Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2009 8:50 am Post subject: Left4Dead
I just started playing this and thought I'd pass on a no BS review.
Left4Dead is basically a multiplayer (though there is a SP campaign) FPS based on the latest HalfLife Source engine, and what you do is essentially play a role in a Zombie movie to escape to safety.
The team is always 4, as far as I can tell apart from the visual character apperance and vocals there is no real difference between them i.e. you can all use all guns/weapons etc. You can also do your own thing in game you are not restricted and can explore a map on your own....
...but you would be mad to try.
You know when you are playing a good game when you start and then wham 3hrs later you think where did that time go?
The basic format is that as a team you are encouraged to progress through stages of a map to safe points and eventually extraction/rescue.
You have to fight your way through sections, sneak through sections quietly and defend your position on the way. As you would expect there are ammo stores and health packs for the team too.
The nearest way to describe the gameplay is it looks like 28days.weeks Later BUT it plays like Aliens specifically 'the escape off LV426 sequence'.
Zombies in the game are varied, the AI and map design is clever in that the attacks are pretty unpredictable events and when they come in force boy do they come i.e. unlike the game AvP where you might face 5-6 Aliens at once here you can have what looks like 40 -50 zombies and feels like 100's. Zombies can climb, jump, sprint, pounce, hide rip through doors and windows and believe me when it all happens at once you NEED your team mates.
After my first multiplayer experience where we eventually made it to the end the zombie body count was 2500!
I don't know what the longevity of the game will be I got a little bored with TF2 quite quickly but for the moment I can't wait to play another round and a totally different FPS type experience to be playing co-op and helping your team cos without them you're dead meat.
_________________
"But its written in the starlight,
And every line on your palm
Were fools to make war
On our brothers in arms"
Its quite useful if you are hold up in a house where you cannot see where the zombies are entering because they don't all pile in the same door they are like army ants.
You also come across some hard ass zombie's which you need to team up on or warn others to avoid. The in game audio is quite good though if you spot say ammo health etc your character automatically shouts it out.
The online players generally seem pretty decent in that others do help you if you fall, I haven't come accross any lame play yet.
I think what you would get most out of the game with friends is more a sense of trying to survive together, and also the ability to take on harder difficulty levels. From what I can work out there are 4 lots of 4 stage campaigns so 16 maps in effect.
One thing they have done in left4dead which I think was a very smart move is they seem to have kept the basic feel of movement and formula of weapons and contol like CS, it doesn't feel like yet another FPS shooter it feels like CS with regard to controlling your character.
_________________
"But its written in the starlight,
And every line on your palm
Were fools to make war
On our brothers in arms"
I don't know. I mean, it sure looks interesting, and I've been hearing good things about it, but there's no demo. Well, there was, but for some silly reason they disabled it after the game was released... Did they think everyone who would possibly want it would buy it at release?
As someone who never really got into CS but loves UT and AvP this is so your sort of game Apoc it is an absolute riot, and yes the Zombies have location aware damage dismember arms, legs etc just like in AvP.
Don't be put off either by the need for co-op play, I've been playing it a couple of days now with random online players, I'm not looking to drag you lot in for my benefit if anything I don't want you to miss out.
Its been out a while now Left4dead I think I overlooked it at the time thinking 'oh its just an FPS shooting at zombies' and that is exactly what it is except I didn't appreciate quite how well they've done it. Also I thought HL2:Episode2 was OK but nothing special, the Source engine has been put to better use this time round.
I only bought Left4Dead cos it was going cheap on Steam last week I wasn't sold on the reviews either, in a way its a travisty to gamers that such a game can slip under the radar.
_________________
"But its written in the starlight,
And every line on your palm
Were fools to make war
On our brothers in arms"
Valve recently released a free update to Left4Dead which introduces a new mode of play called 'survival mode'.
It plays a little like last man standing expect for one very important feature, there is no way you will survive alone....
What is interesting about this is Valve have basically made survival mode so feckin hard that even as an 'Expert' player from the campaign mode that merely gives you good grounding for 'survival mode'. It is also interesting that your team must adopt a strategy for survival and use the environment and special items to their utmost effect, skill alone is not gonna carry you through.
Now that is unusual for an FPS game, even team fortress 2 with a skillful medic/offense pair can make good headway in a team of 15. In left4dead the enphasis is very much on 4 not 3 not 2 and certainly not 1.
As you can tell I am still playing this, it wasn't a 1 week wonder left4dead really is something special in FPS terms I should know cos I've been playing them for the past 16yrs and this is a cut above the rest.
_________________
"But its written in the starlight,
And every line on your palm
Were fools to make war
On our brothers in arms"
As I already said on the Shout box Left4Dead is free to play for 24hrs over the weekend, and you can buy it at a 40% discount which is roughly £16.
Unfortunatly I have a Uni re-union going on this weekend so I won't be able to play til Monday or this evening.
If you are going to download it and play it for free I recommend you play Campaign mode on multiplayer, start off on Normal then try Advanced and Expert. Multiplayer is much better than SP and the different difficulty settings make a big difference to the game.
Survival mode is fun and better suited to teams who know each other better and work at it, you'll appreciate Survival mode more when you get more into it.
_________________
"But its written in the starlight,
And every line on your palm
Were fools to make war
On our brothers in arms"
Sick nice one dude :D what uni you going to? Hope you have a good time :D and if my laptop wasnt so crap I'd definetly give Left4Dead a try, it looks like good fun
I would also add that I am still playing Left4Dead having completed all the campaigns on expert and achieved all the survival gold medals sometime ago.
What keeps drawing me back is the lure of a good game, and of course the fact L4D is driven by a director AI which spawns the zombies differently all the time. Sure there are some patterns but much like film tricks the eye into seeing 25 fps as smooth motion, L4D tricks you into variable gameplay.
_________________
"But its written in the starlight,
And every line on your palm
Were fools to make war
On our brothers in arms"
Just to let y'all know that L4D2 is a riot and a worthy sequel, same basic gameplay but there is just more of everything including comedy moments which will have burst out laughing and unexpected moments.
I have put CoD:MW2 on pause now to play this more.
_________________
"But its written in the starlight,
And every line on your palm
Were fools to make war
On our brothers in arms"
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