In this review, we try to keep ourselves healed up in the PC/Steam game Left 4 Dead. We find out how well this FPS game plays.
This game was released in 2008. It would go on to spawn a sequel. This game was also the subject of a first impression video which you can check out here.
For the most part, this is an online co-op game. At least in the single player mode, you play as one of the four surviving characters: Francis, Bill, Zoey, or Louis. A flu-like disease has swept the town you start in. The disease causes everyone to turn into rabid zombies that try to kill anyone who isn’t already infected. Four people manage to become immune to the diseases effects and it is up to them to fight their way past the hoards of zombies to reach safety.
You start at the top of a rooftop where you have been chased by the zombie hoards. You can choose between a couple of weapons. You’ll also get the maximum ammunition right away. Additionally, you have a flashlight to help light the way in dark areas. It doesn’t take long for you to encounter the commonly infected. If they get close to you, your walking pace is extremely slow, so keeping even a small amount of distance will prove to be beneficial to you.
While the flashlight can help you navigate in dark areas, it is also possible to zombies to notice you and attack. So, if you can sneak around in the dark, that can help you ambush unsuspecting zombies and avoid damage. Note that your fellow survivors will have names over top of them and have a blue outline around them. This is extremely useful if you get slightly separated from them and they come running to catch up. The more you can avoid friendly fire, the better.
One thing you can encounter is a rush of zombies. A whole team of them will come chasing after you every so often. Ideally, you’ll want to find a way to funnel them through a choke point. This can help you take them out more easily. Just be warned that zombies can climb walls and chain link fences.
After a rush, special zombies can appear that have unique and special attacks. A Smoker, for instance, can shoot a long tongue out at a survivor and drag them away. The only way to escape from the grasp is to wait for a fellow survivor to free you. Killing the smoker will release a noxious gas in the area temporarily.
Another special zombie you can encounter is the Boomer. These fatter zombies can explode when killed. They have an attack where they barf on you. While that simply sounds disgusting, the bile not only temporarily impairs your vision, but causes another rush of zombies to be attracted to you as well. Ideally, you’ll want to kill them off at a distance if you can help it.
A third special zombie is the Hunter. These zombies are not only fast, but they also jump high and long. They can pin you down and attack you. Again, in this situation, the only way to free yourself from the attacks are with help from fellow survivors.
Of course, you have a number of different weapons you can use to help fend off all of those enemies. You start each campaign with a single pistol. It’s possible to locate a second pistol later on in the level. Each pistol carries 15 bullets. Duel wield will double that capacity to 30. Your fire rate can also increase as well. While these weapons are somewhat weak and have not so great accuracy, the practical perk is the fact that you get unlimited ammo with these. So, you’ll never really run out of ammo in this game.
In addition to this, you can carry a second weapon. Any of a number of secondary weapons can fit in this slot.
The first weapon of note is the machine gun. While the ammunition is limited, picking up either the weapon itself or pressing the action button near an ammunition pile/can will replenish full ammo. You have the machine gun which packs a reasonable punch. Unfortunately, it isn’t all that accurate. Good for short and medium range combat.
A second weapon is the shot gun. A classic weapon from many different zombie themed games. This weapon fires a spread of pellets that can take out a zombie quite easily. While the power is quite something, it suffers from a lack of long distance accuracy. Additionally, each shot must be individually reloaded. Excellent for short range combat, though you probably need to pick good times to reload.
A third weapon is the hunting rifle. This long range weapon is the only weapon that utilizes a scope. The accuracy is pretty much unmatched. It also packs a heck of a punch on a per bullet basis. The ideal weapon for picking off zombies from a distance – especially when you intend on aiming for the head. That’s almost a sure one-hit kill. Unfortunately, the fire rate isn’t the greatest and it’s questionably useful in short range combat. Probably best left for large areas.
Finally, there is the assault rifle. This weapon is certainly one of the most powerful weapons in the game. While it has excellent accuracy as well, it lacks the scope feature of the hunting rifle. Still, if you can get a bit closer to zombies, you can actually perform some good head shot chains with a single bullet per zombie.
In addition to this, you also have an explosives slot. This is reserved for one of two weapons: Molotov cocktails and pipe bombs.
Molotov cocktails can set an area on fire for a limited period of time. If you happen to have one of these in your inventory and the music changes to indicate an oncoming rush of zombies, you can pull this out and find out where the zombies are rushing in. Lob it onto the ground in front of the zombies and you create a wall of fire. Just watch those zombies burn and fall to the ground, mitigating the threat they pose. Just beware of a second point of entry for the zombies.
