Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2008 12:18 pm Post subject: Left 4 Dead Pc Review
I have now played the game extensively and feel quite capable of reviewing the game before even completing the last chapter. By no means is this a bad thing, only that the game works under a simple premise.
Left 4 Dead for those not following the gaming community closely is a co-op zombie survival game from Valve. The world as always in these situations is a mess, you and 4 friends are to dash across a variety of locations to your (hopefull) rescue. The game presents each campaign as a film with each loading screen displaying the poster and the credits comically stating how many zombies were harmed in the making of. The title may be a sigh enducing pun but simply if one of you is left behind everyone is dead.
Now i'm going to state now that we are not dealing with normal zombies. Resident evil 4/5 and 28 days/weeks later as L4D has named them 'the infected', which is to say they are zombies but they run. I find this annoying and have dubbed them 'Runbies'. However in L4D you will encounter more than your usual munch your face undead, Hunters leap around the level pinning you to the ground and only a friend can remove them from you, Smokers extend their whip like tounge and drag you off and unless you have the reflexes again you need a friend, Boomers vomit or explode on you leaving an icor that attracts a horde of zombies down on your location and finally the Tank that will tear you and your team appart unless all fire is concentrated apon it. These are common but not overwelming and add variety into what would become a stale survival FPS. There is one more less persistant, rarer and more deadly variation known as the witch, avoid her and she will leave you alone and be emo, disturb her and you will suffer the consequences.
As stated in the enemy bio's you need your friends, the amount of zombies you face is overwellming and no matter how good a player you are there is no chance of making it on your own. In my first Campaign alone I had a kill count of over 1000. The horde can sometimes be more dangerous than any special varerity you face. The horde is a uncountable number of zombies storming your position during certain events or after a dousing from the boomer. Many a time I have seen numerous members of my team brought down in these attacks. Thankfully you can revive (a limited amount of times) and heal your team mates to bring them back into the fight, just finding the opening to do so is the problem. Should any of your team snuff it after awhile you may find them marked as a survivor on your screen locked in a room where upon opening the door they will be allowed to rejoin the game.
Each Campaign has its own setting and is divided into 5 chapters, the end of each chapter is within the warm embrace of a saftey room or the designated area of escape (should anyone be brought down in the final fight to escape they are dead, you didnt make it). The pacing is right and it allows for the versus mode to have a structure. The Versus mode pits you against another team of 4, you change places as the infected and the survivors and try to complete each chapter being awarded points for kills and length travelled as the survivors. the infected play as the variety of super Runbies and occationally one player gets control of the Tank but must attack constantly or lose control.
The game is repetative but the co-op factor always shakes things up with the super Runbies making random apparences. The final fights at the end of the Campaigns are hectics and fun, balencing your friends survival and fire power verus the time and your want to be one of the ones that got away. Voice chat is a must, you need to inform your group strait away and seconds matter. A great game for those looking for something different and multiplayer in the plethora of single player games released this fall. Pick it up you wont be dissapointed, the spec is pretty low for the needed stat and the high spec is pretty enough, new content is almost garrenteed be it fan or company made. That said this is a Pc review the consoles are known for their uncoprative online member and would bring the playability down to zero so a cautious maybe for the console version. _________________ Ninjarific
That's awesome, a PC review, nice one, i have often thought that there is so many untapped cool games to be had on the PC, that more than often wouldn't translate well to consoles.
Thanks for the reminder Xeall _________________
That's awesome, a PC review, nice one, i have often thought that there is so many untapped cool games to be had on the PC, that more than often wouldn't translate well to consoles.
Thanks for the reminder Xeall
No worries my good man expect more soon. I'm thinking red alert 3 or Farcry 2. Oh and feel free to make this review part of the site instead of just the forums
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