Left 4 Dead
Available on PC and Xbox 360

Left 4 Dead is masterful. It's also the reason I haven't really posted anything on the boards since the game came out - I've been playing it almost every night for several hours. At its heart, the game is quite simple: you and three other Survivors are thrown into a zombacolypse scenario, and have to fight your way through hordes of the infected to the escape point. This simplicity turns out to be one of the game's greatest strengths.

Without a lot of extra distractions, you're free to focus on what the game is all about - being swarmed by huge numbers (at times, literally hundreds) of Infected (i.e., zombies) and the occasional special Infected (i.e., super-omg-zombies). Simply put, it's amazingly fun and intense. There are enough lulls in the action to keep it playable, but these are so masterfully timed and then interrupted that the game is never anything but fast-paced and exciting. And when someone alerts the enemy hordes, or an ill-timed Tank shows up, the way everything can go downhill so quickly is the height of entertainment.

The game's interface is superb. The HUD shows just what's necessary, and there are other nice touches like other Survivors showing up as glowing outlines when they get out of sight. Everything goes to reinforce the game's central tenet: stay together to survive. The AI is also excellent on this point - normally playing a co-op heavy game with bots would be disastrous, but Left 4 Dead can fill in the roles of the other Survivors very nicely.

The "Director AI" is the star of the game - it's what makes the action happen and what makes each level/map/scenario change dynamically on different play-throughs. The Director AI actually makes it seem like some malevolent person is sitting on a computer somewhere, throwing zombies at you at the most inopportune moments possible. Mostly, the AI exists to make the experience fun for the survivors - if they're doing unusually poorly, they might find a few extra med-packs. If they're cruising through a level with reckless abandon, you can bet that the upgraded weapons will be farther away and there'll be more zombies waiting to take your cockiness down a notch. The Director AI makes the experience like a well-paced B-movie, which is exactly how the game was pitched.

The game's graphical and audio components serve it very well - despite being based on the ageing Source engine, Left 4 Dead has tweaked it enough to still look competitive. This is enhanced by the various effects the AI will throw on your screen at times, like faux film graininess or fading the colors at dramatically appropriate times. These effect never get in the way, but add subtly to the experience. The same can be said for the game's excellent music, which not only adds ambience but also features specific musical clues that tell you when certain enemies are nearby – learning to recognize them can actually give you an edge. Everything has it sound cue and its musical cue, and it all comes together for a very refined, pure experience.

The game’s simplicity isn’t always a good thing – some people don’t seem to like the limited number of weapons, or the relatively few and short overall length of the campaigns that come with the game. The campaigns are a good length for individual play-throughs, however, and Valve and modders will undoubtedly release new maps over time. Combine this with the fact that each time you run through a scenario really does feel different (thanks mainly to the Director AI), and you have a highly refined game that, while ostensibly a little short, has already provided me with more playtime than I ever derived from many longer or more “replayable” games – and it’s only been three days since release.

Also, I can't speak from personal experience, but I've heard that the game's a little harder to control on Xbox, and may be a little buggier. That, coupled with the inevitable and free new content for the game on the PC, is more than enough for me to recommend PC (off Steam, specifically) over the Xbox.

Gameplay: 5/5
Graphics: 4/5
Controls: 5/5
Sound: 5/5
Story: 3/5
Stability: 4/5
Fun: 5/5
Lifetime: 5/5


Overall: 36/40
Excellent!

When I played the demo I thought it was amazing, exept for the overly fast running and turning, I fixed the turning by fixing the sensitivity of course. A teacher at school said her husband said that "theres alot of icky games out right now, some with zombies" and another teacher in the classroom said "I know". I'm gonna guess that the "some with zombies" is Left 4 Dead. haha

If you want to buy a valve game or any computer game you need to get it on steam. If you don't you can't use SDK and that means you cant have custom maps. There is already custom maps up.

Wow. People just have way to much time on there hands... Like me lol

I'm curious to see how the custom maps are turning out.

I haven't really seen many yet - I'm a little disappointed that there aren't more. I think the full SDK is coming out along with the first major (and free!) content patch in the near future, so hopefully that'll open things up a bit.

That sounds like it would be amazing, I would love to make a custom map on L4D but I've got it for 360.

I have Left 4 dead for the 360 and i think that they should add some more weapons and they should add some new campaign modes.

New Campaigns, definitely, as for weapons, no. I think they have a good balance of weapons the way it is. Maybe Tier 3 weapons on some new really long campaign.

Yeah, I don't think they need more weapons - the balance is pretty perfect as it is.

There will be another play mode coming with the expansion pack - it's called Survival, but there aren't many details on it yet. Sounds like it'll be kind of like Horde Mode from GoW2.

Never heard of Horde Mode, what is it?

I'm very excited for the expansion now!

Horde Mode is basically increasingly difficult waves of enemies in an arena-style fight - there's weapons around and you just have to fend off as many as possible.

So it like Nazi zombies in a way?

That sounds incredibly fun, I'll have to check that out maybe.

You should check it out and tell me how it is.

I'm going to, Its for what game?

Gears of War 2.

Wow, I wasn't going to get that! Do you have to unlock it?

For what game?

He said Gears Of War 2.

I'm pretty sure it's just a standard multiplayer mode.

Good to know.