When you make the decision to move into a new apartment, or house, what are the first things you think about when inspecting the new residence? School district? Local shopping? How close it is to work? Or do you look at the exits and windows to determine how effectively you’d be able to defend your new home against the inevitable zombie apocalypse? If you picked the last one, then Left 4 Dead is definitely for you.

Left 4 Dead pits you and up to three friends against hordes of zombies in four different scenarios, including a hospital and an airport. You and your team move from safe room to safe room trying to avoid having your internal organs removed by a hungry zombie. If you can make it to the end of a campaign, you have the chance to get rescued…. if you can make it past one last zombie horde. In addition to your usual mindless everyday zombies, there are several special classes of zombie to deal with. Boomers can spit bile on you that will attract more zombies to your location. Hunters will pounce on you from a distance and turn your intestines into confetti. Smokers will pull you to them with their tongue. Tanks can send you flying across the room with a single punch. And then there’s the witches who just sit there crying… that is, until you disturb them. If you disturb a witch, she will attack you fiercely, dealing massive amounts of damage.

This may be a simple concept, but the execution is flawless, thanks to the AI director. The AI director determines when and from where the zombie hordes will come at you. It bases these decisions on how you’re playing the game, and what condition you’re in. This provides an infinite amount of replay value. You will literally never play the game the same way twice.

There’s also a versus mode. One team plays as the survivors, and one team plays as the infected. The survivors have to make it from one safe room to the next, and the infected have to try and stop them. You will be forced to change your tactics when you switch between survivor and infected. The infected die quickly, and move slowly. As such, teamwork, and good planning are a must if you want to taste the sweet brains of victory. Playing as a survivor is a little easier - stick with the team, and you’ll probably be ok. If you get downed, a team mate can help you back up. If you are low on health, a team mate can give you a health pack. If you get separated from the team, you are extremely vulnerable. If an infected pulls a special move on you, there won’t be anyone nearby to get them off of you, and heal you. Remember, as a survivor, respawning isn’t an option.

There is a single player mode, but It feels sort of hollow compared to it’s multiplayer counterpart. You play as one of the four survivors, and the other three are played by the AI. They basically follow you around, and talk about reloading their guns a lot. That’s not to say that it’s not still fun, but it’s a very weak experience when you compare it to playing with real people.

My one big complaint with this game is that it’s short. It doesn’t take long to learn the maps, and while the zombies come from different places each time, your tactics for dealing with them will likely be very similar. This isn’t really a problem on the PC, as modders have already begun taking matters into their own hands. On the Xbox 360, however, all you can do is wait for Valve to release new content, and you can be sure Microsoft won’t let them do that for free.

While Left 4 Dead may be light on maps, it’s heavy on replay value. If you’re into first person shooters, and intend on playing L4D online, it’s a must own. If you don’t intend on playing it online, it probably won’t have the same replay value for you unless you really, and I mean REALLY like shooting zombies.

-Mike Kurz

Tags: L4D, Microsoft, PC, review, Xbox 360, zombies

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