Hands Off With Left 4 Dead
There were two games I was really looking forward to seeing at EA's Spring Break last week and coincidentally they both have the word "dead" in the title. (This might tell you a little something about my taste in games.) One of them was Dead Space which, due to an arbitrary decision to make viewings of it by appointment only, I was unable to see. Fortunately I was able to see Left 4 Dead, a title I have been looking forward to seeing since it was announced last year. Notice I said see and not play. They had four stations set up so we could all check out the four person multiplay which is the crux of the game's mechanic, but unfortunately they only had the PC version set up and sadly I am not a PC gamer. I've played some, certainly, but not enough to want to sit down with three other players at a game event and show off my ability to walk into walls. So, I satisfied myself with standing back and watching as others played and taking in what I could.
Left 4 Dead is a four person co-op FPS game that puts players in the roles of a group of survivors trying to escape from the zombie apocalypse. In a twist on the usual, players can choose to play either survivors or zombies. This last bit is the one that intrigues me and of course, the one that wasn't on display at the event. The graphics looked great for a survival horror game and I hope that the console version is able to have something comparable. The street scenes and subway areas looked quite good and I'm interested to see what other types of environments will look like. I spoke with a few of the people who played and they mentioned that the controls seemed smooth and fairly easy to pick up.
The action was fast and intense, giving the player a real sense of panic and danger. These are no Resident Evil style shambling corpses. These zombies will come flying out of dark corners to feast on you before you even realize what's happening. This is also an intelligent zombie horde. They can find ways to pick of the survivors one by one so always be sure the rest of your team mates in site. A friend of mine related a tale of following a zombie down an alley and blowing it away. Turning around he saw another zombie and followed that one as well, taking it out as soon as he was able. Next thing he knew he was separated from the rest of his group and turned a corner to be faced with a horde of zombies waiting for him at the end of their carefully laid trap. So, word to the wise: If you see a lone zombie wandering the alleys, do not follow him! It could well be a trap.
What I saw of Left 4 Dead really left me wanting more. The co-op feature and the ability to play as zombies are going to be a big selling point for this game and I hope the story will be strong enough to support these great gameplay features. I'm hoping to get a 360 hands on with it once E3 rolls around. Keep an eye out for Left 4 Dead on your PC and Xbox 360 this fall. You won't be disappointed.
Fruit Brute
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 20 May 2008
· Comments (2)
Other stuff like this: ea, left 4 dead, pc, turtle rock, valve, xbox 360, zombies
I really hope that the folks at Valve make it so that L4D allows a player to just smoothly jump right in without having to organize a whole "raid party" just to play. If anyone can do it, I bet they can.
A Gay Zombie A-Team...my dream come true!