Left 4 Dead – Short but Sweet Zombie Romp

I hear Zoe yelling in my ear as we both run full speed towards the skywalk that leads to the safe room.  Of the 80 or so words coming out of her mouth like a bad chase of diarrhea, I hear one distinct and horrifying word…Tank.  Almost before my mind can process it I feel the telltale rumbling beneath my feet.  I toss a Molotov behind me as I continue to move forward not letting a thing slow me down.  I see a tongue whip out in past me and grab Zoe by the waste but I don’t stop my legs…that my friends is just a taste of what Valve’s Left 4 Dead has in store for anyone that decides to fire it up for the Xbox 360 or PC, sorry no plans for a PS3 version yet.

There have been games before that have used Zombies and the undead as the “baddies.”  What sets Left 4 Dead apart is how close it gets to duplicating the pacing of a real Zombie flick.  They’ve created an AI “Director” that chooses at random when would be the best place to surprise the hell out of you.  It is a feat to behold that almost never gets old because of the spontaneity.

Left 4 Dead also gives you a chance to see how it feels to fight on the other side of the Zombie Apocalypse.  The Versus multiplayer gameplay let’s you battle it out against other real players switching from one side to the other trying to stop the opposite team from reaching the safe room.  This switch up in gameplay definitely resists the fatigue that can sometimes set on while playing FPS mutiplayer games.

The one an only drawback to this game is the insufficient amount of maps to play on.  While this will eventually prove why many people migrate away from the game, hopefully Valve will have some new downloadable content  before that happens.

Tagged as: First-person shooter, fps, Games, Left 4 Dead, Multiplayer, Online Multiplayer, PC, PC Gaming, PlayStation 3, Single Player, Video game, xbox 360, Zombie