Left 4 Dead is a first-person shooter in which you and 3 other survivors must fight through hordes of rabies-infected attackers, and the occasional T-Virus mutant to mix things up. I played a bit of the demo, then got the full game in an attempt to play it until I hated it, an endeavor I have yet to accomplish.
While I've never been one to care for graphics, I couldn't help but notice how much work was poured into the games appearance. The infected all look like once-reasonable people. The various special infected all look grotesque, yet still have an appearance that suggests that this was once a human being. The levels all look like places you've been to, just horribly disfigured by the apocalypse. The main characters all look like regular people, and there are simple little details (the scratches on Bill's jacket, Louis's disheveled tie, and the blood on Zoey's face to start) that really show the main characters as normal people trying to get through this alive. Of particular importance to the game's tense horrific atmosphere is the lighting. There's not a lot of light from up above. All the lights are below shoulder level. Car headlights, barrel fires, the flashlights on your gun, all close to the ground...all casting long ominous shadows, which contribute to a tense horror atmosphere.
And while I'm stuck on aesthetics, the sound is amazing. The growls of the infected as they charge you, looking to pound and pound on you until your heart stops, the report of your gun as you try to keep the horde back, and the loud, otherworldly shriek of the horde, all alert to your presence and all coming to you, the sounds bring the game to life. The music also heightens the mood, although it does on occasion warn the player of something (s)he wouldn't have known without it. The voice work for the survivors also helps make the character's feel believable. The characters are supposed to be scared, tense, and focused on survival, and the VAs pulled that off wonderfully. The voices add another level of immersion to the game, and really give this the feel of a true blue zombie movie.
But what about the gameplay? L4D is not a very complex game. Assuming you can figure out the controls, anyone can figure out how to get through the campaigns (Stages 1, 2, 3, and 4 : Get from point A to point B and not die. Stage 5 : Get from point A to point B, press the red button twice, wait a few minutes, then get to point C, all without dying), so the game needs some kind of complication. Thankfully, it provides that in spades. Between points A and B are slews of enemies, which, while easy to kill, and have no ranged attack, have the advantage of numbers. But that kind of attacker is easy to get around, and doesn't make the other 3 survivors feel needed. Enter the special infected. Mixed in with the hordes are various mutants, which will disable a player, call a horde, dish out a massive amount of damage, and/or otherwise force you to work as a group. There's the Hunter, an agile infected with claws, who will pounce you, pin you to the ground, and claw you to shreds, leaving you unable to defend yourself unless a teammate shoves him off or blows it to bits. There's the Smoker, who tries to drag you away with a long prehensile tongue, leaving you to the mercy of the horde unless your teammates free you. There's the Boomer, who's bloated with a goo that attracts zombies if it gets in your skin, and blinds you if it gets in your eyes, effectively making you defenseless. There's the Tank, who can actually survive direct gunfire (scary enough just like that) and can pummel you to death with its massive arms up close, smack cars into you, or throw chunks of concrete, all with the intent to crush you to death. And finally, there's the Witch, who will....leave you alone, provided you don't attract her attention, but god help you if you do, because she has insanely sharp claws and she hits harder then anything. What's more, she's easily enraged, which means if you want to sneak by her, you have to shut off your flashlights. There's nothing quite like sneaking around in the dark, and the only thing you can hear is the crying and sobbing of the most dangerous enemy in the game.
The actual control and interface of L4D is, in a word, efficient. You can see your health, your weapons and ammunition, your grenade (not a plural, you can only carry one), your first aid kit, and your bottle of pain medication. In addition, you can also see your teammates health, and whether or not they have a grenade (and what kind), a first aid kit, or a bottle of pills. The HUD doesn't feel cluttered at all, and it helps quickly assess who needs help and who can give it.
