Left 4 Dead
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ESRB:
Blood and Gore,Intense Violence,Language - Mild
Publisher: Valve Software Genre(s): Action Home Page: http://www.l4d.com/
Versus Mode Preparing to ambush the survivors in Versus Mode. Initially Left 4 Dead was designed to be a multiplayer-only team vs. team game and that's still present as Versus mode. In this game mode the survivors face a team of four players controlling individual special zombies. The goal is still the same - try to reach the next safe house and fight off hordes of undead. Survivors win if they escape and the usual pinning/death/respawn rules apply to them. The infected have infinite respawns in waves and win if they manage to incapacitate or kill the whole survivor team. Once a round is complete, roles are reversed and the map is re-played. Score is awarded based on how far the survivors got and how many managed to get through. After two rounds, the action moves to the next level. At the end of the campaign, a final score is tallied. Normally infected players spawn as either Hunter, Smoker or Boomer, but the AI director can select one individual to play as Tank from time to time. Just like playing as survivor, playing on the infected side requires teamwork. Individually each special zombie is very fragile - one good shot from close range and you go from undead to just plain dead. The trick is to coordinate attacks, time attacks with waves of normal zombies and simultaneously pin down multiple survivors at once so they cannot help each other.
If the default campaign is great fun as four player co-op, Versus is probably going to be the most popular mode in the long run. It's decisively different from the usual team vs. team FPS games. I guess the only theoretical downside is the limitation of team sizes to 4 vs 4, and even that is pretty much irrelevant - the game plays perfectly with 8 players and the balance and levels are all designed for that. Unfortunately Versus is currently limited to two of the four campaigns - No Mercy and Blood Harvest. I can only assume that the other two have not been tweaked for Versus play and hopefully additional Versus-enabled campaigns are the first thing Valve will add to the game. Voices Done RightLeft 4 Dead supports the excellent atmosphere with character voices that go beyond the standard canned stuff. Characters become alive as they spontaneously warn of enemies they see, their health condition and any ammo or guns they find. They also comment on the situation with hints on how to proceed and actively act in-character at all times. Amazingly there is no feeling of repetition as there are hundreds of lines for each character that are mixed up in creative ways. You can also manually fire off quick lines to your teammates through a voice menu in case you can't or don't want to use the built-in voice communications. Music is mostly low-key, but it also reacts to the changing game situation - a change in music is usually the first clue that the AI director has decided to give you a new wave of zombies to sort through. It also heightens the hopeless feeling when you are on the ropes and trying to inch forward. Brilliant, just brilliant. Bonus FeaturesAs is the norm with Valve games, Left 4 Dead comes with achievements and developer commentary. The commentary is limited to one of the campaigns (No Mercy), but there is plenty of it and it gives nice insight on how Left 4 Dead turned out the way did it. The commentary makes it clear that Valve has spent considerable time and effort to polish and balance the gameplay until it's just perfect and it truly shows.
Achievements include your basic "play the game through once" stuff, but there is something for the hardcore as well. Playing all four campaigns through as Expert is not something you can just waltz through. At advanced level the game ramps up the challenge considerably and on expert it turns outright brutal - just the way I like it.
Related Stuff Games: Left 4 Dead
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