Left 4 Dead: 4-Player Co-Op Review

With all of the high quality shooters that have came out in the past few months, Left 4 Dead is the one that separates itself the most from the pack.

I say this because of its primary focus on co-op gameplay. Being able to get online and hop into a friend’s game at any moment, even in mid-game, and get through a campaign mission in a little over an hour is just one of the great ideas of Left 4 Dead.

I describe Left 4 Dead as resembling the zombie film 28 Days Later, but just in video game form. No real story, just four survivors trying to get the hell out of an abandoned city infected with zombies. That’s another thing that’s so unique about Left 4 Dead, it strays away from an actual plot and stretched-out story, but just puts you in the game with three other friends, focusing more on the aspects of teamwork and strategy.

However, one thing I didn’t particularly like about Left 4 Dead was the option of only four different campaign modes. I’ve already been through all four of the missions on normal mode, and now I’m kind of stuck between just playing versus mode (which is also quite fun, by the way) or playing the campaign modes on a harder difficulty. I’m hoping that Valve releases more campaign missions via downloadable content soon seeing that many owners have probably completed the four missions.

My absolute favorite thing about Left 4 Dead (besides blowing zombie heads off with a shotgun) is just how easy it is to get into a game with a few friends or even starting a game up with the A.I. players and waiting on some folks to join in on the fun. And I think that’s the whole purpose of the game: it has relaxing and comfortable match-making system and gives casual gamers the great option of playing for an hour or two, enough time to get through a campaign mission or two.

At the end of the day, Left 4 Dead is one hell of game and is easily a must-buy for any Xbox 360 or PC gamer.

Left 4 Dead is like sex. It’s okay (and sometimes degrading) when you’re just playing with yourself, but the more people you get involved the more fun you can have.

If everyone is on the same page and willing to work together it can be an absolute blast, with the game throwing climax after climax your way until you just can’t take it any more. With enough people, even a relatively inexperienced or unskilled player won’t be a burden as long as everyone is willing to help make up for the weak links. Get someone who is only concerned with themselves, however, and it’s just a bad experience. Get someone who’s a douchebag and a shitty player and it ruins it for everyone.

I’d say you have to play with at least three people (including yourself) because even with just two computer-controlled partners, the AI can get pretty stupid and annoying. They have a tendency to stand in front of you at the most inopportune times and absolutely refuse to duck. They also have no clue how to use the first aid pouches and Max Payne killers, going from using them when not needed to holding onto them even after someone is down to ten health.

Granted, there are players like this also who may not jive with your healing preferences, but generally you can say “Yo, Asshole! How about you share that fuckin’ health pack you’re carrying so I can stop draggin’ my intestines behind me.” This is something you can’t do with the AI. There is no way to even drop a hint as to what you’d like for them to do. That’s not to say they’re horrible — they’re actually pretty decent most of the time — but standing in my way and the shitty use of health kits really burns my jockeys.

The adversarial mode is also an absolute blast, though it may not be everyone’s cup of tea. If nothing else, it’s definitely a different experience than what you find in other FPSes. The level of coordination that it takes to succeed as a human survivor is just insane when you have actual people pulling the strings of the super zombies.

The AI can get pretty nasty, but even a modicum of coordination on the zombie side will tear apart an unprepared human team. I’m sure I’ve said it several times, but it is just an absolute blast playing on either side in the adversarial mode. Just like the single player game, one or two fuckwads can very easily ruin the game, so I highly recommend a heavy-handed approach to kicking out dissidents with a wrathful vengeance.

All in all, Left 4 Dead is almost like a party game in that you will probably get little or no enjoyment from the game by yourself, but (wait for it) it’s an absolute blast when you get together with friends. I know I don’t play the game at all any more unless I’ve got other people to play with (which is often enough to make it worthwhile) but when I do, it’s an absolute blast.

ABSOLUTE BLAST!

ABSOLUTE BLAST!!!

Left 4 Dead is, without a doubt, one of the best games I have ever played (matched only by Team Fortress 2).

