Left 4 Dead game review

Left 4 Dead is a totally unique experience that has created a completely new subgenre of the survival horror game.  Designed by the geniuses at Valve (the development company behind Half Life and its many offshoots,) it’s an “homage” to great zombie flicks like George A Romero’s Land of the Dead and Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later.  Left 4 Dead steals—um, “borrows” plot elements, caricatures, and thematic devices from its Hollywood cousins and incorporates them into one of the first First Person Shooters that was actually designed with cooperative gameplay as the goal from the get go.

Gameplay

For years when you heard the words “zombie game” you thought of Resident Evil with its twisty corners, plodding action, and ruin-your-shorts scares.  Then Dead Rising came along and changed the game with hundreds of zombies on screen at once.  Enter Left 4 Dead.  It tosses out the old conventions and gives you plenty of new and exciting enemies to combat including the mindless horde and several boss zombies that are extremely dangerous on their own.  But these aren’t your papa’s zombies.  These “infected” are imbued with supernatural speed and are “smart” enough to break down walls, climb fences, and use their brethren as ladders to get at you wherever you go.
While the “infected are incredibly well developed, one of the biggest downers is that storyline isn’t.  Gamers are thrown into the mix after watching a short cinematic and forced to choose between one of four stereotypical zombie flick heroes (or heroines):

• Zoey - the sole female survivor
• Bill - the cantankerous Vietnam veteran
• Louis - a systems analyst and the sole black survivor
• Francis - the loud mouth white biker-boy

Each character plays the game in essentially the same manner--even though their voices, mannerisms, and expressions are wonderfully unique—so you’re not really penalized or rewarded for choosing one over the other.

The game itself is only four levels but each is broken into sub-levels which ultimately fall into a pattern of trying to get someplace (various safe houses) where you can rest, rearm, and ready yourself for the next wave of the “infected.”  While each level plays quickly—30 minutes or so—and a decent player can beat the entire game in two hours, there’s a fair bit of replay value as Valve threw in what they call “The Director.”  It’s an AI that watches how (and how well) you’re playing the game and then throws enemies at you according to your performance.  If you’re slicing through the horde like a hot knife through butter with the games array of traditional zombie killing firearms and incendiary devices, the “Director” will throw a handful of boss zombies at you.  If you’re limping along and out of ammo all the time, the AI will tone down the evil undead so you can catch your breath.  No enemy will spawn in the same place twice so you never know what’s lurking around the next corner.

Boss zombies have a fairly shaky history in zombie games.  Some are okay, others feel contrived, and some are outright ludicrous. Left4Dead manages to create unique bosses that not only fit the look and feel of the game but influence how the game plays.  There are five classes of boss:

• The Hunter - leaps at players, crushes them to the ground and bashes their heads into the pavement until they die or are rescued
• The Tank - requires an entire arsenal to take down and can smash through just about anything
• The Smoker - wraps players up with its prehensile tongue and drags them off into the dark to strangle them
• The Boomer - vomits  nasty goo that blinds players and incites the horde into a feeding frenzy (also explodes on contact and sprays goo everywhere)
• The Witch - looks innocent enough but unleashes Hell on Earth when players “wake” her up

Each has its own tactical strengths which must be learned in order to combat them effectively.

While there is a single player campaign, it feels like it’s tacked onto the co-op mode and really isn’t worth the time.  Left 4 Dead was built to be played with (or against in versus mode) your buddies.  Having real people playing as other survivors makes it feel as if you’re actually inside a zombie flick.  Unlike playing with an AI bot, every character reacts differently when there’s a human at the helm.

Graphics

Valve’s source engine may be a bit of an old timer in the gaming industry but Left 4 Dead uses it to produce some impressive graphics.  They won’t “blow your mind” and do have a hard time competing with some of the newer games designed specifically to be visually superior such as Gears of War, but when the horde is upon you, you won’t even notice.  Especially with the exceptional facial animations of your “teammates” as well as those of the horde—Valve really capture the conflicting emotions of rage, despair, and desperation that you would really see during a zombie apocalypse.

Frame rates are good overall though you may notice some lag when tons of zombies fill the screen.

While the character models and landscape are okay (and I mean that in the best way possible) the lighting is simply amazing.  The darkness is impenetrable and coupled with the muzzle flashes’ staccato bursts of incandescence, the eerie mood-lighting produces some spectacular effects when you’re fighting for your life in a room full of walking dead.

Sound

The voice acting is okay, on par with most games on the market today, but the ambient sounds, music, and effects are very cool indeed.  Each class of zombie has its own distinct sound footprint and you’ll be able to tell what’s coming your way—if you can hear it over the screams and cries for help and mercy. 

Value

While the game offers some great co-op play, the single player game is rubbish.  FPS fans that don’t play online should just bypass this game.

One cool feature is the “Versus” mode where you can play as any of the boss zombies (but not the witch) and hunt your friends down like the human dogs they are.

However, even the excellent cooperative play may get a little old as there are only four maps to use (two if you choose versus mode.)  There may be a significant amount of downloadable content coming in the future but it might be worth it to hold off on purchasing the game until then.

Final Verdict

While some aspects of the game truly change the way zombie games will be made for years to come, there really isn’t enough meat on the bones here to warrant a perfect sore.

Pros

Excellent co-op play, unique gameplay every time, dynamic enemy AI, and some decent lighting and graphics.     

Cons

Short campaign, limited maps, no storyline.

Overall Score = 8/10