Box Art
Game: Left 4 Dead
First Released: October 17, 2008, Windows
Developers: Turtle Rock Studios, Valve Corp.
Platforms: Windows, Xbox 360, Mac OS X
Rated: M, for Blood, Gore, Intense Violence, and Language
First Released: October 17, 2008, Windows
Developers: Turtle Rock Studios, Valve Corp.
Platforms: Windows, Xbox 360, Mac OS X
Rated: M, for Blood, Gore, Intense Violence, and Language
How I Came To Play This Game
Zoey shoots a "Zombie"
I was pretty late in getting a generation seven game console. Sure I had the Nintendo DS, but I had none that connected to a television. I went through middle school and most of high school with my good old Gamecube and later Playstation 2. I finally got my Xbox 360 in December 2013. The Xbox One was already out, which baffled many of my friends on why I didn't just get that instead. Well, I will get one, but I don't want to skip a generation. Anyway, I could finally play the next generation games of my favorite video game series such as Resident Evil and Megaman. It also opened me up to many new amazing series such as Dead Rising, Dead Space, Elder Scrolls, and Left 4 Dead. I was at Gamestop one day trying to buy some zombie games for my new console. The choices were Left 4 Dead, Dead Rising, Dead Island, and Dead Space (at the time I just assumed it was a zombie game). I bought Left 4 Dead and Dead Island that day, and I haven't stopped playing Left 4 Dead ever since.
Story
Tank attack
Pennsylvania suffers an outbreak of "Green Flu"; a highly contagious virus causing extreme aggression, mutation to the body cells, and loss of higher brain functions. Two weeks after the first infection four immune survivors—William "Bill" Overbeck, a Vietnam veteran; Zoey, a college student; Louis, an IT analyst, and Francis, an outlaw biker—make their way through the city of Fairfield, only to discover that the virus is creating more dangerous mutations. After narrowly avoiding these new infected, along with hordes of others, the survivors are alerted to the presence of an evacuation point at the nearby Mercy Hospital roof by a passing helicopter. Fighting their way through the city's streets, subway and sewers, they are rescued from the hospital's roof by the pilot, only to discover he is infected. With Zoey forced to kill him, the helicopter crash lands in an industrial district outside the city. Finding an armored delivery truck, the group uses it to make their way to the town of Riverside. However, they find the road blocked, and travel the rest of the way on foot. After an encounter with an infected lunatic in the local church, they discover that the town is overrun, and decide to head to a nearby boathouse for rescue. Contacting a small fishing vessel, they manage to reach the city of Newburg on the other side of the river, only to find much of it in flames. Seeking cover in a large greenhouse, their rest is interrupted when a military C-130 Hercules passes overhead, leading the survivors to travel through the city's business district towards Metro International Airport. Upon arrival, the group see that in an attempt to contain the infection, the military had bombed the airport while infected pilots crash planes in an attempt to land; the runway however is largely intact, allowing the survivors to fuel up and escape in a waiting C-130. Despite this apparent rescue, it crashes as well, and the survivors once again find themselves alone on the outskirts of Allegheny National Forest. Following a series of train tracks through the area, the group find themselves at a functioning, but abandoned, military outpost. After answering a radio transmission, the survivors make their final stand against hordes of infected, before a military APC arrives to transport them to Northeast Safe Zone Echo, supposedly the only uninfected area not yet overrun. Instead, they are kept at a military installation and informed that even though they are immune, they still carry the virus. They are temporarily held by the military before the base is overrun with infected. The four escape via train and travel south at Bill's insistence; Bill believes that they can find long-term safety from the infected on the islands of the Florida Keys. At the portside town of Rayford, they find a boat but must raise an old rusty bridge powered by an aging generator to get the boat into open waters, assured that the machinery noise will alert a large horde. However, the generator gives out. Bill sacrifices himself in order to restart it, so that the others may reach safety. After waiting for the horde to disperse, the three then encounter four more survivors. They move the boat to the other side of the bridge and help them re-lower the bridge so they can cross in their car. Afterwards, Louis, Zoey, and Francis head back to the boat and set course to the Keys.
Pros And Cons
Story
The Horde
The story, to be honest, is the typical one found in many zombie apocalypse portrayals. A disease that turns people into zombies that can infect more people. Over time, more and more people are infected, more and more zombies are made, and the disease spreads across the globe at an exponential rate until all people are infected. Well, not all people. Some people are immune, but they are actually carriers. This means they are still infected by the disease, but they are unaffected by it. However, they still have the ability to infect other people through contact. This was an interesting idea I never saw before in any other version of plague. The only thing I do not like about the story is that Bill dies. I think it's bad writing to have any of the survivors canonically die.