Meanwhile, the pipe bomb is also useful in its own way. If you walk into a new area and see a whole bunch of zombies milling about, lob one of these into the middle of the area. The pipe bomb will emit a beeping sound that alerts the zombies to it. In response, the zombies in the area will rush into the area and try and attack it in a frenzy. Eventually, the pipe bomb will detonate, taking out all nearby zombies. After that, you can simply wander into the area and pick off the few remaining straggling zombies as well and get that valuable safe passage for a few meters.
There are two additional spots in your inventory. One is reserved for the medical pack. The other is reserved for a pill bottle.
Medical packs are used to heal you up. Often, you can heal yourself up to 80 out of 100 health. You’ll need to find a safe place to heal up, though, because you need to hold down the fire button to complete the healing process. In addition to this, you can use this health pack on fellow survivors and heal them up. Conversely, you can also allow a fellow survivor to heal you up. Generally, if they are bots, they will use them on you when you get down to about 50 health or less.
Meanwhile, pills can also heal you up. The thing is, the heal up is temporary. After a while, each point you get from the pills will gradually disappear. If you take damage, what actual remaining health you have will also be reduced. Generally, this is to be used in a more desperate situation before you can find an actual health pack. On the plus side, you can use these quickly.
What is less obvious is the ability to hold special weapons. Throughout the various maps, you can pick up special objects and either throw or drop them. From there, you can shoot them and watch the fireworks. Gas cans, when shot, operate like Molotov cocktails in that they cause an area ti catch fire. Great for creating a protective barrier when you want to either save your Molotov for later or you simply don’t have one. Other objects generally explode. This includes BBQ fuel containers and compressed air canisters.
Finally, what you can find in a few areas are fixed machine guns. Simply use the action button and then use the fire button to begin mowing down the hoards of enemies. The perks of these is not only the fire rate, but also the unlimited ammo and no need to reload. There are, unfortunately, pitfalls. The most obvious is that they cannot move. Additionally, they have limited directional range. Finally, most require some time to “warm up” before they can fire. Additionally, they can overhead, requiring you to wait for them to cool off. So, you can’t just hold down fire forever with these things.
What you’ll also encounter are a few switches and machines that you need to operate. Most of the time, it requires you to stand there and hold the action button until the metre fills up. A few, however, simply require you to throw a switch. Most of these initiate a last part of an area where you are attacked by a hoard of zombies or, sometimes, a few special zombies. Regardless, you’ll have to defend yourself in these situations after these events are triggered.
There are a few other hazards to note. One hazard throughout all of the original missions is the car alarm. If you accidentally shoot it, the alarm will go off. This causes another rush of zombies to come charging at you.
Another hazard is the witch. These special zombies appear in fixed locations on the map. You can avoid these altogether. If you shoot one, you “disturb” it and it will attack. On normal difficulty settings, even a rifle bullet head shot won’t take them out, so be prepared to run after you empty the whole clip on it. They can jump like a hunter and pin you down, causing damage to you in the process.
In addition to this, you’ll encounter the occasional “tank”. Tanks are large giant zombies that require a lot of damage to take out. In all practicality, you’ll need to harness the power of all four survivors to take these down. Tanks can run up to you and punch you down the street. This will temporarily stun you in the process. Additionally, tanks can tackle you and start damaging you like other special zombies. Finally, tanks can also pick up large rocks and throw them at you to also cause a large chunk of damage and stun you in the process.
If you run out of your normal health, you’ll be incapacitated. What pops up is an additional 300 health: all temporary. An additional problem is that you can’t move. All you can use is your pistols to fend off attacks. So, you have to wait for your fellow survivors to come up to you and revive you. This requires a status bar to fill up. If you do get revived, you get 30 temporary health. If the survivor is interrupted, they’ll have to start all over again. Should you run out of that 300 health while incapacitated, you die.
The ultimate goal is to reach either the next safe house or the escape vehicle/location. The escape vehicles signal the end of the campaign. Meanwhile, the safe houses are marked by large red steel doors. Once all survivors have entered the safe house, close the door to end the level. Additionally, if all survivors board the escape vehicle, you complete the campaign.
Another thing to note is how walls and doors work. If you close a door, the zombie will have to break through the door to attack you. This generally gives you ample time to pick them off while they are trying to bust down the door. So, sometimes, a good defence is either closing an open door or leaving a door closed and shooting at the zombies. Another thing is the fact that you can also shoot through the tiny window of those safe house doors. Why risk going outside when you can pick off a few zombies at the entrance with to no risk to your person?
