My recent gaming activity has seen me rotate between five games, usually spending at least some time with each one every day. Firstly there's Age of Empires II of course, which I'm still enjoying. Then there's Ticket to Ride, which I usually only play when listening to music as an extra something to do, but also because it's a fun game and I enjoy it. Thirdly, there's FIFA 09, which has been in my regular rotation for over a month now and may be starting to exhaust itself, but I'm still having fun playing it.

The fourth game I've been going at recently is Left 4 Dead. Now I was in no hurry to buy Left 4 Dead when it came out last November, as I am a player who much prefers single player gameplay than multiplayer. Co-op is more interesting to me than competitive multiplayer, but I still spend virtually no time engaging in it. So a couple of weeks ago, Amazon cut the price of Left 4 Dead down to £25, and having heard a lot of good things about it, I thought why not? And having now played a reasonable amount of it, I can say that I was wrong about it, and I was wrong to ever doubt Valve. They always manage to make games I love.

First thing worth saying about this game is that I bought it expecting to not get a lot of value out of it. I was going on the understanding that it really wasn't worth playing this game in single player mode. And while I'll conceed that the game is more fun when played with someone else, as I did with my sister during her recent return from university, you could totally play Left 4 Dead as just a single player experience. The A.I. of your teammates and opponents works extremely well, and you still have that intense visceral experience which is the core of L4D's success.

Valve has always been a master of atmospheric gameplay; one need only point at the Ravenholm level in Half-Life 2 as an example of this. However L4D may well be their finest hour. Regardless of whether you are alone or with a friend, the tension and thrills provided by this game are almost unmatched. As has been said, you really feel an overwhelming sense of panic and terror when the horde approaches, and the sobbing cries of the Witch are an easy contender for the most terrifying use of sound effects in a video game - ironically it's stiffest competition is probably the sound of the poison headcrabs from Half-Life 2, which still sends shivers down my spine when I hear it. So as a technical exercise, that is including graphics, visual design, level design, sound design etc., L4D is an absolute masterpiece.

Left 4 Dead does have weaknesses however. Although I haven't really spent enough time with the game to feel the sting of this weakness, there is a sense that there isn't a hell of a lot to this game. There are only five campaigns, and that doesn't feel like quite enough. Considering it usually takes an hour to get through each campaign, L4D offers a minimum of 5 hours of gameplay, which is still an hour or two longer than Portal, and the levels and campaigns are designed well, so what you get is 5 hours of excellent content. Plus there is replayability here. I'm dying to try versus mode, because I'd love to play as a Hunter, but don't have any friends of Xbox Live, and don't really like to enter other people's games. There is also the A.I. Director, which does help make each campaign something of a different experience, but the linearity of the campaigns and the sheer lack of them does make the game feel a little thin.

Then there's the issue of story and character design. Left 4 Dead's story offers the bare minimum in terms of detail, but still offers more immersion and genius than many story-focused games I've played (I'm looking at you Lost Odyssey). Yes, the story can be boiled down to just five words - there are zombies, kill them - and all the characters are stereotypical non-entities, but none of this matters, because the world and characters Valve has created is not only well realised but also believable. They really have done an exceptional job of capturing that spirit of the epic zombie moving, so much so that it is a total blast just watching someone else play the game.

So Left 4 Dead is an absolute triumph, and once I've worked out how to get more value out of the game experience I'm sure it will only go from strength to strength. The 5-6 hours I've spent with the game have been greatly enjoyed; it's been frustrating at times, tense and terrifying at others, but it's been a complete and total blast. I am incredibly impressed by the strength of Valve's design yet again, and considering Half-Life and Portal, they are quickly becoming my favourite game studio, rivalling even Bethesda.

And so the fith and final game that has been a mainstay of my rotation for the past week or so is my rental copy of Prince of Persia. I decided to rent this game as I was unsure if it really was for me, had some questions about it's replayability, and my only previous experience of the Prince of Persia series was a brief encounter with Warrior Within for the GameCube. Regardless, I was somewhat excited to try this game, and having now played about half of it, I can say that I like it. I don't love it, but it does have a lot going for it.

I think I can boil down my experience with Prince of Persia into a simple list of pros and cons. So let's start with the cons. The story isn't particularly engaging so far, the characters aren't hugely well realised, combat feels sticky and at times can be really infuriating, especially with it's heavy dependence on quick-time events, the gameplay isn't massively varied and can get a little tedious at times, and considering the presence of an achievement for beating the game in under 12 hours, which isn't bad, there are many games that offer a longer more varied and interesting experience.

But since I did say that I liked this game, allow me to explain why, despite these faults, I'm enjoying my time spent with PoP. I really like the artistic design, it's a good looking game with a pretty well realised, crafted and designed world to jump around in, the parkour gameplay works well, occasionally I get a kick out of the Prince's snarky personality and humour, I really like the sound design, I appreciate the ability to choose my own path through the game as while it doesn't hugely affect gameplay it does remove the game's sense of linearity, and although it isn't quite as open-world as Assassin's Creed was, there is still a good sense of freedom to the game.

Prince of Persia is a game that does remind me quite a bit of Assassin's Creed, although with some significant tweeks. And although in hindsight Assassin's Creed was a game I'd have rather rented than bought, I still really liked Assassin's Creed, and I'm really liking Prince of Persia as well. There is something compelling and hypnotic about the game design, especially visually. In fact the visual design is almost as good as Mirror's Edge, but unlike Mirror's Edge it isn't crippled by atrocious gameplay and bad level design. In many ways this is the game Mirror's Edge should have been, except adapted for modern day and with some other major tweeks as well. I've spent about 7 hours with the game so far, and have cleared about half the worlds, so I've still got a fair bit of time to spend with the game, but so far I really am enjoying it.