Characters
The Survivors
The creators did a very good job designing the characters. Each one comes from a different background and brews the story to become more interesting to see how they get along. We have a Vietnam War veteran(Bill), a college student (Zoey), an office worker (Louis), and a street gang thug (Francis). I consider the Special infected characters of their own as well. They really look like your worst nightmare and enemies.
Gameplay
Playable Special Infected
I think this is the greatest co-op game I have ever played. It is a first-person shooter. The perspective you get is as if you are looking out the characters eyes, so you see their hands in front of you at all times. The game consists of many campaigns, which are split into several chapters. The goal of each chapter is to reach the Safe Room which is defined as being a room where nothing can harm you. The final chapter of each campaign is called the Finale and involves the players fighting through hoards of infected while they wait for a rescue vehicle to arrive or activate. Along the way, you must battle your way through zombies, special infected, and obstacles to get to the end of each chapter. There are specific spots in the game called Crescendo Events where you need to activate something to open the path forward. However, these always result in a loud noise that attracts a horde of zombies that you have to fight off. Hordes of zombies also happen at random intervals of time. To fight the zombies, you are given an assortment of guns, grenades, and health items. My favorite item in the game is the Pipe Bomb. It has a alarm attached to it that makes all the zombies chase after it and huddle around it before being blown to bits from the explosion. The three kinds of guns are Machine Guns, Shotguns, and Sniper Rifle. There are two versions of the earlier two. These items are randomly placed each time you play the game. The enemy placements, items, and sometimes the map layout itself, are controlled by an artificial intelligence known as the Director. The Director monitors the players game and uses advanced algorithms to decide on where to place items and enemies to make each play run a unique and fair challenge. There are two main modes of play. Campaign Mode, where you and up to three others can work together to beat the campaigns, or Versus Mode, where from two to eight players are divided into two teams, the Survivors or the Infected. The Survivor team plays as the Survivors while the Infected team plays as the Special infected. The goal for Survivors is to make it to the end of the chapter, and the goal for the Infected is to kill all of the Survivors before they can reach the end of the chapter. This is one of the few online multiplayer modes that I enjoy playing. It isn't really about winning, it's about what kind of crazy mayhem you can cause for the other team.
Graphics
Humans vs. Zombies
For a game of this magnitude, the graphics are very decent. I would expect that because of all of the enemies that have to be spawned at the same time, the A.I. Director, and many other variables would cause the developers to have to tone down on the graphics to save memory. I am used to generation six games though, so I consider the graphics decent. I played the commentary mode included in the game and found out they came up with many clever tricks to save on memory so it wouldn't hinder the graphics or gameplay.
Music
Music actually plays an important part of the Left 4 Dead series. The music itself is very suspensefull, which is good for any survival horror game. However, the music also plays a large role in the gameplay. Their are many tracks made to symbolize different aspects of the game. There is a track that plays the main theme of Left 4 Dead at the beginning of every campaing, a different remix for each one. There music for when a horde is attacking, when the Tank comes, when a Witch is nearby, when a player is being pinned by a Special Infected, and when the rescue vehicle has arrives. This helps gamers by giving them the ability to reconize situations by sound so that they don't always have to see whats happening to know what's happening. Each of the Special Infected have a music cue whenever one is spawned. By recognizing the music cues, players can warn each other when there is one nearby, and also know when another player is being pinned.
|
Releases
Left 4 Dead was first released worldwide for Windows on October 17, 2008. Then it was released for the Xbox 360 a month later. Two years after that a port was made for the Mac OS X.
Download Content
The Sacrifice Poster
There were four DLCs for the game Left 4 Dead. The first one was released on April 21, 2009 and added a new mode called Survival Mode. The goal was to survive for the longest amount of time fighting off hordes of endless enemies. This was available for free on the Xbox 360, so it is probably a mode they originally intended to be in the retail release, but they didn't have enough time to finish it. An exclusive Campaing to Survival Mode known as The Last Stand was released along with it. The Campaign, available only in Survival Mode, contained only one map, the Lighthouse. According to the developers, it represents an alternate scenario where the survivors took a wrong turn and ended up dying. The third one was a new Campaign called Crash Course, released on August 4, 2009, that took place between the No Mercy and Death Toll Campaigns. The fourth and final one was released in October 2010 which added a new campaign called The Sacrifice. It was released for both Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2.
My Rating
I give this game a 11/10. Though it is not my favorite game, it is the one and only game I could pick up at a moments notice to play with my friends.