LEFT 4 DEAD review

Left 4 Dead is the latest FPS developed by Valve. It is available on Xbox 360 and PC. Valve announced the sequel at the last E3. It made a lot of noise since Left 4 Dead is not old but if it is as good as the first one, why complain?

Story
The story of this game is pretty simple. There is a zombie infection spreading and you must survive. It is as simple as that. No explanation as to how it started. What matters it that you must survive to escape those zombie hordes. It is a fast paced gory blood bath zombie massacre! Sometimes you simply don't need more to make an awesome FPS.

The atmosphere that Valve created is really awesome. It feels like you are in a movie. It reminded me of Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror (great movie by the way). They paid attention to small details and added humor. For example when you start a campaign you will see a poster of the "movie" with the cast using the player names (ie "Player 1 as Francis") and a catchy line (ie for the chapter/movie "No Mercy", the line is "Curing the infection... one bullet at a time."). When you complete a chapter you will see credits like you would at the end of a movie. If a player died but the others made it, it sill start with "In Memory of Player1". At the end the number of zombie killed will be displayed as "X zombies were harmed in the making of this film". They really paid attention to details.

Gameplay
In campaign mode you play as one of the 4 survivors (Zoey, Bill, Francis, or Louis) and other players (if you are playing online) or the AI control the 3 other characters. The goal of the game is quite simple, as a group you must survive. There are 4 campaigns available containing 5 chapters. You must get to the safe room to continue to the next chapter and in the fifth chapter you must defend a zone against zombie hordes before the transport arrives to rescue your group.

You can also play versus mode. This one can only be played in multiplayer (online or split-screen locally). Up to 4 people play as the survivors and up to 4 people play as zombie specials (more details to follow, for now let's just say their are über zombies). So you play a chapter as one of the team, then it switches to the other side (if you were survivors you become zombies) and so on until the end of the campaign.

While playing you will usually fight (read massacre) "normal" zombies. But sometimes you will face special zombies. There are 5 special zombies, 4 of them being available in versus mode. The witch (which is not available in versus mode) looks like a child crying in a corner. Make sure you do not disturb her or she will run at you and likely kill you (turn off your light and don't make noise). There is also the hunter that jumps before making his kill. The Smoker has a tongue that can strangle survivors. The Boomer can vomit on the survivors and it will attract an horde of zombies. Finally the Tank is like a giant gorilla (for the lack of a better term...): very strong, can throw stuff at you, can jump and climb. Moreover the zombies never spawn exactly at the same places so even if you play the same level multiple times, it will never be exactly the same.

A third mode was added via the free DLC (downloadable content) that is called survival mode (including a new map: The Last Stand). In this mode you must survive against horde of zombies for as long as you can. It might seem easy but it isn't. Sometimes your team won't last more than 30-45 seconds! This FREE DLC puts to shame other DLCs, such as the one from the other zombie game, Resident Evil 5 (which is not even free and should have been included on the retail disc anyway).

Sounds and graphics
The graphics are good, they do the job well but they are not impressive like Gears of War 2 for example. On the other hand it isn't as important since the game takes place at night so everything is dark. Furthermore the game is very fast paced and you will see a zombie head exploding in front of you without having time to analyze it (unless you want to die). There are many zombies and the framerate on the Xbox 360version is always good (for PC it will depend of your computer performance obviously).

The sound and specially the music are very important in the game. Audio is used as it would be in a movie. Based on the audio you can know if a horde is coming to you or a special zombie.

Multiplayer
As described earlier in the gameplay section this game supports multiplayer. I would go even as far as saying that it REQUIRES multiplayer. It is so much fun when you play with other players instead of the AI. If you plan on buying the Xbox 360 version and you don't have Xbox Live, I would almost suggest that you skip this game (you will be missing one great game though).

Conclusion
If you like fast paced FPS and you are not afraid of a zombie blood bath, Left 4 Dead is the perfect game for you. I recommend it, I finished the campaigns a bunch of times but I still have a lot of fun. The only negative aspect I need to point out is that it would need more campaigns. The game is so fun but with only 4 campaigns you still want more. Of course you can try them on Easy, Normal, Advanced, or Expert but it still takes about 35 (on easy) to 95 (on Expert) minutes to complete a campaign. Left 4 Dead: A simple idea executed perfectly!

Score: 9/10