Left 4 Dead

Pros

• Some of the best Team Based action around.
• Versus mode is a good way to mix things up when you've played the campaign to bits.
• It's good at making you jump.

Cons

• Only four maps which on Normal at least can be done within an hour or so each, so the games "director" aside replayability comes from playing it on harder difficulties, basically.

This'll be a short review.
The games great.
There just isn't a whole lot too it.

Theres four survivors you play as.
Nervous office worker lookin' guy.
Horror movie geekette.
Badass Biker guy.
And Vietnam War Vet.

ZOMBIE APOCAYLPSE HAPPENS.
And that's basically the story in a nutshell.
There isn't a tonne of narrative, the focus is pretty much soley on the action and I think this works to the games benifit. Don't bog us down with story, bog us down with hordes of Zombies to slaughter and it does that.

Aside from the basic, shambling, shuffling horde of Zombies.. Well.. They don't really shuffle so much as run at you in large groups as fast inhumanly possible.. You get the idea. Aside from the basic Zombie there are also a few special Zombies. All except the Witch are playable in multiplayer versus.

Theres the Tank who smashes stuff up and can deal a tonne of damage. He can also tear concrete out from the ground and chuck it for a ranged attack. It generally takes a combined effort from the survivors to get this fellow down and even then it can be difficult to do without at least one survivor taking a massive amount of damage. Thus far I've only played on Normal so I've never encountered more then one at a time, but I've heard that on harder difficulities there are points where there can be four of them, which just sounds absolutely insane to me.

Theres the Smoker. He grabs dudes with his tounge from several feet away and drags them off.
If he manages to drag them to him he can do some damage but I don't think the survivors get hurt unless this happens. And as the survivors more often then not get caught on a wall or something whilst getting carried away more often then not the Smoker is just a minor annoyance. Annoyance though it might be, the getting dragged off thing can be kind of freaky.

Theres the Hunter. He pounces on surivors and tears them to shreds if the surivors teammates don't get em off... Just.. Yeah. They can be pretty freaky, especially if you're being dumb and hanging back for some stupid reason and your friends aren't around to get him off.

And the Boomer. He pukes on folk.
This blinds them, which is annoying in itself.
But it also attracts the horde. And THATS what makes it freaky.
It brings in a bunch of enemies that for a moment or two you can't see.
If there are other specials in the area at the time, this can be most painful.

And the Witch. As mentioned you can't play as her.
She can do a lot of damage, but you can also sneak past her as she just sits there quietly sobbing unless you shine your light on her or disturb her in some other fashion.
Disturb her and she'll make a run for whoever did the disturbing. And tear them to shreds.
They are a pain to kill. Not quite so painful as the tank, but more difficult then the average Zombie. Usually after they've taken down whoever disturbed them they'll run off though.

So yeah. You kill these Zombies with a small, though adequet assortment of weapons.

A campaign generally starts with someone in the opening saying they to get to this extraction point! And then they head off, slaughtering undead along the way.
It's pretty straight forward. Every so often you'll hit a safe house where you can get more ammo, health and then continue.

In the last chapter of a campaign you'll call in for extraction and make a final stand against the Zombies whilst you wait for a vehicle to show up or in the case of one scenario the plane next to you to fill up with fuel. These provide for some of the most intence sequences in the game.

And unlike other sections of the game if you die, you won't be found later on banging on a closet door wanting to be let out so you can rejoin your teammates. Your dead.
And on the closing screen it'll put up an "in memory of" and then it lists the dead survivors players, which is a nice touch. And the "credit screen" shows off the end game stats. Like how many headshots you scored or the total undead you killed which is a nice touch.



I'll wrap up.
The game is great.
It does a good job of capturing Zombie movie atmosphere and despite being relatively simple both in concept and execution it still somehow manages to grab hold and not really want to let go.