Left 4 Dead And Damn Glad About It

For about a year, the only game I was interested in playing was Halo 3 on Xbox Live. I was fascinated with how unconventional tactics could disrupt the normal flow of battle in a round. I have never been well adjusted for team battle and I often reverted to sneaking up on people in attempts to stick them with grenades. Frequently, I would try to stick from longer distances as well in hopes of reliving the experience in the theater mode while my friends smiled through their teeth, eager to play another round and not hear about how great I thought I was, because quite reasonably, it was luck that my little bright blue plasma grenades would find their way onto my opponents armor. The only real element of surprise came from my unconventional tactics with making grenades my primary method for destruction. That element of chance that made for an exceptional moment that I could relive over and over in the theater was what I played for. And I have several of those captured in my theater, all of them cleverly named and with epic Michael Bay like camera angles.

That element of chance and randomness is highly present in another game which has become for me, an obsession: Left 4 Dead. To the Halo 3 regular who frantically scrambles for the Spartan Laser or the Rocket Launcher or the Sniper Rifle in hopes of obtaining a relative advantage over their opponents, you won't find that in this game. Nor will you find any vehicles to whip around the levels quickly to the most well concealed sniper spot. Nor will your shields recharge after a firefight that allows you to emerge victoriously with a triple kill. Nor will you be guaranteed to play with someone of a similar skill level because you've been playing way too much. The only thing Left 4 Dead has in common with Halo 3 in fact, besides full t-bagging potential, is its 1st person perspective.

Four campaigns, each with several chapters, four characters to choose from with distinct vocal personalities, four types of guns, and a lot of zombies. Each chapter of a campaign begins and ends in a safe room for the survivors. The safe rooms house piles of ammo, at least two types of weapons, four healthpacks to carry around which will be necessary, sometimes a second pistol, and sometimes a choice between a pipe bomb, and a molotov cocktail. Between the two safe rooms is a great deal of distance, a great deal of zombies, and a "director" that throws varying amounts of zombies at the survivors depending on how well they perform.

The Director resembles that of the dungeon master in dungeons and dragons, the kid who holds a grudge is hopped up on too much soda and remembers every outcome of every game he's ever played. The director has a few pieces at his disposal, the Horde, or the traditional infected who can run, smash through doors, and are most importantly, easily killed. The infected are randomly scattered throughout the level within a certain proximity of the players and they are concentrated at certain times stampeding through halls, breaking down walls and doors, and falling through the ceiling. The levels are designed that whenever a massive horde attacks, it's impossible to predict where they're coming from. If the game were only filled with horde though, it wouldn't be challenging at all, which is why the special infected add an interesting element of strategy to the directors decisions.

Special infected include; the smoker, a tall skinny zombie who coughs like a smoker and has a tongue capable of entangling and dragging the survivors from quite an impressive distance, making Kiss look like a band of Steelers fans. There are times in the game when it seems like the director knows it can strategically place a smoker on a ledge because the tiniest hole in the wall or the door provides a clear shot for him. The most abrupt end I suffered occurred when a group of our survivors were standing in front of an elevator shaft with no elevator, and a smoker pulled me out into the shaft, and another of the special infected pounced on me, making me drop down the shaft to a quick death.

That special infected with an Olympic jump was the hunter. The hunter is the most common special infected you'll encounter and you'll know it by its terrifying scream which means you should probably run around in circles until you see him flying through the air and you can drop him with a shot to the face. The hunter is basically spider-man wearing a black hoody. He has the capability to jump in an arch up to 50 feet and when he lands on you, he'll continue to tear at you with his hands while the other infected continue to add to the pummeling.

The final special infected is the boomer, who is a corpulent, and slovenly individual with pus, blood, bile and all sorts of fluids coming out of him. He makes an awful noise that sounds like a combination of indigestion and blood gargling. Appropriately enough, this infected seeks you out close range to vomit all over you. If you manage to avoid the vomit but forget to knock him back with the butt of your gun before you shoot him, he will explode all over you offering the same effect as if he'd vomited on you, temporary blindness due to the green vomit shower whose stench is now enraging the horde like sharks in a river of blood. The vomit guarantees that you'll be more popular than pre-Presidential Barack Obama.

The boomer vomit, pouncing of the hunter, and smoker's tongue lashing all require the same thing if a horde is to be fought off successfully, a team effort. While the boomer's vomit can be battled by a lone survivor with blind shooting and a rain of lead, the tongue lashing, and the pounce cannot be broken until a teammate kills the special infected. If you're stuck in the middle of a huge wave of the horde, this may be difficult to accomplish and you may feel compelled to let loose your pipe bomb or a molotov cocktail in hopes of liquidating the undead. Ammo conservation is necessary but at times like this, it's also necessary to kill as much infected as possible to avoid damage in case you have to fight off the tank, the incredible hulk of zombies.

The tank is a nightmare to fight on the higher difficulties. Even on the lower difficulties it takes only a few hits from the tank to be incapacitated. If one comes, you better hope to be out in the open and that all your teammates are concentrating their fire on him. If one hits you, better hope it isn't in a corner because you will most likely be killed unless your teammates respond instantly. Somewhat amusing is that if a horde is attacking you and the tank tries to hit you, any of the horde in his path of destruction is gone. That power is incredibly intimidating when you're near a ledge which falling down means certain death. Standing on the roof at the end of the "No Mercy" campaign I was forced to run away from the tank while he attempted to crush me. Rounding a corner I looked back to see the tanks mighty arm coming at my face and before I could even squeeze off a shotgun shell into his face I was propelled clear off the building. The campaign ended shortly after with the three other survivors getting on the helicopter and out of the reach of the horde. The credits rolled with a special note "Will the Rough - Deceased". A bitter sweet end to the campaign which I'd survived up until that point.

The cinematic nature of the game, everything from its hour or so length, to the excessive gun violence and blood, the intermittent dialogue between the characters, the movie poster with the cheesy tag line, the absurdly hard climax battle of each campaign, and the credits at the end that divulge the number of infected who "were killed in the making of this movie," this is a unique experience each time. It is far different from anything I've ever played while maintaining the same philosophy of classic games like tetris and frogger, and pac man, that the game should get harder as you progress to become almost overwhelming, especially in the "survival mode" which is a misnomer because survival is actually impossible despite having unlimited access to ammo and health. This is obviously a far more complex game than Tetris or Frogger, or Pac Man, but it manages to maintain the classic difficulty curve that made those games so replayable. And it's got zombies. So read your "Zombie Survival Guide" courtesy of Max Brooks, get to the safe room, and remember to watch out for your teammates, cause you won't be making it through this alone. There are no cowboys in Left 4 Dead for a reason.