The weapon selection is also efficient. It doesn't have a massive pile of various kinds of weapons and tells you to pick one of each kind. L4D's weapon selection brings in something from each weapon category (pistol, shotgun, machine gun, sniper rifle, explosive), hands you a pistol, then lets you to pick your play style. At the start of the campaign, you can choose between an Uzi and a pump action shotgun, then later on you can upgrade to an assault rifle, which plays like a stronger Uzi, a combat shotgun, which plays like a faster shotgun, or a sniper rifle, which goes through next to anything and has a scope to let you see stuff from far away. You have the option of picking up a second pistol, doubling your clip size and rate of fire, and you can find either a Molotov cocktail, which lets you start a huge blaze, stopping most infected from passing, or a pipe bomb with a beeper attached, which attracts the horde to the bomb and can buy you a few precious seconds to prepare for the onslaught. You can also find a mounted minigun, which gives you a ton of power at the cost of mobility, or various canisters filled with gasoline, propane, or pressurized air, which can be shot to produce a massive explosion (or in the case of the gasoline, a large fire).
Another fun addition to the coop zombie slaughter is the Versus mode, which pits 2 teams of 4 in a campaign, each team taking turns; 1 team runs through the chapter on (correct me if I'm wrong) Normal difficulty, the other team controlling some of the special infected to bar them from reaching the safe room. Playing as an infected, when compared to a survivor, has its ups and downs. You're much more mobile as an infected, but your attacks feel much more limited, and you die a lot more often. Sure you respawn, but it can be a little frustrating to die 14 times in one round (my record). But all of my criticisms are dispelled by the fact that getting the PERFECT attack, the perfect Hunter pounce, the perfect Boomer vomit, the perfect Smoker snag, those moments where you actually get a kill after an untold amount of trial, error, and waiting to respawn are INCREDIBLY satisfying.
The game doesn't have a whole lot in it at the moment : 4 campaigns, 5 levels each, each level being about 10-15 minutes long. Thankfully, the game has something called the "AI Director." Now while I could talk for days about how it works, all you need to know as the player is it changes infected, special infected, weapon, health, and ammo spawns on the fly, during the game. This effectively means that each run through a level is different then the last. While it's not perfect (if you have to call a horde to move an obstacle, it's the same each play through, the finale levels all play the same once you get to the radio and summon your rescue, and the Tank spawns are always in a few set places for each level), it forces the players to keep on their toes, knowing that anything could come at any time.
THE TL;DR VERSION : Immersive atmosphere, efficient HUD, generally fun gameplay and co-op that works. Get it if you have a bunch of friends who like FPS games, or plan on making some.
That's my review. I'll probably regret saying this, but be brutal when you critique it.
While I've never been one to care for graphics, I couldn't help but notice how much work was poured into the games appearance. The infected all look like once-reasonable people. The various special infected all look grotesque, yet still have an appearance that suggests that this was once a human being. The levels all look like places you've been to, just horribly disfigured by the apocalypse. The main characters all look like regular people, and there are simple little details (the scratches on Bill's jacket, Louis's disheveled tie, and the blood on Zoey's face to start) that really show the main characters as normal people trying to get through this alive. Of particular importance to the game's tense horrific atmosphere is the lighting. There's not a lot of light from up above. All the lights are below shoulder level. Car headlights, barrel fires, the flashlights on your gun, all close to the ground...all casting long ominous shadows, which contribute to a tense horror atmosphere.
And while I'm stuck on aesthetics, the sound is amazing. The growls of the infected as they charge you, looking to pound and pound on you until your heart stops, the report of your gun as you try to keep the horde back, and the loud, otherworldly shriek of the horde, all alert to your presence and all coming to you, the sounds bring the game to life. The music also heightens the mood, although it does on occasion warn the player of something (s)he wouldn't have known without it. The voice work for the survivors also helps make the character's feel believable. The characters are supposed to be scared, tense, and focused on survival, and the VAs pulled that off wonderfully. The voices add another level of immersion to the game, and really give this the feel of a true blue zombie movie.
