Left 4 Dead: The game that puts you in a zombie movie

Author's Rating:

Pros: Addictive and action filled.

Cons: Needs more levels!

The Bottom Line: 
A must for FPS fans or Zombie movie fans.

Author's Review
Do you like Zombie movies?

Do you like first person shooter games?

If the answer to both of these questions is, "Yes," you'll probably LOVE "Left 4 Dead."

In L4D you play one of four survivors of the inevitable "Zombie Apocalypse" who must escape through numerous maps and levels to (presumably) reach safety outside of an infected city.

The game uses the Source engine, which, to be honest, shows it's age a bit in this venue. The "rag doll" physics are a bit cheezy at times and the characters often move with a hyper-active jerkiness. Clipping is still a problem and the sight of zombies sticking half way out of walls gets old quickly.

Still, none of that matters.

From the intro movie the designers work to draw you into their world; The world where you are the star of your own zombie survivor movie.

The movie theme is established early on by the use of "Movie posters" for each of the four campaigns. The posters are complete with taglines that describe the current scenario the survivors must face.

The four survivors include Bill, the burned out Vietnam vet; Zoey, the college age cutie; Louis, the eternal optimist; and Francis, a tatooed biker who seemingly "hates everything." They have all the same skills and abilities. The only difference is in their personalities. The scripted dialouge is often downright funny and each character has their own quirks and catch phrases. Fortunately, there is enough dialouge so that it you won't hear too much duplication until you've played many hours.

Okay, just to get this out of the way, in the game they aren't realy "Zombies" they are "The infected." The back story, which is not completely explained in the game, is that a mutated version of the rabbies virus has turned into a pandemic. Don't worry about all that. They look like zombies, they sound like zombies, and they act like zombies. The only difference is that you don't actually have to make a head shot to kill them. Heck, even the survivors call them zombies. (Except for Francis, who somehow confuses them for Vampires instead).

Great care is taken to create the proper mood with dynamic lighting and an interactive sound track. The music cues are thematic and, if you pay attention, clue you in to upcoming action.

And there is plenty of action. This isn't a "Hide and hope they don't find you" type of horror movie-slash-game. This is a "Come Get Some! I got plenty of ammo and the walking dead make great targets!" kind of movie, er, I mean game. 

The weapon choices include a 1911 type pistol, an UZI submachine gun, and a Remington 870 12 gauge shotgun. And these are just the starting weapons! You can quickly upgrade to dual pistols, a M-16, a Mini-14 "hunting rifle" and, probably the best weapon in the game, a Benelli automatic shotgun.

The weapon details and sounds are well modeled. (Believe me, I'm a gun nut and I know these things).  The UZI, for instance, is especially well done and comes complete with the "A R S" marking used on SMG versions made for export sales. (I have a special fondness for the UZI in the game as it's my favorite SMG to shoot in real life).

The action is managed by "The Director" which is the name for the program that determines when and how many zombies attack and tracks the players overall status. The Director attempts to keep play balanced by doing things like providing extra health packs to find when the players are near death or by attacting extra hoards of zombies if the players are doing really well. Beware though, as the Director seems to have an especially sick sense of humor and sometimes when it seems that things couldn't get any worse - they do.

In addition to the standard zombies, there are several "Special" types of "Special" infected who have distinct powers and pose additional challenges to the players. These special infected include the Boomer, who pukes bile on you that attracts other zombies; the Hunter, who is basically a Ninja-zombie, the Smoker, who can grab you with his tounge (it looks better then it sounds); and the Tank, which is basically the zombie Hulk with a bad case of 'roid rage. There's also the emo-looking Witch, but I'll leave her for you to discover for yourself.

While single player is fun, and addictive, co-op play brings the game to a whole new level. Not only can four players play as the survivors in a standard co-op game, you also can play with up to eight players where half the players play the "special infected" zombies.

Of course, nothing in life is perfect, and my main compliant with Left 4 Dead is that it is too short. The original release only includes four campaings with five levels per campaign. That's only enough for under 10 hours of game play on the Normal setting. The good news is that the random elements controlled by the Director contribute greatly to replay value. The developers have also promised addtional maps that should be released "any day now."

Still, even with only 20 maps, I can't stop playing the game. There is something very satisfying, and very addictive, about escaping from the zombie overrun city with this small band of survivors.