So like, last weekend, valve had a 50% off Left4Dead deal, and i decided to take it. After playing the game both online and offline for a week, i feel I'm ready to write a small review of it.
Why did i wait this long to get the game u ask? Well, it was expansive, and it's been out for a while now, so all the initial hype is gone. if people still say good things about it, then it's prolly ok.
ConceptYou play as 1 of 4 survivors that act as a team. Their goal is to make it through a zombie infested area. Sounds simple? it kind of is.
The InfectedThe zombies however, aren't those old school slow ass zombies that made sense (sense here being a relative term), a corpse should never b faster or stronger than a human, just doesn't make sense. however, this game uses the term "infected", so i guess they can sort of get away with it.
Besides the grunt zombies, there's special ones that mutated and spice up the gameplay.
- Hunters - The role of the hunter is pretty much make sure that the players don't feel like they can run around by themselves, actually forces them to move in pairs, otherwise it's certain death. They can pounce on a survivor and incapacitate them, requiring another survivor to free them. they're fragile but do a lot of damage.
- Smokers - Also a disabler, but this one is more comparable to a sniper as he just hides in corner and rooftops and launches his tongue at survivors, dragging them to him and draining his life until another survivor rescues the first one. Again, no particularly strong, but forces the team to stick together.
- Boomers - Virtually useless by themselves, their goal is simply to spread their juices all over the survivors, sounds like a 70s porn movie, but the "juices" cause a horde attack (a rush of normal zombies) which targets the juiced victim.
- Tank - As the name implies, this guy can take and deal a huge amount of damage. He's often seen as a boss fight, he can punch cars towards survivors and tear up part of the asphalt and throw it at the survivors. although slow, 2-3 punches from him can incapacitate a survivor.
- Witch - Never EVER disturb and turn off ur flashlight near her! that's all u need to know.
SurvivorsThe survivors are usually players, but can b computer controlled, when computer controlled I've noticed they each tend to have a role and weapon preference, for example Zoey tends to b the sniper and usually the first one to offer to heal you when u need it.
I have to say, so far my online experience points that the AI of the survivors is way above average players. The character designs are kinda bland, seeing as this game sort of aims at a realistic look, but it works with the game i guess. It's just kind of visually boring.
GameplayDue to the nature of the special zombies, players are almost forced to move together, being alone is near certain death. As such, teamwork becomes very important, and yet, not too vital so u don't have to obsess too much about it.
I will mention right now the flashlight, because visibility is part of a game: it's terrible, those are bad and picky, i can't tell u what's wrong with them, but they're sometimes selective on what they wanna light up, not so much on the environment, but more on the infected and survivors. Reloading on some weapons renders u blind during the process which kinda sucks, but was intentional seeing as you need your teammates to cover u during that.
The weaps available come in in what i call tier "yo gonna die soon", tier "dammit where's tier decent" and tier "decent".
- Tier "yo gonna die soon" is pretty much the pistol(s), those have infinite ammo but u can pretty much only deal with 1 zombie at a time.
- Tier "dammit where's tier decent" is the shotgun and the uzi, both are kind of decent, but still feel fucking weak seeing what you have to deal with.
- Tier "decent" is the sniper rifle, the auto shotgun and the assault rifle, and u finally start being able to do damage. Not a fan of sniping, the auto shotgun can rapid fire REALLY fast and can easily blow a wave of a zombie rush, reload time is an issue though, the assault rifle does decent dmg, reload's fast and it's the weap that can fire the most continuously.
Also should b noted, u can carry only 1 weap besides the gun, so choose carefully. i do have to admit i wish there were more weaps to choose from, or at least b able to carry 2.
I have to mention this under gameplay: Louis is way to easy to mistake as a zombie. and since u do take friendly fire dmg, NO ONE likes to play as Louis. Oddly enough, the black guy IS always the first one to die.
Health, however, is relatively weird in L4D, i couldn't really explain exactly how it works, but it's very "human" like. When ur health gets to 0 u may still survive. i think that When ur health drops to 0, u collapse on the ground and enter an adrenaline mode where u have 300 health, if u lose all that then u die, if you are rescued, u may of not have any real health, but normally have just "adrenaline health" which will drop over time. If when that health is gone, u enter like a weird state of "last effort" where u barely hear anything, u see everything in black and white and move pretty slow.
As long as u keep being rescued, u have several chances to go on.
Level designThe game has a very well polished ambiance, even though it has a realistic look, they mixed the old school feel of horror movies with artistic style decisions towards the gameplay and still fits really well.
Down side is that there's only 4 campaigns with 5 levels each. and i gotta admit replaying them in a week already feels a bit repetitive, however, there enemy and item spawn is extremely randomized.
You can't count on anything so there's always that feel u gotta b on your toes, as for items, I've played a campaign where in 4 safe houses in a row my team didn't get a single medkit, I was seriously counting on those too.
The levels however, do have a nice and original path. There's no linear feel to the paths, so much that the first time u play those u will get lost and go the wrong way.
First impressions as a NoobLike i mentioned, the paths were not very obvious, and i got lost a few times. The 1 weap system became quickly obvious, and the weaps themselves where easy to judge and use. using medkits and pills was later explained by the game itself. So i think it's relatively easy to start playing this game.
The learning curve is very very short IMO, it became quickly clear how ur not supposed to wander off like a retard. The game quickly makes it clear that moving together is key to making it through the levels.
"Oh fuck!"The horde rush feels a lot like encounters in serious sam 1/2, except much faster, from unexpected sides and you have much less powerful weapons.
On easy difficulty, friendly fire is near negligible, however, on higher difficulty it becomes a very big issue. Also difficulty ramps up a LOT!
