Ever since Zombie Panic, the source mod, I’ve been ‘dead’ excited about Left 4 Dead, sorry about the terrible pun, but I’m so excited about its upcoming release I helped myself to the ‘generous’ $5 discount from steam, and pre-ordered it. I did have to have a little helping hand from the exclusive demo to those who pre-order, which was definatley worth it, anything to get a glimpse of this top game!
Anyway, I probably sound like an promotion agent from valve, but honestly I’m not, as I do have a few critisms already, and its not even released yet. Hopefully this will be ironed out in the full release, and that these are just demo jitters.
Lets start with the bad points, get them out of the way.
Bad Stuff About Left 4 Dead
The multiplayer, which is kind of key to this game, is absolutley awful, I actually did give up on this after a while. Let me talk you through it. You start by loading up the game obviously, make sure you have your latest graphics card drivers, cause I was to lazy to do mine, and the game textures went to funky pink & purple bits, but thats not the games, fault thats mine, so anyway. Next up, I choose campaign, quick match – the first thing that happens there, is I become the host, bare in mind I had not chosen that at all, but it seems because there was no matches at that time, it started a new one. Great, grand I thought, I changed a couple of settings, the game filled up. So I do the obvious thing, and try and launch it… After that, nothing seems to happen, the other users are shouting at me to start the game, but I already have! After all they are new to this too, at the top of the screen, I noticed it says “searching for dedicated server…” great, so I’m the host but I don’t actually host it myself. Now this search takes forever, ages, and actually fails, when it fails, valve have given us the most delightful alternative – “would you like to host a LAN server” – now I’m no idiot, I know if I click that it isn’t going to work, it may work for me but everyone else is stuffed, its a LAN, and the key word is LOCAL, LOCAL AREA NETWORK!!! Why would this be of any use to me? Unless everyone else was on my hamachi network – which they are not! So yes, when joining other games, this did happen to me alot, as there was random ‘hosts’ they kept on choosing lan, where it forwards you to a game loading screen, then tells you that you are on the wrong class of network, and boots you out to restart this horrible process over again, and again, and again.
Ok so I’ve actually got into a game, its great, I pick up my weapon, start walking… some zombies come, then… I’m dead! WTF? OH yeah, 8/10 games I got going, had horrible horrible lag, yes lag, on the dedicated server that isn’t being hosted by the users. So it’s completely out of our control, and as you cant browse for a game to join, you can’t join a game with a low ping… so it’s luck of the draw. Ok thats the bad parts over, I can only suggest I had more success from joining games already in progress, as they had already got a dedicated server, so that was half the hurdle over. Now to the good bits!
Good Stuff for Left 4 Dead
Well I’m glad we got the bad stuff out of the way, because overall, this game is awesome, I love a good zombie game, it’s thrilling, intense, scary too. The sounds of 25-30 zombies running up a corridor of stairs at you gets the adrenaline pumping even now, its great, and the variation of different zombies is fascinating. The varied gameplay from the stalkers, smokers, and the other fat exploding one too definatley puts a mix on things. The AI director gives a different experience each time, and you cant just stand still, because after about 30 seconds, the AI director says No! More zombies, you don’t hear that voice obviously, you hear the sounds of running zombies instead or the howls & moans of a mutated stalker zombie.
This game is pretty easy though, so for an experienced gamer I suggest going straight to expert mode, zombies will die with one or 2 hits, which is good really, because loads of zombies running at you need to die easy. Don’t forget to hit them back when you need to – but don’t get me wrong, on expert mode I’ve been killed a fair few times still, but it certainly makes it even more exciting.
COOP campaigns are great, you are encouraged to work with each other, and it actively works. Other people I played with were only to happy to help me up if I’d been knocked down, or heal me when hurt. I obviously thought no, stuff it I’m keeping the health packs for myself. Hehe.
Certain Death?
Not quite, if you loose all your health, you will be knocked to the floor, unable to move, however you can use your pistol to fend off as many zombies as you can, whilst a team mate tries to help you back up again. Though remember this isn’t unlimited, it will run out, and you’ll die. But if your team is able to continue, you can come back as a ‘survivor’ in a locked room. Which is great, because it means that you don’t get too bored waiting for a level to end, and you can get back into the game!
Graphics?
It still has that halflife 2 feel to it, but for you die hard fans, you’ll love it. The graphics are to a good standard overall, good textures, lighting, it works for the game well, and as you’re acting out a film, you’ll enjoy the grainyness level which is quite fun! In the way of physics, there pretty much isn’t any, nothing to shout home about, but after the likes of other next generation games, there gameplay sucked, and this doesn’t.
Overall
Give this game a chance, go get it! I already have, and as long as they sort out the multiplayer with an update, this game will be a firm classic for me! Go valve! Go Steam!
