Eat your heart out Resident Evil...literally
Put yourself in the middle of a city in the grips of a full scale zombie cluster-fuck. And what you get is Left 4 Dead.
In this shooter you get game design not normally seen on consoles. We are all used to having a few AI characters who get in our way as we blow through aliens or russians, but now you better not be running ahead. This game on the easy difficulty is your typical shooter, grab some guns, grab a health-pack, and don't stop shooting. Play on a higher difficulty and you will die. Hordes of regular zombies will meet you.
Left 4 Dead adds everything to this game, once you get bored of popping off zombie heads with a trusty shotgun Valve added "special infected". The special infected are what you are going to be hearing in your nightmares after 8 hours of playing. You have the hunter, a leaping, pouncing, human seeking zombie ready to jump you when you least suspect it. The boomer, a large, disgusting, 1 too many cheetos zombie who vomits (and if shot explodes) zombie attracting bile all over the survivors. The smoker, whose long tongue will basically "snipe" you from building tops dragging you back through places you would rather just skip.
There are more of course, and the AI alone deserves its own article, but this game is one you can just have lying around for one of those gameless weekends where nothing better has come out. Playing co-op with 4 friends, yelling and screaming as something pounces on the guy next to you. Or join some online games to play as both survivors and special infected yourself (a true gem in this game). Just beware, you may find yourself craving more and more brai....I mean more Left 4 Dead when your done. I still got friends addicted.