Since you most likely know a fair bit about the mechanics of Left 4 Dead, thanks to either my colleagues or just general Internet usage, I will not be detailing them in my section of the review. What I will be telling you is that the PC version of Left 4 Dead is most certainly the definitive version of the game. Having played both versions, I’m at liberty to say that if you have the choice between the two, you will definitely want to go straight to Steam.

Valve, since they run their own distribution platform, have total control over the game you’re playing. While that might be a bad thing in many cases, let me remind you that this is Valve we’re talking about. There will inevitably be hundreds of free updates to the game on the PC; in fact, the game has been updated for the better at least three times since release. Of course, the controls are better, the community is more mature (I’ve never seen a griefer or even a person younger than the age rating), and the modding scene are all perfect examples to prove my point.

While I could stress that you need the PC version all day, I understand that not everyone can afford a decent enough PC, and there is a bigger issue at hand for me to address in my review.

Having racked up around 40 hours on the game, I can safely say that there has never been a moment that was anything less than fantastic. The game is nothing but sheer fun. Strangely, this is a point a lot of people seem to miss. “Not enough story”; “Too short”; “No singleplayer campaign” — all genuine complaints I have heard about the game.

It strikes me as incredibly strange that a game completely centered around cooperative play would receive complaints about aspects not to do with co-op. Left 4 Dead is not a single-player game. If you don’t have friends, do not buy Left 4 dead. However, if you do have friends, and you’re anything like me, this game is absolutely a must-buy.

“Too short,” you say? I resist the urge to use an expletive here, because there’s no way it can be too short. I’ve played over forty hours of the game, and never had the same experience twice. The AI director, as Valve keeps trying to explain, is not ‘random’. It bases the way the entire campaign plays out based on what your team is doing. It’s far too complex to go into detail, but the director essentially reads almost everything about how you’ve been progressing, and bases the enemies it
throws at you on that.

Each campaign may take something like an hour to complete, but no matter how many times you play, it will never be the same thing — the only thing that’s constant is where you’ve got to go. The director even changes the scenery to make things easier or harder sometimes. “Too short” is a non-argument.

Perhaps I’ve gone on too long about why you should like it, but the main point stands tall — Left 4 Dead is an incredibly fun game. Shooting zombies, no matter how clichéd, is great, and with 3 friends, it’s even better. Plus, playing as the infected is just as brilliant — killing a survivor with a big gun is just as satisfying as shooting lots of zombies with your own big gun. In case you hadn’t figured it out from the above text, I kind of like Left 4 Dead. Perhaps it’s not for everyone, but a review is a review, and my review says this: This game is about as close to perfect as you can get.

11/10 (Alright Dan, 10/10, but it’s better than The Witcher!) [Editor's note: No it's not!!!]

Left 4 Dead is my quintessential co-op game.

It takes the instant gratification viscerality of Gears of War and perfectly blends it with that unknown factor of addiction that are the legs of RPG’s like World of Warcraft and Phantasy Star Online. Unlike the RPG’s addiction factor, Left 4 Dead’s reason to keep coming back isn’t an unknown variable, it all has to do with the AI Director feature.

The AI Director ensures that every level in each of the four “movies” has the possibility of feeling and playing substantially different than another run through. Of course, the changes aren’t always that substantial. Sometimes they’re as minimal, albeit enormously effective, as replacing a health pack in a closet with 5 zombies instead.

With the AI Director helping keep everything fresh, Left 4 Dead is exclusively a co-op game in design. Although possible and fully functional playing offline with bots instead of real-life companions, the experience does not compare. You can’t have a dialogue with bots. You can’t coordinate with bots. You can’t make bots feel emotion.

You can’t be on the verge of finishing a level, only to be yanked back by a Smoker’s tongue and proceeding to yell half-sarcastically, “No! Save yourself!” and seeing your ‘friend’ make it to safety as you are devoured by more zombies than George A. Romero could hope to fit in a mall, no, you can’t have that with a bot.