Left 4 Dead Hands-On Impressions

 

The campaign on show was the first in the game and was based around a hospital that you must fight your way to, then through in order to reach the roof to get to a helicopter extraction. This campaign consisted of 5 maps, starting in streets, leading through underground subway tunnels and finally into the hospital and up on to the roof. Each map provided new challenges as there was a good mixture of close combat and long range so you had to choose your weapons wisely, that said all the guns were really fun to use in all situations though the shotguns got too inaccurate at long ranges and the hunting rifle wasn’t really suitable for being stormed by a horde of zombies right up in your face. There is a fairly small collection of weapons, though it provides everything you need and makes more sense instead of having an entire armoury to choose from, after all you are one of the few survivors left. We got the chance to use every weapon we found and these were the pump action shotgun, auto shotgun, M16 assault rifle, Uzi, hunting rifle and of course single and dual pistols. There are also a few explosives such as pipe bombs and petrol bombs, both of which have their different uses.

 

The first thing to remember when playing this game is to work as a team, if you don’t, you die, simple as that. On our first go we though it was going to be fairly easy so we jumped straight in all guns blazing, we failed…badly. Teamwork is the key and there are a number of features to help you out in this respect. For a start, you can heal each other, though you rarely get more than 1 or 2 medic-packs during a particular mission. Also, you won’t have to fight over weapons and ammo as if there is a rifle on a table, everyone can pick up the rifle, not just one of you, the same goes for ammo, though not for explosives and health. There is also a series of voice commands you can use to inform team mates of situations and we didn’t see “SHIT!! I’m outta’ here!” as an option.

 

Teamwork becomes all the more important once you encounter the bosses in the game. There are five bosses to contend with and each bring their own challenge. First off, there is the tank who is basically a massive chunky zombie who can take a lot of damage, if you try to take him alone you will probably fail so it is important for your entire team to divert attention to this boss. Then there is the hunter who hurls himself through the air on to one of you, if this happens to you there is nothing you can do but wait as your health slowly goes down unless a team mate manages to shoot or punch him off you. The boomer is a fat explosive hulk who, when shot, explodes, so it’s a good idea to stay clear of him, if he gets close enough he will vomit on you covering your screen in green slime so you cant tell the difference between friend and foe. Then there is the smoker, who has a really long tongue and will wrap it around you given the chance and pull you towards him leaving you unable to fight back, again this requires the aid of a team mate in order to disrupt him. Finally, there is the witch and she is definitely the most unique boss. If you pass by her quietly she wont do anything, however once bullets start flying she will attack you, but more importantly she will screech, calling in a horde of normal zombies on to you in no time. We generally found that trying to take most of the bosses alone didn’t work, so you really need to work together to overcome their abilities.

 

Interestingly, while healing a team mate who is already up and running will take up a medic-pack, reviving a downed team mate doesn’t, so it sometimes pays to let the weak ones go down if you are sure you will be able to revive them easily enough. If you are so unfortunate as to get floored by the horde (huh, that rhymes) your health bar will go to 300hp though this will drain as you get attacked, leaving you a good amount of time to try and fight back with your pistol until a team mate can come and revive you. However, if you don’t get revived you will die fully, in which case you are out of that map, but not permanently, it is possible for your team to get you back in the game if they keep an eye out for an on-screen marker telling you to rescue nearby survivors, if you do, anyone who was dead will be resurrected with a weapon and ready to go, though these resurrection points are scarce (and random, I think) so its not a good idea to take them for granted. You will know if a team mate is in trouble as they will have a dark red outline to them as you look at them, whereas it will usually be white. It will also give you prompts on screen if there is something big going down, so it will warn you of nearby bosses, team mates in trouble and requests for healing.

 

Though we only got to play one of the campaigns (we asked for the one on the farm, but they only brought the hospital one) it was split in to 5 maps and each took about 10-15 minutes to complete. This may sound short but when strung together into one long mission it can be quite lengthy, though there are loading times between maps. At the beginning of each one you will also get the chance to fully re-supply with medic-packs and ammo.

 

There were a few little cool things we noticed while playing. Firstly, zombies don’t know how to open doors so right away this gives you a good line of defence, however they can hack their way through wooden doors and this is great because first they will punch a hole through the middle which you can then shoot at them through, however if there is enough of them they will break them down. From what we could tell they couldn’t get through doors that weren’t wooden (i,e metal ones) so it gave us good opportunities to bottleneck the enemy and use the environment to our advantage. This was also helped by the fact that there was occasionally oil tanks dotted around that you could place about before an attack and shoot to blow up. Of course they aren’t the only source of explosives; you are able to pick up two grenade-like items, though you can only carry one type at a time. Firstly, pipe bombs are just home-made grenades that beep loudly, throw it into an incoming horde and they will go for it because they are drawn to sound, when it blows it will take the entire group with them. Alternatively you can take petrol bombs and these set off large areas of fire which is great for defending a particular entrance as running through will kill the ordinary zombie, though keep in mind that with friendly fire on, you will often find yourself burning your friends in close quarter battles.

 

By far the coolest part of the game though was the way the AI director works. By making it harder for groups that are doing well, spawns for zombies and bosses are always different, in one mission we had a tank on us literally 5 seconds after we left the safe house at the start (yeah, we got that pro over 2 days :P) and at the end, we had at least 3 bosses (smoker, tank, maybe 2 hunters) on us at once…. And because the normal zombies come from different places it keeps you on your toes the whole time. Every door you open might hold an empty room, while it may hold 30 zombies wanting to tear you limb from limb (sadly they can’t actually do that, though you can shoot off limbs from them). It’s such a tense game but it’s just incredibly fun to play with friends. I’m not sure how the friendly AI would hold up but I doubt anyone will struggle to find games online. Left 4 Dead is bound to be a real hit when it arrives in November, so keep an eye out, you don’t want to miss this one.

 

Sweedums.