Left 4 Dead
by Valve
Genre: First-Person Shooter
Rating: Mature (Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Language)
Release: 11/18/08
The concept of the Zombie Apocalypse has been fodder for many movies and video games, and this most recent one draws from several inspirations to create a wonderful and very fun experience. Through four campaigns made up of five maps each, you’ll guide four survivors to be rescued from an onslaught of hundreds of Infected. The survivors that you control can include Bill, a Vietnam veteran; Zoey, a photojournalist; Louis, an office worker, and Francis, a biker.
These zombies (known in groups as the Horde) seem to have more in common with the creatures which humans became from the movie 28 Days Later instead of traditional slow zombies; these that we face now are super fast and very ravenous. There are also four special types of Infected: the Hunter, the Boomer, the Smoker, and the Witch, which inflict special damage on your team, and which spice up the action as you attempt to hide and/or fight the relentless Horde. Several times throughout each campaign, you’ll also face a fifth special boss Infected, known as the Tank, which can both deliver and take a massive amount of damage and requires your whole team to bring down. At the end of each campaign, you must use a radio to call for help, and hold your ground for an extended period while awaiting evacuation.
There is a special design element hidden within the game known as the Director, which autonomously varies the amount and type of Infected that are thrown at you based on your movements and skill level, so no two games are ever the same.
The game uses the Source engine for very realistic and well-performing graphics, and the voice acting in the game, mostly performed by the Survivors, is appropriately cheesy for the subject matter, and evokes that same B-movie feel which the rest of the game does. In fact, the whole presentation is modeled after an old-time zombie-slasher movie, complete with film grain effect and mockup movie posters for the loading screens. Of course, the standard we’ve come to expect from Valve for high quality first-person shooting action remains intact.
I give this game a 10 across the board.