Left 4 Dead

Zombie hype

You don’t often see a horror game in which Zombies are the enemy is already a huge hype before its release. It did happen to Left 4 Dead, but when Valve is at the helm, you usually know in advance that quality is paramount. With series that changed the world, they are now trying to build a new series with Left 4 Dead for PC and Xbox 360. We played the PC edition.

We all know the Zombie mod from Counter-Strike: Source. However, the zombies have grown into an even more possessed character in Left 4 Dead. The game runs entirely on the Half-Life 2 engine and that can be read from the entire game. The game is a survival horror game that uses the well-known Source engine, which was developed for Windows and has now also been transferred to the Xbox 360. As in any zombie movie, this game also has a short but acceptable story. The zombies have come back to Earth and it’s up to you and your team to transfer them back to ****. As they say in Dawn of the Dead, “When **** is full, the dead come to Earth.” And that is unfortunately the case, although it will probably be the worst for the player. You take control of one of the 4 ingame characters. You can choose from the older Bill, the tough girl Zoey, the tie-wearing Louis, who reminds me of Tony Todd from Night of the Living Dead (’90), and Francis, who just seems to understand the definition of popping. know. Now you will think that you can do it on your own but that is clearly not the case in this game. Working together in groups is therefore very important as the zombies can appear from any direction, so don’t worry: they will also come through closed windows, climb over high fences, and even climb floors to get to your warm flesh. . The game immediately shows that this is about co-operative gameplay. You’ll have to work together, and you’ll definitely get credit for this as you play. Help people up, heal them, distribute the weapons and ammo you occasionally encounter and cover each other well. Those are the basic elements of Left 4 Dead.

Physics are almost CSS caliber

The game can be played alone as well as online. Now you will think that co-op online is of course 10x more fun, but that is not so bad considering the excellent AI of your fellow players. They don’t shoot you up like many other computer-controlled fellow players in other games, and they also shoot something from time to time. So you don’t have to do everything alone and is well supported. There are indeed some hiccups when we talk about the physics (see also a screen in this review), but that won’t cause most irritations, albeit that it can come across as very sloppy. There are a total of 4 campaigns that consist of 5 different levels that you can play, both online and offline. If you play these one by one you will notice that they flow into each other nicely, but you can also just choose to play them through each other. The missions per chapter are not too varied and mainly revolve around survival. However, there is some variation due to the different environments and the movement options you will have per level you play. Then you play inside a hospital, and then you’re outside in the middle of nowhere.

Weapons come in all shapes and sizes and luckily not every zombie needs to receive a headshot before they lie down like in the movies. You can use shotguns, snipers, molotov cocktails, Uzi’s, rifles and of course melee attacks, although these will not always be very effective. Even explosives are present. Especially the infected zombies you will have to give a lot of bullets because they give more effective attacks that you can handle. You have the Horde, groups of zombies that attack, the Hunter, who climb walls and storm at you, the Tank, a large infected monster and Witches, another mutated version of the zombie. These are undoubtedly not all characters that you can encounter, because the Screamer and the Smoker are also a few examples. A really different treatment is not necessary with this one, because it’s mainly about shooting, and not about the kind of opponents you encounter. The only difference is that they have different effects and deal a little more damage. In addition to the guns, you can also bring first-aid kits to heal with. You will usually find these at the beginning and at the end of the levels in the safe rooms, where you will be safe. Ammo is often located in houses that have become uninhabitable and other logical places.

Another Half-Life 2..

What struck me is that Left 4 Dead is remarkably similar to Half-Life 2. The game not only uses an almost identical engine, but also plays 90% of the same. The controls are identical, the atmosphere is largely the same and the gameplay quickly appears to feel the same. Now it is of course not bad that you almost completely reconstruct a concept from an earlier game in a new game, because let’s face it, Half-Life 2 is the definition of perfection, but it does feel very double-sided as your Half-Life 2 have played before. The menu structures, graphics, even sound effects (including in the menus) and use of vents are inherited from Half-Life, making it more of an elaborate modification than a standalone game built from the ground up . It is true that the game looks a bit better graphically than Half-Life 2, but to say that the game has built up a completely new unique atmosphere, absolutely not. Ingame everything reacts very correctly, including the zombies, who sometimes attack quickly, and other times just look around like a bunch of half-wits, and your friends also react quite realistically, with the exception of a few mistakes. It’s a shame that the game lacks good soundtracks, which makes the atmosphere less grim than expected.

Left 4 Dead is an ultimate zombie experience both offline and online. If you like shooting hordes of zombies, this is definitely the game for you. Even the novice of shooters can easily get along with this game and even advanced players will find what they are looking for with the different difficulty levels that the game has to offer. Online, the game offers plenty, including the Versus mode, in which you can complete a deathmatch with 8 people, or take control of an infected person with nice possibilities. The achievement system that is also available on the PC offers a nice extra and that undoubtedly makes the game complete. A pity is the fact that the game is far too similar to Half-Life 2 and therefore does not develop its own style. The game plays, feels and approaches the atmosphere of Half-Life 2 and that does not make Left 4 Dead completely unique. Even graphically the game doesn’t look much better than the mentioned game and you also regularly see the common physics errors from CSS in this game, which is quite 2004 by now. Those unworthy mistakes make Left 4 Dead less perfect in terms of quality, but the gameplay, as we know from Valve, is once again excellent, just like the ease of play and the possibilities.

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Author: Jeroen Janssen | Genre: FPS | Release: 20-11-2008 | Publisher: Valve/EA | Developer: ValveGraphics: 8.5 † Sound: 8.0 † Gameplay: 9.5 † Controls: 9.0 † Playback: 8.0 8.2+ Plays great, fast and easy+ Zombies come across very convincing+ Entertaining both online and offline- Feels, plays and looks too much like HL2- Still those physics problems from 2004- Don’t create your own unique atmosphere