Left 4 Dead Impressions
To be honest, when I first heard about Left 4 Dead, I though it was going to be another multiplayer game where you will have to kill zombies and stuff. But after playing through 2 levels, I can say that Valve has created a wonderful game that delivers an amazing experience which is different from the traditional multiplayer games, is full of blood and gore, and is fun to play.
Go To Hell You Bastards
The game will have you and your three companions teaming up against a horde of zombies. The game environment will look like a scene right out of the ‘28 days later’ movie. You can enjoy it as a multiplayer or can play it as a single player with computer controlled buddies. The game has 4 campaigns with 5 levels each and they take place in locations such as building, train station, sewer, graveyards etc. It has good replay value guaranteed by the fact that zombie, weapons placement are random whenever you play a level. When a level starts, you will have a table containing weapons in front of you. You can pick the weapons along with Molotov’s. Weapons can different such as Assault Rifle, Hunter Rifle, Shotgun etc. In between the games, you will encounter weapons which you can also pick. You will have to move along from one location to another an in between will have to fight off all the zombies that you encounter.
Many a times you will see the zombies just walking around slowly or standing in a corner. You get there attention and that’s when they will just come running towards you. You can kill them by shooting or blowing there heads. Sounds easy, but imagine what happens when suddenly 20-25 zombies come right at you running from all the directions. In all the crazy gun fire, you will see a lot of blood, flying heads and will sometime hit your own friends. Some zombies will even jump from the roof of a building or a car right at you. There are a lot of variety of zombies. ‘Hunters’ will have the ability of jump. When it spots you, it will take a huge flying leap towards you pinning you down. ‘Smokers’ will launch a projectile tongue at you thus dragging you towards them. They also give out a smoke making you cough a lot. Then there are those fat ‘Boomers’ which will vomit some green substance over you. If they manage to do that, the green substance will attract zombies towards you and you will see them coming for you from all directions. There is also a big hulk type monster who will run towards you throwing everything out of the way.
Co-Operative gameplay is involved a lot in this. You have to help each other out in situations like, whenever he is getting pulled by a Smoker, or whenever your team mate is incapacitated, you can revive him or heal him. The fun is surely to play along with your friends, each taking care of a possible direction. Molotov’s are fun to use. Throw them and you will see a lot of burning zombies running towards you or everywhere. Some zombies are not that infected and you will see them staring at a blank wall writing something. Some situations will lead to triggering of an alarm and then the fun begins. For some minutes, you will be attacked by countless zombies coming at you from everywhere. One good thing is that your pistol has unlimited ammo so you are not forced to kill the zombies by your mere hands.
Nothing better than Burning zombies
The graphics of the game are nice. The environment is beautifully rendered and looks like that of a typical horror movie set with messages scrawled on the walls. The zombies look so scary, each one is beautifully crafted and you can notice all the small details. The sound of the game is amazing. In vicinity of a smoker, you can hear a lot of coughing. The zombies will make all sort of deadly nice. There is not much to talk about the AI here, Zombies behave like hmm well Zombies.
Come to Me
Overall, I recommend it to everyone or those who can take all such blood, vomit and gore. Valve definitely has a winner on there hands with this one. It should be so much fun playing with your friend on LAN parties. And thanks to steam, there are a lot of things to look forward too.
System Requirements
- OS: Windows XP, Vista, Vista64
- CPU: 3.0 GHz P4, Dual Core 2.0 or AMD64X2 (or higher)
- RAM: 1 GB for XP / 2GB for Vista
- Disc drive: DVD-ROM Drive
- Hard drive: At least 7.5 GB of free space
- Video: Direct X 9 compatible video card - Video card must be 128 MB or more and should be a DirectX 9-compatible with support for pixel shader 2.0 (ATI 9600 or high. Or, Nvidia 6600 or higher)
- Sound: Direct X9.0c compatible sound card
Popularity: 23% [?]
