Left4Dead is a new co-op survival shooter from the makers of Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike that’s coming out on PC and Xbox 360 in the next fortnight. Yesterday afternoon, the first demo went live, giving those who pre-ordered the game a chance to try it out. We loaded up our 12 gauge to pop some undead skulls and see if the game lives up to the hype…
Although L4D comes with a single player mode, the real intention is to take three of your buddies to fight alongside you. Basically, a single level consists of getting from A to B; in the demo’s case this is getting from the roof of an apartment building, down through a subway to a final onslaught in a generator room. All you have to do along the way is not have your brains ripped out by the legions of zombies. Easy, right?
L4D’s special sauce is the AI Director, which carefully paces out the action so that you are always met with a different pattern of enemies each time you play. Pockets of lingering enemies will be spread out randomly in the abandoned buildings and gloomy streets. Then at times, the Director will suddenly amp the action up to eleven, springing a surprise horde attack where an army of undead comes sweeping out of side corridors, tumbling off buildings and sprinting out of back-alleys to tear you into bite-sized chunks.
Because you can’t predict when this is going to happen, it makes playing the same level over and over again a new experience each time, and you have to always be on your guard, protecting your team mates and checking your back.
This design really does work as intended. Even the best co-op games of the past few years all become very predictable after only a handful of playthroughs. With Left4Dead, you can’t learn the patterns, because there aren’t any to learn.
That means the appeal lasts considerably longer than it would have otherwise. Furthermore, this element of uncertainty naturally coaxes you into thinking as a team, huddling together, taking turns to cover doorways and hold the rear guard. It’s the perfect antidote to all those pathetic, bickering idiots that normally get their innards munched on in traditional zombie flicks.
Alongside the normal zombos, which alone take just a couple of well placed shots to bring down, there are boss characters to spice up the mix. Smokers can whip their tongues out and pluck teammates right from your midst, Hunters can leap in out of nowhere and pin players to the ground, Boomers are bloated ball of undead custard that vomit up a blinding goo that attracts the horde directly to anyone covered in it. The Tank is a muscled behemoth that’s as hard to take down as its namesake.
Where even the Director’s careful timing of enemy waves can’t keep you from feeling a little bit cocky at times, the arrival of a boss can rapidly turn the odds against you. And that usually comes with a hilarious chorus of girly shrieks.
In the full game, other players will be able to control the boss characters, and we suspect it’s this that will really set the game apart.
So far the gameplay appears to deliver everything that Valve has promised – and we’re very much looking forward to trying out the other 19 levels – but it’s the back end that is letting the game down right now.
In fairness, while it is called a demo, it’s really more like an open beta at this stage. Numerous players (especially from the UK, unfortunately) are reporting major problems when trying to join matchmaking servers. We experienced the same thing, eagerly waiting to join a dedicated server, only to be thrown off after 15 failed connections. And it happens a LOT too. We’re really hoping that Valve gets this problem ironed out by the time the full game gets released, or that it gives PC players more choice as to where to pick their servers.
If you haven’t pre-ordered the game already, and would like to try before you buy, the proper demo will be out on November 11th. In the meantime, check out the brilliant opening trailer here:
Out Nov 20| £35 | Left4Dead
