GOTW 16/02/09 – LEFT4DEAD
April 12, 2009
I’m a big fan of co-op games so I’d been watching Left4Dead with quiet anticipation as I’ve wanted a good local 4-player co-op adventure since Crystal Chronicles. To my disappointment, the Xbox version only has 2 player split screen local multiplayer so Left4Dead was never going to become a regular pass-time as the logistics of getting all the necessary consoles or PCs together make any session pre-planned and distinctly uncasual. I’d played it at Jim’s before and enjoyed it. It’s just that online co-op is rubbish – other players are less responsive to your needs and less forgiving to your failures. So it was only until Steam ran a half-price weekend for Left4Dead that we eventually sorted some LAN Left4Dead. It was, as expected, mad-good.
In Left4Dead you play as a group of four survivors of the Zombie apocolypse. You need to help each other survive. You need to help each other to survive. Sometimes, all the well-intentioned teamwork in the world wont let you survive – Zombies run at you from everywhere. And then there are the ‘special’ infected (special in a ‘shit!’-way not special in a ‘hehe, stupid Zombie’-way). Special infected come in different types; Hunters pounce and pin, Boomers attract & spawn the horde, Smokers drag you away, Tanks and Witches are just scary as hell. It is a truly terrifying game. Not in a particularly subtle way, although the dynamic music and dynamic zombie spawning is a pretty sophisticated way to keep you on the edge of your seat the seventh time around.
I think the important thing that sets Left4Dead apart is that the enjoyment comes so very much from just the excitement of play and the satisfaction of killing shitloads of Zombies that it does not rely at all on generating satisfaction from the ‘closure’ of completing levels. There’s no real story to need to progress, just different environments to be soiling yourselves in. The upshot of this is that Left4Dead is very much a game in which failure is acceptable – failing a section doesn’t really diminish you’re enjoyment. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that if you are waltzing through levels without failing ever then you’re missing out. This fact is really important for PVP play.
Playing LAN is great because you need to be able to call over help without typing or faffing around with voice chat. Generally not having to dick about with morons or know-it alls is a good thing too. The element that solidified Left4Dead as game of the week was playing as the special infected. This game mode pits a team of four players as the survivors against four players as the special infected. Playing as a special infected is a little like being a dungeon master – you choose where to spawn (anywhere out of sight of the survivors) and then try to use your special power, teammates, normal zombies and terrain to do what you can to stop the survivors… surviving. When you are shot you will choose where to respawn as another random infected after about 12 seconds. A chapter is played by one team, with the other team as special infected trying to stop them. Whether they survive or not the other team then has their chance to get through the level. At the end of each round points are awarded depending on how many, if any, players made it to the end or how far they got etc. This is a great game mode, that I personally wouldn’t want to play unless my other team mates were in the same room. As much as survivors need coordination, Zombies are so weak they’ll die in a shot or two so a successful attack needs everyone to go together, at planned points.
If you’ve played any valve game or any FPS then you’ll be familiar with the controls. Graphically it doesn’t wow but it does look good and I’m told it’s playable on most machines that can run Half-Life 2. My only gripe is that I’m not going to be able to play it in the optimal environment very often so I may only ever get two or three more sessions of it properly. It’s not what you’d call a leap forward for the FPS, or even co-op games but it’s a masterful new line of flight for them both. It’s easily the best Zombie game I’ve ever played and it’s easily the best game that I played that week.
