The sole purpose of me getting an Xbox 360 for my 18th birthday, was to play the first Left 4 Dead. I was first introduced to this game when my friend came over, and brought his 360 over with some games. I was like "oh cool a zombie game", maybe it's like Resident Evil. To say the least, L4D had caught my attention immediately. This game is a co-operative FPS. You play one of the four survivors, while the other 3 can be either human players or bots. The point of campaign is to make it from the starting safe-room to the safe-room at the end of the level, with at least one of the four survivors still alive. Ultimately, making it to the finale level where the survivors will be rescued from the zombie apocalypse. Along the way you can find better guns, besides the pump shotgun or uzi you start off with. There is ammo throughout the level as well as, pills(you eat the whole bottle and it gives you temporary health), health kits(use it to heal up your wounds to almost perfect health), pipebombs(throw it out to lure common infected to their death),and molotovs(light any infected on fire commons die instantly)The names are Louis(the black guy), Francis(the badass), Bill(old war veteran), and Zoey(the girl). The zombies try to kill you with their various attack methods, but there can only be up to 4 special infected at one time(only one smoker and one boomer, but multiple hunters). There many common infected which just come at you in hordes and beat you to death slowly, but then there are also special infected. These infected have been mutated from the zombie apocalypse to have super-human zombie powers. There's the hunter jumps onto the survivor, and claws their innards out. The smoker has a super long tongue that grabs the survivor, and pulls them to him. The fattie boomer can throw up bile on the survivors, causing a horde of common infected to swarm them. The witch just sits somewhere in the level crying, but if you disturb her she will claw you down with one swipe. The tank is a huge muscle buff head zombie with enough super strength to knock cars around at the survivors. He can also throw big cement blocks at survivors, and punch you into the air. So, with that all explained, here's my first experience with this game. We played the blood harvest campaign, and I remember him telling me about the special infected called the Witch. I spent most of my time looking for her throughout the whole campaign, because I was so curious as to what she looked like and what her attack was. I kept thinking I had found her, but they were always just commons sitting down. Then, it was dark and I was over in the forrest getting myself lost. I heard the witch growl and shriek, as my friend had startled her. He went down, and I had to go help same him. I then realized how powerful and dangerous the witch was. At the same time I was disappointed that I didn't get to see her. When I got over there I could see her corpse on the ground and noticed the long claws she had. She quickly became my favorite special infected. I asked my friend if there was any way to kill her without her incapacitating you. He said you can with a shotgun, but you have to aim in the right spot. This was an achievement called "Cr0wnd", because you had to shoot her in the back of the head. I wanted to learn how to do that. I practiced doing so, and every time I got better. Until I could do it on a regular basis. Before that had happened though, I had been introduced to the part of the game that really got me into Left 4 Dead. VERSUS MODE. In this mode you get to play as the special infected, which was all I wanted to play as every time I played it. You get either a hunter, smoker, boomer, tank(sometimes, usually if you have the most points and spawns automatically ahead of the survivors). Then proceed to walk around in "ghost mode", where you have to find somewhere you can't be seen to spawn. The hunter quickly became my new favorite special infected, because I liked everything about it. He could pounce people from high places for up to 25 damage, before he even starts to rip their insides out with his claws. He wears a dark hoodie, which allows only his mouth to be visible at all times. I later learned he could wall pounce all over the place. Which is fun to do as it makes it harder for the survivors to kill you. Seeing a hunter pouncing around you off of every wall, is like watching parkour with super human leg strength. It's ridiculous to watch, but takes a lot of skill to master. Most people enjoy playing the tank though. The tank only appears sometimes in a level, and there is only one. On the finale of a campaign there are always 3 tanks, but there's only one at a time spread out over a certain period. The finale always has 4 health kits, and everything the survivors need to help make a stand against the swarming hordes and tanks. Versus is fun because, if you have a decent team of people with or without microphones, you can coordinate attacks with the other infected to overwhelm the survivors. Having a mic doesn't necessarily make it easier for teamwork, some no mic-ers are better than those with mics. I run across quite a few little kids playing this game. This a mature rated game, and parents are letting their kids play it. I guess I can't blame them, it's a really fun game if you enjoy zombie games. The only problem I have with it is, the fact that half of them can't properly understand how the game works. They end up messing up the game for their teammates, because of their lack of any skill or awareness. There are some pretty cool people who play this game. I am proud to say that I am one of them. However, there are many glitches in this game, such as the "crabwalk", which allows you to walk at normal speed while crouched as infected or survivors. Looks funny when you see the tank doing it. Then there are people that take it way too serious and make it their life, but those people are mostly on contendergaming.com playing others like them. You shouldn't see them in pub games much, but they are all try-hards who just want to show off. If they fail they will just ragequit. Forgot to mention this game is for PC to. Also, there's a mode called survival, but it's pretty boring. You try to hold out in one area of a level with never ending hordes and specials, for as long as you can. There are global leader boards for each survival area, but all of the top times were acquired by glitching. I'll do my review of Left 4 Dead 2 soon. I like that game so much better with all of the new special infected, survivors, and campaigns. I'll get into that another time though. Oh, yeah and kind of random, but my favorite character is Bill. What a war-hero he is. So, I'll say valve knows how to make a unique zombie game with a competitive multi-player mode. Well done, now here's some pictures.
8/10
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| lol Left 4 Dead |
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| The Special Infected |
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| Francis and Louis startle the Witch |
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| Cover |
