INTERWEB TIMES

The infection has spread throughout the city. There are only four of us left without symptoms. If we stay, we are surely as doomed as the roving masses of infected. Their twisted visage of familiarity mocks our attempts to escape at every turn. Our neighbors, our teachers, our children are all hungry for flesh to the exclusion of all other thought or sensation. They feel nothing but thirst. They are the undead.
Only together do we stand even a slim chance, but alone we cannot stand at all. At first we were powerless to the endless onslaught of death around us. We found weapons and resisted even as our numbers fell. Eventually we were alone, the four of us left for dead. Our bodies are immune to the infection, but not to the brutality of our kin. We are afraid and angry. Somewhere away from the city there may be a place still pure. Our only hope is to find that place or die trying.

Left 4 Dead is a zombie survival horror shooter. Fighting usually in cooperative mode along with your friends as one of four characters with unique personalities, you make your way through four beautifully rendered campaigns of zombie infestation. Each campaign tells the story of our heroes in the form of their trek through a circuit of levels. At the end of each guarded by hordes of infected lies a safe house. Upon entering the safe house along with the surviving members of your team a quick rundown of stats reviewing each individual’s accomplishments is listed briefly during the next stages load time.
To mix things up a bit, the hordes of infected have heroes of their own. Mutated humans take on the forms of the Hunter, Boomer, Smoker, Witch, and the dreaded Tank. Each of these zombie heroes have unique abilities which specialize in isolating players who stray from the group or outright finishing them off.

Throughout the game a Zombie random placement generator code named “The Director” designates where and when the zombies and various infected will manifest based on how the players have been doing during the campaign so far. This seems to add a very random feeling to Left 4 Dead and keeps the players in a constant state of panic while also greatly increasing the games replay value. The Director is probably one of the most highly marketed features of the game with good reason. It allows for a highly tailored environment dynamically changing to the group’s skill and availability of ammo.
For players that have been on the FPS scene for some time, I would suggest skipping the normal campaigns unless your teammates are brand new to the scene. The Director while very good at assessing the amount of punches to throw at the survivors is incapable of making the infected any more powerful or resistant to bullets. The challenges of the advanced and expert modes add to the overall atmosphere of the game. In normal mode the cries of the witch seem like an invitation to tease her while in expert mode even the slightest hint of her whimper sends the survivors scampering into dark corners huddled around each other cowering while they fumble to turn off their flashlights.

For the true competitive teams out there, Left 4 Dead offers Versus mode. It is limited to only two of the available campaigns namely No Mercy and Blood Harvest and provides an 8 player experience where four survivors and four infected players face off as the survivors struggle to reach the safe house. The infected players are given random Zombie heroes (excluding the witch) and choose their own spawn among the regular AI controlled horde. Laying in wait to ambush or attacking outright, the infected players attempt to thwart the survivors from the coveted safe house. Upon the completion of a level or the total annihilation of the survivors the tides are turned and the infected players get a chance at running the gauntlet.

I have been aware of the infection for quite some time now, having paid close attention as soon as I heard the team behind Counter-strike was brewing a multiplayer co-op zombie apocalypse. To call me one of the fanatics is not quite accurate enough. I am a sworn champion of Valve and believe that they are largely responsible for some of the greatest games of all time.
That does not stop me however from questioning the value of a game. Overall the game is done very well with excellently rendered zombies and delightful physics that allow for quite an array of strewn zombie corpses. The zombies are relentless and intelligent pursuing the survivors without fail to even the highest of heights and secure of locations.
I spent the better part of a day plowing through the four available campaigns of Left 4 Dead on advanced mode before I came to the realization that the content was just one campaign shy of a full priced PC title. Surely the multiplayer replayability for the game is there, and completing all four campaigns on expert mode is staggeringly difficult however I find the four available campaigns combined with the rather limited selection of weapons to be discouraging.

Now here is the good news. This is Valve we are talking about. There has never been a single company more dedicated to their products after release than Valve, and they struggle to continue to release free content for their products. I would not be surprised to hear of a new pack of campaigns and weapons on the way within a couple months as well as the release of the Vs mode campaigns that seem to have been left out. It’s just their style.