Game: Left 4 Dead
Platforms: Xbox 360 and PC
Release Date: November 2008
Review Platform: PC
Reviewer: Cameron ‘stelker’ Decker
Score: 8.5/10
Left 4 Dead is a survival horror cooperative first person shooter developed by Valve Corporation for the PC and Xbox 360. It was released in November of 2008 and has received generous reviews. In Left 4 Dead, players take on the role of one of four different survivors in their attempt to escape the zombie apocalypse. The same survivors can play through four separate and unaffiliated campaigns that feature different locales but similar game play. Game play focus is on working together to navigate through the five chapters of each campaign, defeating a number of different types of zombies designated as ‘Infected’, and rationing supplies with the best intentions of the group.
I want to start off by saying that I’ve been waiting for a game like Left 4 Dead, specifically designed around cooperative play, for a long time. I’ve always tried to include my friends in every game that has a cooperative play capability but coop is usually so poorly done that it’s pointless. But that’s not the case here. Let’s continue on and talk about graphics.
Graphics and Presentation
Left 4 Dead runs on the well-known Source engine developed by Valve for Half-Life 2 and featured in other popular games such as Portal, Team Fortress 2 and Counter-Strike: Source. The engine for this game is definitely a beefed up version of what we saw in Half-Life 2, so if you haven’t checked out the Source engine since then or think it looks cartoonish (if you hate the way Team Fortress 2 looks there’s still a chance you’ll like L4D), I encourage you to keep an open mind and to check out the screenshots present throughout this review. The designers incorporated a number of visual effects while striving to achieve a presentation similar to that of a horror movie, such as the film grain effect which can be manually adjusted to sit anywhere between completely off and nearly white noise. Almost everything appears to be smoother when you’ve got the film grain turned off, so thankfully you have a great deal of control over that option. I’m not a graphic arts major so I can’t describe in detail all the particulars of what the designers did, but Valve’s popular developer commentary returns once again in this title to enlighten us ‘wanna-be’s’ on what’s going down with the engine.
Look, the bottom line is that this game looks great, and you can crank the anti-aliasing through the roof for a really crisp picture. The environment may come across as a little blocky after playing games like Prince of Persia and Dead Space recently, but the atmosphere and lighting are amazing and really make up for any shortcomings (including some low resolution textures) I might find in other areas. The animations are spot on, as you might expect, but special types of infected called ‘hunters’ can look quite goofy at times when they have trouble navigating the environment. Also, there is the occasional body that gets stuck in a wall or floor that will bob around awkwardly before being removed by the engine, but it’s really more entertaining than distracting. The fire effects look fantastic initially but there’s something strange that I noticed after seeing it a few times. After burning splendidly for a few seconds, it seems to downgrade into a low resolution version. I guess the designers wanted you to enjoy the view for a few seconds but felt it might affect playability to sustain it for too long.
I have an 8800GT in my system and I usually churn out between 70 and 100 frames per second with anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering down or off and all other graphic options maxed at 1680×1050. As I said before, the anti-aliasing is quite scalable but you’re most likely going to start taking huge performance hits the further you take it. With every bell and whistle including anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering pushed to the max, I usually hover between 50 and 70 frames per second and can dip into the 30’s and 40’s when the action gets heavy. I’ve even dipped as low as 10-15 frames per second while cooking large groups of zombies. I tend to play with the anti-aliasing scaled back or off completely—I usually enjoy every frame I can get.
The story for Left 4 Dead is largely inexistent and, in my opinion, inconsequential. Valve explains via their developer commentary that they wanted to tell a story through in-world events and objects, rather than trying to set a specific back story with cutscenes or anything else. It’s unclear to me what scope they wanted the story to have, but if they wanted something even remotely involved, I think they largely failed in their attempt. At the same time, it really doesn’t matter to me in the least. Dialogue was written for the characters that plays dynamically based on the environment, a character’s status or relationship toward another character, and randomness, so you’ll get to hear new little bits of conversation each time you play through. You’re not likely to find much else besides dead bodies and scribbled messages on walls even if you play through the game quite a bit, and the game fails to deliver a solid storyline beyond the following premise: there’s a zombie apocalypse, you’re not sure how it started, and some people appear to be immune to infection. You’re trying to escape with your life, and you have three companions. That’s the extent of the story and it’s completely fine for this type of game where the focus is on the action. Nothing more is necessary and the game does not feel lacking in this respect.
