Left 4 Dead Review (PC, Xbox 360)

Posted on Thursday, November 20th, 2008 at 1:32 amShare this post

Because Left 4 Dead has been right at the top of our most wanted list for ages, we’ve been anxious to try it out, and after playing the demo a couple of weeks ago for the first time, we must admit we were a little underwhelmed with its abrupt ending. After playing the full game pretty much solidly since we got our hands on it, we’re pleased to report that it does indeed live up to our expectations.

The main beef of the game is the campaign mode which sees you take on the role of one of four characters. Each campaign is completely different and set up in the style of a zombie apocalypse movie. The aim of each campaign is to make your way through five stages in order to escape a particular situation. Whether you’re stuck in a city and you need to escape via helicopter from a rooftop, or in a creepy small town with a boat to escape on. Each stage is broken up by safe houses where you can lock yourselves in whilst you replenish your health and ammo. It also acts as a checkpoint if every member of your party dies during the next stage. The final stage of each campaign is always a siege-type affair, forcing you to defend your position against a relentless offence of zombies and monsters whilst your escape vehicle is en-route. It makes for a fantastic climax to each game, which will see you scrambling to your escape whilst picking off zombies every time.

: Occasionally characters can fall off ledges. A timer appears and if you’re not rescued before it runs out, you fall to your doom. Preferable to getting your face eaten, we reckon.

Speaking of zombies, Left 4 Dead literally has them in hordes. The Horde is your main enemy, consisting of as many zombies as you can possibly fit on a screen at once if you’re fortunate, and a few more if you’re not. They’re pretty easy to mow down with gunfire, but their strength is in their numbers. If you’re surrounded by a large group of Horde, you’re probably in trouble. It’s not all screaming stupid zombies, though. Left 4 Dead has five monsters to keep you on your toes as well. These guys really can hurt you if you’re not careful, so it’s best to listen out for their call signs to keep yourself alive.

The Boomer is a fat monstrosity that spews bile all over you, shooting him causes a gut explosion, covering anything standing within a few metres in bile. The bile doesn’t actually do any damage but it does attract masses of Horde, so get yourself coated in the green stuff at your peril. The Smoker wields a long tongue capable of grabbing a survivor from far away, constricting them until they either die of asphyxiation or they’re mobbed by other monsters. The Hunter is a creepy and agile type with a deadly pounce. He can be onto you in the blink of an eye, ripping you to shreds before you know it. The Tank does exactly what it says on the tin – takes a huge amount of damage, moves slowly and twats things with a big claw. Finally, there’s the Witch, a whimpering, bony female who looks fairly unthreatening until disturbed. If you shine your torch at her for too long, make too much noise near her or, god forbid, shoot her in the face, she’ll come at you with the most vicious attacks of all the monsters – best to leave her alone, then. Or you could set her on fire.

: Their drug-hunt was rumbled.

Obviously, with just four campaigns (all of which will take around an hour to complete on Normal difficulty), longevity is a major issue. Valve has attempted to circumvent that with their AI Director, which controls where and when the enemies spawn, the music and the weapon and item placement. We’re pleased to report that it really does work very well, creating a slightly varied experience each time. We’ve been genuinely shocked by the same campaigns every time we’ve played them, and the music which comes in at completely different times on each play, helps to create a tense atmosphere without fail. It could be argued that eventually we’ll tire of four campaigns, and we probably will, but how many people play the same few Counter-Strike maps over and over again every single night of the week? Its appeal is in the interaction with your chums or even people you don’t know. Every play through is completely different because there’s four of you.

Teamwork in Left 4 Dead really is essential – for both success and lots of fun – and if you’re building a team, you probably want to use real people. You can play with bots if you wish, but despite their intelligence, it’s nowhere near as much fun if you don’t have someone to shout at. The fact that Left 4 Dead therefore doesn’t have much of a single player experience could be angled as a criticism, and it probably will be, but we wanted this game for the same reason we wanted Counter-Strike or World of Warcraft – we like to play with other people. You’ll find no such criticism here. Most of the fun in Left 4 Dead comes from making mistakes, or whoever you’re playing with making mistakes and shouting about them.

: “I’m afraid violence isn’t going to get you your forklift driver’s license. Now, step back!”

It’s not all about four players taking on the computer, though. There’s also a versus mode for up to eight players which puts four people on the survivors team and four people on the monsters team. You play through a campaign, playing each of the five stages as both the survivors and the monsters. The team with the best score at the end of the campaign is the winner. In many ways, versus mode is even better than the campaign. Playing as the monsters is incredibly refreshing, and trying to get past the buggers when they’re made even tougher due to human intuition makes for an exciting challenge. We’re sure this will be a huge hit online – there’s nothing more fun than charging into a fire fight as the Boomer, exploding your stomach contents over all four survivors and watching the Horde move in.

We’ve been playing Left 4 Dead on both PC and Xbox 360 and we’re happy to say that the 360 version won’t require its own separate review because there’s very little to distinguish the two versions (barring, of course the joypad controls and slightly worse visuals on the 360). It comes down to which version your friends are buying, and whether you’re into keyboard and mouse controls or not.

: Looks a little unsafe.

There are some irritating parts to Left 4 Dead, such as getting stuck on zombies when they crowd you, and the way you can’t run away from them if they’re hitting you from behind. We’re sure longevity issues will kick in eventually but if Valve can release another campaign or two officially, and the mod community can come up with the goods as well, this hopefully won’t be a problem. We won’t be holding our breath for mods on the 360 version, though.

Overall, we love Left 4 Dead. It combines mindless zombie action with tactical depth, hilarity with frustration and truly memorable moments every single time you play. Absolutely brilliant.

Rating: (Scoring policy)

By Jonny Robson

Left 4 Dead Review (PC, Xbox 360)

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