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Tucked-away in Valve’s Meeting Room at E3 2008 was a
playable build of Left 4 Dead, one of the highest profile
titles coming in the latter half of this year. “Left 4 Dead
is
 Valve’s attempt to fill gamers’ desire for a dynamic and engaging
co-operative action experience,” said Doug Lombardi, VP of marketing
at Valve. “This has been validated by the press, who are calling it
one of the most anticipated titles of the year.”
Valve have become famous through only a handful of
titles – the Half-Life series and Counter-Strike – and
their hard-won reputation for delivering quality products has gamers
the world-over salivating at their next proposal – co-operatively
surviving a zombie apocalypse.
Set in the modern day, Left 4 Dead casts four
players in the role of a group of survivors “in an epic struggle
against hordes of swarming zombies and terrifying “Boss Infected”
mutants.”
Running on the Counter-Strike: Source engine,
Left 4 Dead doesn’t feature a traditional Campaign structure,
instead offering four scenarios to the player. Each features four
“Average Joe” characters for the players to slip into, each of which
is simply stated to represent the standard array of people you’d
commonly find in an urban setting. The action is scaled depending on
you’re teams performance. Hacking down zombies left-and-right with
abandon will see the waves continually coming, whilst having a
team-mate struggle may see the quantity thin-out. The Intelligent
Zombie Wave System does well to measure the player’s performance,
and not only decides how many, where and when the zombies will
attack, but also how – allowing entrances from air vents, elevator
shafts and even the ability to bust through doors.
Player can attack either with their equipped weapon, or
a melee attack that will force enemies backwards – a life saver when
reloading. Your arsenal includes a selection of an M16 Assault
Rifle, Shotgun, dual Pistols and projectiles such as Pipe Bombs and
Molotov
 Cocktails. Weaponry can typically be found in Safe Houses,
areas crossing intersections between Level Checkpoints, which also
allow players to heal themselves.
Team play comes into focus throughout the game, with
basics such as boosting players over walls, healing each other and
saving one another from a marauding zombie pack, but also in areas
in which the team are forced to fight as one unit. Unlike other
recent co-operative titles such as Army of Two, straying-out
on your own will most certainly seal your doom.
Left 4 Dead is currently a fantastic experience
when left to a basic four-player Co-Operative Survival title.
However, when factoring in the added – yet currently unseen – option
to expand the game to up to eight players, with a second four
playing as the “Boss Infected” zombies, each with their own unique
abilities, Left 4 Dead all-of-a-sudden becomes one of the
most enticing online prospects on the calendar in 2008. Due for
worldwide launch in November on both PC and Xbox360 – of which
Electronic Theatre
has been assured both versions are “virtually identical” – you can
expect a lot more on Left 4 Dead to be coming very soon
indeed. |