Gameplay
So now we’re to the main topic, game play. Left 4 Dead has a great mix of action, and if you purchase the game you’ll be able to hear the developers themselves talk about how they pulled this off. The enemy you’ll face overwhelmingly the most in this game is your standard infected, and you will kill a lot of them. This inevitably may become monotonous after you play the game for a good number of hours, but interestingly each infected has its own script running and they will come at you in various ways, climbing over obstacles and lunging at you. They still act with a ‘horde’ mentality so many end up taking the same path toward you, and I do wish there was a little more variability in this department but it’s not that big of a deal. It’s very satisfying to mow through groups of them and you are rewarded for making headshots (one shot, one kill), so that helps keep it a little more interesting.
Aside from the general zombie population, the ‘special infected’ are always adding a bit of spice and forcing you to keep your feet light. Hunters can jump long distances and will pounce on survivors, pinning them and forcing their companions to shoot or knock them off. Smokers lurk in the shadows and use their long tendrils to incapacitate and pull players away from the safety of their group. Another special infected, the large and grotesque Boomer, can spray survivors with a bile that effectively blinds them and attracts a horde of regular infected. Boomers also explode whenever they are killed, and the same bile can affect anyone who is too close. The Tank is a huge, deformed infected that only rarely makes appearances, but he is fast and strong and soaks up loads of damage. Finally, the witch forces survivors to slow down and traverse cautiously, as she can quickly kill anyone that disturbs her. Hordes of standard infected will also rush your group at random, causing you to frantically find a defensible position if possible.
One of the cool things in this game is how the music and sound are implemented with the action. For instance, every special infected has a unique sound effect that they produce, but there is also a unique melody that coincides with their presence. Distant horns can be heard when a horde approaches, and hunters are accompanied by a few dissonant piano chords. Valve explains in their developer commentary that all of the music is generated in the same scale, so it all flows together well.
You can play through one of four campaigns or ‘movies’ at a time, and each one typically takes between an hour and two hours to complete. The same four characters are present in each movie but the movies are unrelated. Each campaign also features ‘crescendo’ events where the survivors must activate or destroy part of their environment which attracts the horde in order to press onward. At the end of each campaign, the survivors must hold out and defend an area from waves of infected while awaiting rescue. The objective for each level (aside from the final rescue level) is to reach the next safe room, which is designated by a red steel door. Once inside the safe room, players have a chance to rest and restock up on supplies. The last safe room is also where the players will restart if they are all killed.
Each survivor can carry a primary weapon, a pistol which has unlimited ammo, a medpack, pain pills, and either a Molotov cocktail or home-made pipe bomb. Medpacks obviously heal you, but it takes several seconds and players are immobilized while using them. Painkillers boost your health for a limited amount of time but it slowly drains back to its former level. Since being injured causes you to move slower, they can be very useful in situations where you have to move fast or need a quick boost of health but don’t have time to use a medpack. I love how the survivors need to ration supplies, and it’s easy to use your medpack to heal an ally or give painkillers away to someone that needs them simply by equipping it and right-clicking.
Players must choose between an SMG and shotgun at the beginning of a campaign, and can upgrade later to stronger versions of these weapons and even a sniper rifle once they find them. Ammo caches found are universal for each weapon, but I think using a less generalized approach may have worked well too (e.g. finding a few shells here and there that only work for the shotgun). Pipe bombs are loud and attract the attention of regular infected, causing them to crowd around the device before exploding. Molotovs create a wall of fire wherever they hit the ground, but they tend to ‘catch the wind’ and can be harder to use. They are useful for hordes of zombies coming from a specific direction or for causing damage over time to the Tank and witch, but players have to be careful because its very easy to set all your friends and yourself on fire. It’s also possible to kill zombies with melee attacks, but typically it’s more useful for knocking them back so you have time to shoot.
If a survivor takes too much damage, rather than dying immediately they’ll be incapacitated and must rely on a fellow player to help them up. After being knocked down several times, the colors will fade from their screen and they’ll be dead the next time their health reaches zero. If they do happen to meet an unfortunate fate, they can be rescued by other survivors from closets throughout each level and resume play, but they’ll lose all of their items save for an SMG and a pistol.
