieu of a spectating respawn period would greatly help the game.
Overall, I absolutely love the game. My friends and I have spent several hours blasting zombies, screaming at the other to be saved and cursing the damn director and you will, too. Get Left 4 Dead for Xbox 360 or PC.
From my personal blog, the federal file [http://www.dballance.wordpress.com].
Left 4 Dead is another game from publisher Valve based on the Source engine, the same system that brought you Half-Life, Team Fortress and Counter-Strike. Developer Turtle Rock Studios (who developed Counter-Strike) creates what can easily be described as 28 Days Later: The Game (+ more guns).
You play as one of four ?survivors,? or people lucky enough to be immune to a infection that reduces the entire surrounding populace to brain-craving olympic sprinters. These zombies yell and scream in ways that would make death metal vocalists blush and will unnerve you (read: creep you out of you?re the the kind of person that thought The Ring was scary) the first couple times you hear them, but stupid enough to keep running into a funnel of bullets (read: just like people who thought The Ring was scary).
The non-existent plot basically consists of four survivors making mad dash after mad dash through a city or forest trying to reach the safe room at the end of each level. Along the way, cooperation among players is paramount (as in, the core gameplay mechanic). Mobs of rank-and-file zombies will bum-rush the survivors and special, ?boss? zombies will render a survivor helpless and require a teammate come and save them (or they?ll die, and if your teammates let you die, slash their tires because that?s only fair).
Players get the usual assortment of shotguns, automatic weapons and improvised explosives to fend off the zombie hoards. In both online and local (i.e. offline) play, there are always four survivors with the computer controlling whoever isn?t steered around by a player. This manifests as both handy and controller-breaking frustrating. Allow me to explain:
I was playing on normal difficulty with a friend with the game controlling the remaining two survivors. As we moved down a beaten path in a forest, the game-controlled players shot seemingly-random bullets into the tree line. Their shots killed special zombies that I did not even know were there. After continued play, I realized the AI must use a combination of heat vision, infrared sensors and GPS monitoring in the number of special zombies they dropped.
Then I raised the difficulty. Zombie bites hurt more. They absorbed more bullets. And my computer-controlled comrades started wearing their pants on their heads. They absolutely refused to not stand in the open during an attack or to press forward when my character is fighting to just remain conscious (artistically communicated to the player through black and white vision). They wore their shoes on their hands and their underwear on the outside as I desperately tried to keep a Hulk-inspired monster from beating my face in. It seems that Turtle Rock Studios only tested the friendly AI through ?Normal? difficulty and then proceeded to throw a party, spill PJ on the keyboard and actually cripple the friendly AI on harder difficulty settings.
Speaking of AI, another core part of Left 4 Dead is the dynamic ?AI Director.? The director is basically an algorithm that changes where the weapons, health items and zombies are in a level every time you play. It can also adjust the difficulty (within certain bounds) on the fly, which usually results in getting a hundred angry zombie willies violently shoved in your ear. While having a fresh experience each time definitely keeps replay value high, only having four unique campaigns (consisting of four levels plus a dramatic finale where the survivors are rescued via helicopter, armored vehicle, boat or airplane) does tend to get repetitive.
Online play is the major attraction for returning players. It allows players to see how the other half lives by playing as the special zombies. Players can be the Hunter (a leaping, screaming death merchant that gives the world?s worst purple nurples), the Smoker (a zombie Yoshi that uses a tongue that would make Gene Simmons jealous as a insta-noose), the Boomer (a morbidly obese bulimic whose vomit attracts crowds of regular zombies) or the Tank (the aforementioned Hulk zombie).
Getting the hang of using these zombies are intuitive (mostly), but the huge, on-screen instructions get in the way of experienced players and are of no good to novices once the action starts (and ends with a survivor?s shotgun between their teeth). Once your zombie is blown to pieces (and you will be blown to pieces), you must wait a flow-breaking 30 seconds before getting another shot. As Ben ?Yahztee? Crowshaw suggested, being able to play as a regular zombie in lieu of a spectating respawn period would greatly help the game.
Overall, I absolutely love the game. My friends and I have spent several hours blasting zombies, screaming at the other to be saved and cursing the damn director and you will, too. Get Left 4 Dead for Xbox 360 or PC.
From my personal blog, the federal file [http://www.dballance.wordpress.com].