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Left 4 Dead

User Rating:

ESRB: Blood and Gore,Intense Violence,Language - Mild
Publisher: Valve Software
Genre(s): Action
Home Page: http://www.l4d.com/

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By: Jarno Kokko Nov 27, 2008

Classic

Left 4 Dead - blood, decapitations and gratuitous violence.

Left 4 Dead feels like an instant classic. Even as it stands today, it's a great game, and I'm sure Valve will further tweak it post-release with content updates and further polish just like they have done with Team Fortress 2. Ultimately what separates L4D from the chaff is a combination of incredibly good level design, innovative gameplay elements and perfect incentives to support co-op gameplay.

It's also one of those games that's incredibly easy to pick up but takes quite a while to master at higher difficulty levels. You have to move fast yet you can't leave anyone behind. You have to kill enough zombies to clear your way without ending up bogged down and low on ammo. You have to use the terrain to your advantage, yet you cannot predict where the next pile of zombies will turn out to be. The only solution is to rapidly adapt to the situation as the AI director tries to kill you off. The polished and finely balanced mix of fast-paced action with perfectly timed breather moments... perfect. Just one thing - I can't see how I could go back and play all those basic single-player canned on-rail shooters after Left 4 Dead.

Okay, so it's a bit short and you can play the campaign in one long evening, but who cares. The gameplay stays fresh even in familiar levels, especially when you add humans to the mix. It's also true that Left 4 Dead can get a tad boring with bots, but the game is not something you should play with bots. They are there to let you familiarize yourself with the game or stand in when you can't find that fourth player - the real game is online with human players, either as co-op campaign or Versus mode.

Get on Steam. Buy Left 4 Dead. You won't be disappointed.

Summary of YouGamers Hardware Testing

The publisher of this game state the following specifications for their minimum and recommended requirements:

Component	Publisher's Minimum	Publisher's Recommended
Processor	Intel Pentium 4 3.0 Ghz or equivalent	Not specified
Memory	1024 MB
Graphics Card	Shader Model 2.0 with 256MB Video RAM
Graphics Card Example	NVIDIA GeForce 6600 256MB
Free Disk Space	7.5 GB
Net Link	Broadband (Multiplayer, Steam activation)

To learn more about how YouGamers performs its hardware testing, click here. Through our extensive gameplay and hardware testing across the full spectrum of PC configurations, YouGamers suggests that one should use the following guidelines for an appropriate minimum and recommended setup:

Component	YouGamers Minimum	YouGamers Recommended
Processor	AMD Athlon 64 3500+ / Intel Pentium 4 3.4Ghz	AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ / Intel Core 2 Duo E4600
Memory	1024 MB	2048 MB
Graphics Card	ATI Radeon X1800 GTO 256MB / NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT 256MB	ATI Radeon HD 3850 512MB / NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT 512MB
Free Disk Space	7.5 GB	7.5 GB
Net Link	Broadband (Multiplayer, Steam activation)	Broadband (Multiplayer, Steam activation)

Scores

To learn more about our scoring methodology, please click here.

Gameplay	97	Blasting away piles of zombies has never been so much fun. Dynamic spawns, great pacing and perfect co-op emphasis raise Left 4 Dead above the generic shooters. Great Versus-mode provides gobs of additional replayability on top of the main campaign.
Graphics	95	What little L4D loses in the tech side when compared to the competition is meaningless - the art and animation quality is so superb with great attention to detail. Small visual cues are constantly used to support gameplay in innovative ways and the art is always there for the gameplay, not the other way around.
Audio	93	Audio doesn't disappoint. Solid effects, incredibly moody music and tons of great voice acting that amazingly doesn't get repetitive due to the smart voiceover system.
Technology	89	Valve's Source engine has received some updates, but it's age is starting to show. Left 4 Dead pushes the engine admirably and adds gameplay-supporting tweaks without requiring a monster system. Solid and bug-free experience.

OVERALL

Left 4 Dead is, above anything else, a fun and replayable co-op experience. Everything is elaborately designed to support the co-op gameplay and the moody zombie theme. So it doesn't have a heavily scripted 30-hour storyline with dozens of maps? Who cares! Refreshingly original and polished to the point of being a textbook case how to make a proper PC game.

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