Left 4 Dead is a really unusual game for the First Person Shooter genre. Its idea is kind of interactive cinema, where you play as part of a team of 4 survivors. There is a very loose storyline with just an intro cut scene and no more, no high goals with a "mission accomplished" at the end, Checkpoints, or saved games to use.
The Introduction.
It's simply a case of making it from one safe room to another across a wide variety of maps with thousands of common infected zombies, all headed up by some really bad ass Special infected, there is only going to be ONE thing on your mind, to escape the zombie apocalypse!
When the game first came on the scene, a lot of my friends told me I should buy it, I tried single player on a friends pc and I didn't think much to it.. but you should never, EVER judge Left 4 Dead on its single player, as I found out when I saw it on a weekend deal on steam, I bought it, and played it online, and this my friends, started a totally new gaming era for me, as well as everyone else I play with!
Multiplayer & Teamwork.
The game is ultimately about teamwork. If you go it alone and leave your 3 team mates too far behind, you're going to be attacked and killed very quickly, this stands for the coop campaign mode and versus campaign modes, stick together and you have half a chance of making it to that safe room.. The game is focused totally on multiplayer, in a nutshell it's the most challenging, fun to play, and addictive online game I've played so far, if you've been wanting to get into a really good online shooter, then Left 4 Dead is the zombie shooting fest for you!
A bit of advice though, play the game in single player mode through all of the campaigns at least once before you go and get yourself in over your head with versus mode, chances are the team you join will vote kick you for being erm… inexperienced at the game, a simple Google search will help you with information on hunter training maps so you can get handy with the hunter.
Special Infected.
All equally as lethal, especially when combined together in versus mode… they are:
Tank, Hunter, Boomer, Smoker, and The Witch (NPC).
Survival Mode.
A good game mode, especially in a zombie shooter! Horde after horde of zombies battering the survivors, alongside the Special infected, wave after wave will constantly batter you and your team, and the longer you last for the worse it gets, there are rewards for lasting 4 minutes and above in the form of bronze, silver and gold medals, gold medal needing you to last for an entire 10 minutes, and believe me it can be very hard!!
Versus Mode
8 players split into two 4 player teams, 4 survivors and 4 special infected, the aim is to deal the most damage as the infected team, or simply make it to the safe room taking the least damage as a survivor, killing all 4 survivors as the infected team will in a big fat win for that round for the infected team and so on, during the game the AI Director will spice things up by adding a witch on certain maps, and also by giving the infected team control of a tank to wreak havoc amongst the survivors, any good team can work with the tank to wipe out all 4 survivors really quickly, in a few words, this is the most fun online mode I've ever played to date, check it out!
Negative Points.
There aren't any, at least not with the actual game play itself, the server system on the other hand, is sometimes a pain in the backside, for example you could have a full lobby, get into a server to find your ping sitting at over 300ms, resulting in a vote back to lobby, it's like playing the lottery!
Final Words.
Left 4 Dead is one of the best online games myself, and my clan Thief has ever played, we dropped every other game we played online to play this all the time, the only reason to ever drop this game would be Left 4 Dead 2, but wait... we play that every day now! Read our review on Left 4 Dead 2 to see how WE felt about it.
P.S Thief has it's own L4D2 server. We welcome you to join us on our steam community page.
As Always, Grabbin Peelz!