Additionally, you can also shoot through thin walls. This can be great for taking out zombies unaware of your presence. They probably won’t even see you coming. Not all walls can be shot through, though.
One of the strong points is the amount of content found in this game. Not only do you have fairly long campaigns for the most part, but play is also spread across 6 campaigns (with the possibility of snagging more if you really wanted).
Additionally, you have a number of different co-op and special online modes built right into the game. So, there is plenty to do in this game.
One thing that is apparent is the limited ability to carry weapons. One the one hand, this does handicap your ability to adapt to different situations midway through the level. On the other hand, it also adds to the sense of realism to the game. So, it’s tough to really criticize the game on this point as it isn’t overly handicapping your ability to play.
What is apparent is the AI of other characters (both friend and foe) in this game. The most infuriating aspect others picked up on is the fact that the AI that takes over for other characters has a lot of issues. Anything from randomly running in front of you while you are attacking to occasionally just randomly standing around, not moving for periods of time. Additionally, sometimes, enemies get stuck behind objects (which actually makes the game easier) or just magically appearing on top of objects when it should technically be a wall.
Clipping can also prove to be a bit buggy at times. Zombies can spawn or move into the most unusual locations. In one instance, I saw a zombie (live) stuck in a flight of stairs. Essentially, the head was above the state and the rest of the body went through and was randomly hanging. There was no real way of killing it for some reason, so I just moved on. The more common clipping problems is the fact that enemies can occasionally slip through walls partially. The practical bonus is the fact that you can also shoot the head through the wall, killing the zombie on the other side where bullets wouldn’t otherwise penetrate.
In one instance, a Smoker managed to capture me in a way that prevented the other survivors to see it. Effectively, the tongue wrapped around a ceiling, though the hole in the roof and back into the building. As a result, I just hung helplessly until I died while the survivors just stood there.
A big positive in this game is the fact that the HUD (Heads Up Display) is well crafted. You can see ammo, weapons, items, and also the health of fellow survivors (and what health items they carry as well).
The ability to pool healing resources also works very well, so the fact that you can carry a maximum of two health items is actually not that big of a deal.
Additionally, the AI is generally very good at taking out special zombies (so good, it can be difficult to snag a few of the achievements, but it could be worse, really).
One final pitfall is the fact that the ability to save has been greatly reduced. Unlike so many other games, you can’t really save anywhere you like. Instead, it’s just a question of which checkpoint you can get to. You can always continue on from those checkpoints after, but that’s all the saving you can really do in this game.
Generally speaking, this game has a number of strengths and weaknesses. Strengths include the amount of content, certain aspects of survivor AI, and the ability to use some of the other modes in this game. The HUD is also well done and the ability to pool medical supplies works very well. Pitfalls include clipping issues, other aspects of character AI, and a reduced ability to save. It’s not a bad game by any means, but I wouldn’t exactly go running around saying this is a perfect game either.
Graphically speaking, this game does offer a lot. The various models of the characters are nicely done. Meanwhile, the environments are nicely detailed. There are even a few special effects that work quite well. The only thing about this game is that I’m not entirely sure it’s a particularly ground breaking game in this department. It’s by no means bad, but I’m not sure I would call it totally amazing either.
Audio is OK. The music is there, but it only comes in splashes. Even then, I’m not sure it is particularly memorable either. As for the sound effects, it’s pretty good all around. Nothing to complain about. The voice acting is probably the games strongest audio aspect. Whether it’s the witch sounds or the lines of the various survivors, this really carries a lot of slack left behind by other aspects in the game.
Overall, this game is generally quite enjoyable. It’s got a lot of content to keep you busy for hours in the one player mode. There is also plenty of online and co-op modes to also keep you busy. The AI of the survivors is quite good at protecting you from special zombies. Also, the sharing of medical supplies and the HUD works very well. Pitfalls include other aspects of the AI, clipping issues, some physics issues, and the reduced ability to save in single player modes. Graphics are pretty solid and the audio is alright. So, a solid game all around.
Overall
Furthest point in game: Completed the game’s main campaigns in single player mode. Managed to get the Jump Shot, quick power, and Supreme Sacrifice achievements among others.
General gameplay: 19/25
Replay value: 8/10
Graphics: 7/10
Audio: 3/5
Overall rating: 74%
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Facebook.
