If I were to give an award for best box-art of a video game, Left 4 Dead (L4D) would win hands down. Rather than me describing it to you, just take a look at the box-shot that appears with this review. See what I mean? This is one game that you can judge purely based on the hardcore-ness of it’s box-art. Turn the box around, and the words “zombie” and “apocalypse” will catch your eye immediately. L4D is just about that. Fighting off hordes of zombies in different environments. And there’s just one way to play it — cooperative multiplayer.
Everyone’s dead
Yep, that’s right. There’s some unknown virus that’s just turned the populace of the game’s city into mindless zombies. There are just four survivors who are supposedly immune to the effects of the virus, and the game lets you play as any one of them. The playable characters include Louis, an IT pro-fessional, Francis, who is your typical tattoo-covered American badass, Zoey, a college student and horror movie freak and Bill, a Vietnam veteran. When playing the game’s single player mode, players can choose whom to play as, and this choice is made available to them even in multiplayer, but only if the character slot is available. For example, you can’t have two players playing as Bill. The difference between the characters is purely cosmetic and playing each of them is identical from a gameplay perspective. They don’t have any special abilities either, but there’s something about each of them that gives the player a sense of attachment, and I often found myself sticking to one character during each online session.
Valve has done a great job of giving each character a unique personality, which is showcased in the way each of them respond to a situation. Hundreds of lines have been recorded for this purpose, so there’s no question of monotony or repetition. Context-sensitive responses also ensure that things are kept believable and relevant, almost making the game feel like a Hollywood film at times.
No mercy
In L4D, your objectives are simple: Get from one safe room to another, fighting off a million zombies along the way, with the ultimate aim of making a getaway in one of four ways (depending on the campaign you’re playing). The game has four ‘campaigns’, each with a different setting, varying environments and a diff-erent getaway vehicle. They don’t take very long to finish in the easier difficulty settings, but if you’re playing in ‘advanced’ or ‘expert’, be prepared to die a lot and play through a lot of the game’s sections repeatedly.
The storytelling in L4D is virtually identical to a Hollywood zombie film, only with a Valve-twist. There are no cutscenes in the game other than the opening cinematic and brief non-interactive ‘mission accomplished’ getaway bits. The game’s story is told through the eyes of the four characters, and since L4D has a strong focus on cooperative play, each player’s interaction with the other, be it laying down covering fire, healing team-mates, giving items, etc in itself tells a fantastic story.
The infected
L4D’s protagonists’ lives are made a lot harder by ‘The infected’, which is the affectionate term collectively given to the game’s zombie horde. There are several types of ‘infected’, and some of them are playable in the game’s ‘versus’ mode. They include the ‘Boomer’, a huge wandering mass of a monster whose vomit attracts the attention of the ‘horde’, then we have the ‘Smoker’, which is kind of a stealth unit that is very effective from concealed areas, the ‘Hunter’, a close-range unit with a fierce pounce/attack ability, and the ‘Tank’, a huge mutated mass of muscle, which can fling concrete or pound a hapless survivor into the ground.
When playing the ‘versus’ campaign, each group of four players plays each chapter of the campaign as both Survivors and Infected, changing sides once per level.
At the end of each level, the team playing the Survivors earns points based on how well they performed.
AI director and source engine
When a lot of game developers are out there ripping each other off and relying on tried-and-tested formulae to deprive gamers of their hard earned money, Valve is out there coming up with genuinely original and innovative ideas. I know that ‘Portal’ is going to be hard to surpass in this respect, but L4D is innovative nonetheless.
The game has an ‘AI director’, which dynamically alters the game’s pacing, difficulty and dramatics based on a lot of factors, including positioning of players, their health and even the amount of remaining ammunition in the clip! This ensures that each play-through is a new and unique experience, and the AI director adds a lot of flavour to something, that, on the surface, might seem like a formulaic and monotonous FPS experience.
Only last year, a lot of gamers (myself included) were convinced that the source engine would soon become outdated. But with L4D, Valve has shown the world what it’s capable of. The game looks great, but it’s the game’s performance that really takes the cake.Smooth as silk — I’m yet to experience a sing-le frame-rate related issue with everything max-ed out. According to the game’s website, it should run just fine even on a GeForce 6600 with 128MB RAM! Top that, Crytek. Of course, it’s the audiovisual experience that makes L4D so special.
The game sports fantastic sound, with everything from the weapons to the trademark ‘boss’ zombie sounds sounding spectacular. I’ve always maintained that Half Life 2’s machine gun was the best sounding video game weapon, but I think L4D’s auto-shotgun is a close contender now. The AI director cues in the ‘theme’ music for each of the boss monsters, and the creepiness of this is difficult to describe in words.
Verdict
Left 4 Dead is the definitive co-op multiplayer experience. It’s really simple — buy L4D and convince three of your buddies to pick it up as well and play the game’s campaigns. It will be worth it. Trust me.
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