Progress: Completed the Game
Review based on: Experience from PC versionLeft 4 Dead is a multiplayer-driven horror FPS. The main point is to survive the zombie apocalypse by getting from point A to point B.Well, there is no story. Just an unexplained zombie infection outbreak that infected the world. You take control of one of the four main survivors, Bill, Zoey, Francis and Louis. The objective: Get from one place to the next in one piece. Simple, right?The sounds are great, from distinctive special infected sounds (such as the smoker's coughing noise to indicate that he's nearby), to realistic gunshot sounds and movement noises. The environment also has interactive sounds, such as sloshing water noises when trudging through the sewer waters or shaking crops when running through cornfields. It's all life-like.It's all about the trigger finger. Getting from point A to point B, represented by transport for escape or a safehouse, isn't an easy task. It requires excellent co-operation, and good aim. From hordes to special infected such as Hunters, Tanks, Smokers, Boomers and Witches, there are quite a few obstacles, and mowing them down never felt so satisfying. The only overall complaint is that it's short, spanning 4 campaigns with 4 missions per campaigns. It still has lots of replay value, though.The highlight of it all is the great AI Director. Now what is it? Well, it's something that determines enemy spawn points, item spawns, and difficulty, all on the fly. It uses player stats to determine difficulty and the like. If you stray too far from the squad, you're gonna get snatched away by a tongue-choking smoker. The AI Director ensures a different feel for the level for every playthrough, unless you're a robot on a pre-determined path of winning and play the exact same way as you do each time, which is impossible. Apart from the great AI Director, is the AI itself. I gotta say, it rocks. Friendly AI is smart enough to cover you and help, and on easier difficulty, they're unstoppable, killing every special infected before you even sense them. They also watch for friendly fire and safety stuff. The enemy AI, as mentioned before, is determined by the director.
Don't stay too far behind, or else you'll be attacked unexpectedly!There are 3 modes: Online Campaign mode, Versus Mode and offline Campaign. There are only a few guns in the game, like an assault rifle, a submachine gun, pistols (dual wieldable), shotgun, auto-shotgun and a chaingun (mounted, and used in certain parts of campaign). Even though there is a lack of guns, it's still fun blasting through.The Online mode requires the most skill, because you need to co-operate with all your teammates who are human players, and be careful not to hurt each other. You're also responsible for covering them and healing when they are truly in need. This goes for the teammates, too. If people purposely enter a game to sabotage progress or mess stuff up for a laugh or two, you can take a vote to kick certain people out, so it's all good. When nature calls and you need to go to the washroom, there is a take a break feature where an AI will take over for you until you come back. Valve definitely thought this through.In Versus mode, it's 4 vs. 4, with 4 survivors versus 4 human-controlled special infected, in a certain level from the campaign mode. The survivor objective is to get from point A to point B, and the infected objectives are to stop them all. The AI director is still present, generating the horde infected, or common infected, and the items. The main issue I have with this mode is imbalance. It takes very little skill to take out a special infected in this. The special infected REALLY have to work together, or else they go down quickly and have to wait a bit before they can respawn. This isn't always the case, because sometimes you are with skilled players, and I've taken down the survivors with friends in less than 30 seconds out of the safehouse, but that's cause my team was awesome, and the survivors were retarded.In offline mode, it's worth playing if you want achievements by yourself, with stats like getting a certain amount of kills. Most online players take kills, because they are generally better shooters than offline AI. The AI is still top notch, IMO. Other than that, the other reason to play it is if you don't have internet. If you don't have friends, you can just play matchmaking.
The last thing covered in the gameplay part of this review, is the interface. It's clean, nicely shows the ammo counters, items and teammate statuses. The awesome part of it, is the color status system. For example, when friends are incapacitated (ran out of health, kind of like Gears bleed out system but you can still shoot), they'll be highlighted in an orange outline, even if you can't see them. It's kind of a sixth sense, I suppose. Your teammates have green, yellow and red outlines normally to show their general health status, and white outlines represent interactive items or weapons. Adds more to the co-operation thing Valve got going on.Overall, the gameplay is amazing. Solid FPS action, and fun zombie clearing.Graphics: 7/10The graphics aren't that great, as the game uses the Source engine, that of the same from Half-Life 2. It's still not something to gripe about, as the fast-paced action does not give you time to think about the graphics, as it doesn't matter.Sound: 10/10
The sounds, from the infected, to the voice acting, to the gun sounds, it's all extremely well done and very real. It goes very well with the atmosphere.Presentation: 10/10
With an amazing AI director, it presents a new play experience everytime. The levels are well designed, and the atmosphere is very immersive.Gameplay: 10/10
With an extremely replayable action-packed shooter, how is it not good?Lasting Appeal: 9/10
With a massive online community for competitive or co-operative play, as well as the AI director that changes everything up, you basically have infinite replayability. However, the lasting appeal is shy of being perfect because of the announcement of Left 4 Dead 2 coming shortly after the release of L4D.Plus, there's free Downloadable Content offered by Valve, and it keeps the fun going forever!Overall:
/50
Left 4 Dead also has amazing headshots. I like that.