But what about the gameplay? L4D is not a very complex game. Assuming you can figure out the controls, anyone can figure out how to get through the campaigns (Stages 1, 2, 3, and 4 : Get from point A to point B and not die. Stage 5 : Get from point A to point B, press the red button twice, wait a few minutes, then get to point C, all without dying), so the game needs some kind of complication. Thankfully, it provides that in spades. Between points A and B are slews of enemies, which, while easy to kill, and have no ranged attack, have the advantage of numbers. But that kind of attacker is easy to get around, and doesn't make the other 3 survivors feel needed. Enter the special infected. Mixed in with the hordes are various mutants, which will disable a player, call a horde, dish out a massive amount of damage, and/or otherwise force you to work as a group. There's the Hunter, an agile infected with claws, who will pounce you, pin you to the ground, and claw you to shreds, leaving you unable to defend yourself unless a teammate shoves him off or blows it to bits. There's the Smoker, who tries to drag you away with a long prehensile tongue, leaving you to the mercy of the horde unless your teammates free you. There's the Boomer, who's bloated with a goo that attracts zombies if it gets in your skin, and blinds you if it gets in your eyes, effectively making you defenseless. There's the Tank, who can actually survive direct gunfire (scary enough just like that) and can pummel you to death with its massive arms up close, smack cars into you, or throw chunks of concrete, all with the intent to crush you to death. And finally, there's the Witch, who will....leave you alone, provided you don't attract her attention, but god help you if you do, because she has insanely sharp claws and she hits harder then anything. What's more, she's easily enraged, which means if you want to sneak by her, you have to shut off your flashlights. There's nothing quite like sneaking around in the dark, and the only thing you can hear is the crying and sobbing of the most dangerous enemy in the game.
The actual control and interface of L4D is, in a word, efficient. You can see your health, your weapons and ammunition, your grenade (not a plural, you can only carry one), your first aid kit, and your bottle of pain medication. In addition, you can also see your teammates health, and whether or not they have a grenade (and what kind), a first aid kit, or a bottle of pills. The HUD doesn't feel cluttered at all, and it helps quickly assess who needs help and who can give it.
The weapon selection is also efficient. It doesn't have a massive pile of various kinds of weapons and tells you to pick one of each kind. L4D's weapon selection brings in something from each weapon category (pistol, shotgun, machine gun, sniper rifle, explosive), hands you a pistol, then lets you to pick your play style. At the start of the campaign, you can choose between an Uzi and a pump action shotgun, then later on you can upgrade to an assault rifle, which plays like a stronger Uzi, a combat shotgun, which plays like a faster shotgun, or a sniper rifle, which goes through next to anything and has a scope to let you see stuff from far away. You have the option of picking up a second pistol, doubling your clip size and rate of fire, and you can find either a Molotov cocktail, which lets you start a huge blaze, stopping most infected from passing, or a pipe bomb with a beeper attached, which attracts the horde to the bomb and can buy you a few precious seconds to prepare for the onslaught. You can also find a mounted minigun, which gives you a ton of power at the cost of mobility, or various canisters filled with gasoline, propane, or pressurized air, which can be shot to produce a massive explosion (or in the case of the gasoline, a large fire).
Another fun addition to the coop zombie slaughter is the Versus mode, which pits 2 teams of 4 in a campaign, each team taking turns; 1 team runs through the chapter on (correct me if I'm wrong) Normal difficulty, the other team controlling some of the special infected to bar them from reaching the safe room. Playing as an infected, when compared to a survivor, has its ups and downs. You're much more mobile as an infected, but your attacks feel much more limited, and you die a lot more often. Sure you respawn, but it can be a little frustrating to die 14 times in one round (my record). But all of my criticisms are dispelled by the fact that getting the PERFECT attack, the perfect Hunter pounce, the perfect Boomer vomit, the perfect Smoker snag, those moments where you actually get a kill after an untold amount of trial, error, and waiting to respawn are INCREDIBLY satisfying.
The game doesn't have a whole lot in it at the moment : 4 campaigns, 5 levels each, each level being about 10-15 minutes long. Thankfully, the game has something called the "AI Director." Now while I could talk for days about how it works, all you need to know as the player is it changes infected, special infected, weapon, health, and ammo spawns on the fly, during the game. This effectively means that each run through a level is different then the last. While it's not perfect (if you have to call a horde to move an obstacle, it's the same each play through, the finale levels all play the same once you get to the radio and summon your rescue, and the Tank spawns are always in a few set places for each level), it forces the players to keep on their toes, knowing that anything could come at any time.
THE TL;DR VERSION : Immersive atmosphere, efficient HUD, generally fun gameplay and co-op that works. Get it if you have a bunch of friends who like FPS games, or plan on making some.
That's my review. I'll probably regret saying this, but be brutal when you critique it.