You’re going to want to play this game with actual people. Let me repeat that: you don’t want to play this game for the single-player aspect. No matter how you play, you’ll always have three companions whether they’re human or bot, but human players offer a much richer experience. The AI for the special infected is quite good, but the AI for the survivors can be impressively bad. Often they seem to take forever in assisting you when you need help, and sometimes they fail completely. Also there’s no way to issue commands so you can’t communicate goals to them: e.g. ‘let’s defend from this room’ or ‘get the heck inside, you idiot.’ Communication is key, because some parts of the game are exponentially more doable if you hold up in a room together or get behind closed doors and pick zombies off as they try to bust through. Players show up as colored silhouettes which indicate their status if they’re not within actual view, which makes it easier to keep up with where your buddies are and how they’re doing.
Easy and normal modes are pretty much a walk in the park, but once you start hitting up advanced and expert, you’ll need to remain focused. Unless you’re adding friends to your steam list, you may often end up with players who just can’t muster up the skill or reaction speed necessary to complete your chosen difficulty. Playing with people of the same skill level is the best way to enjoy this game, and it may be frustrating or guilt-inducing if your companions are worse or better than you, respectively. Friendly fire is always on and on advanced and expert it can cause massive damage, so there are times when the most dangerous thing in your vicinity are your friends. Bad or new players also have the potential to set off car alarms, which of course attract the horde, so they can be a threat in many ways.
Another selling point for Left 4 Dead is the versus mode, which doesn’t follow the trend of having equally able characters pitted against each other. In versus, you can actually play as the special infected, even the tank, against a group of human controlled survivors. Personally I’m terrible at it, but some people have gotten quite good at working together and causing mayhem. To balance the potential imbalance, players switch teams after the survivors either complete the level or die. The regular infected are still present as normal in this mode, but I think it would have been fun to play as one during the twenty second wait time for the special infected respawn—it can feel like an eternity. Also, I seem to have a problem with respawning as a hunter a lot, but I don’t know if other players are experiencing problems with a lack of variance. Either way, it can be a lot of fun and definitely adds something to the game.
The much talked about Artificial Intelligence director developed by Valve is one of the most interesting things I’ve seen in a video game, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see something similar to it in a lot of future titles. Even though the physical environments of the campaigns remain the same, the locations of the infected change every time you play through the game. The special infected are actually dynamically spawned so they can come at you from any direction at almost any time, and they are quite adept at lurking in the shadows and striking at opportune times. Weapons and ammo are also found in semi-random locations, although I find it rather goofy that most of the time they are plainly laid out in front of you on “gun” tables and such. Supposedly the AI Director measures the so-called ‘stress level’ of each player, in terms of their mouse movement speed and accuracy, and increases or lessens the action accordingly, but I haven’t really noticed whether that is actually happening or not.
One big downer for me: there’s currently no server browser for joining games. If you don’t play with someone on your friends list, you’ll play with completely random people on an almost completely random server. Sometimes you get connected to one that is just a straight up piece of crap. This crap can be in the form of a really bad ping or even as bad as resetting the difficulty between chapters of your campaign. Even when you do play with your friends, if you don’t host a server locally (which isn’t a feasible option for many people) then you still get connected to a random server. I just don’t think it should be this way.
Final Thoughts
Left 4 Dead is the definitive cooperative play game on the market right now, and possibly for a long time to come. When I first played this game, I was genuinely scared and was laughing with excitement every time I got pounced by a hunter or my team successfully fended off a horde. I think during those first days, the fear was universal and everyone was creeping through the game with the hair standing up on their neck. It was a great feeling. Now that the game has been out for a few weeks, I’m afraid that feeling is pretty much gone and I don’t get scared anymore. Left 4 Dead is still a phenomenal game, however, and I’ve still yet to beat all the campaigns on expert. There’s a fun achievement system and Valve’s developer commentary is always a welcome addition—I hope they continue adding it to their games. Occasionally a head shot will fail to cause any damage whatsoever, and I’ve heard this is a source engine problem. Some exploits that allow skipping certain areas or the now popular ‘everyone get in the bathroom’ habit make the game a lot easier than I think was originally intended, but perhaps these issues will be addressed as Valve prepares to issue more content for the game. I’ll have news on any updates in that department so be sure to check back in!
A great review Stelker!