Right, ive been bored recently and have been wondering what
to do. I posted on the forums about something to do which would help me in a
future career in game programming, and a few people suggested game reviews; so
here we go; the first is on Left 4 Dead. I know its been out ages but I’ve only
recently got it and I thought it would be a good idea to try it out and see
what you guys think. You also have to bear in mind I bought this for the Xbox,
yeh I probably should of got it for PC, but more of my friends had it for
console. Enjoy.
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 I’ve always been a
big ass fan of Valve since I was introduced to it a few years back when a
friend pushed me to buy Orange Box. Once I got this, I was hooked; I played TF2
for days, completed Portal multiple times, and downloaded my fair share of
mods. However when I heard of L4D I was somewhat sceptical; as at the time I
was playing Zombie Panic! Source, I thought it would be a zombie game, only
with limits shoved around it. I was wrong, I didn’t foretell the vastness of the
social community, the amount of reply value and the strategy that goes into it;
not so that much its constantly deciding what to do, but without making it so
fucking simple, you just run’n’gun, with no actual motive.
The gameplay moves you seamlessly from area to the next
without breaking up the frantic pace. Once in a while you will you get an event
which will alert a horde of zombies, this is great fun, as before you know it,
hundreds of zombies are coming at you from every angle, and it really speeds up
the pace of the game. And even after this immense rush, you still need to move
on get to the next area, killing zombies, dodging witches and trying to avoid
those blood special zombies, just to get to the safe room, where you can rest;
until it starts all over again. One thing I didn’t get however is the different
campaigns, once you complete on campaign you get rescued, then you start the
next one, and you have to survive again suck in the middle of nowhere. Somewhat
confusing but I seemed to have forgotten about this within two minutes of
blowing heads of zombies. This does mean, however, that there is not plot…who
cares? I honestly don’t mind being thrown into the middle of a group of
survivors with no actually story being told, it makes the survival aspect of
the game so much greater, and means you can replay the same level without
knowing what’s going to happen.
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 The AI, however
useful it may be with pin point accuracy shooting, somewhat annoyed me, dunno
if it is just me. I found myself incapacitated by some of the special infected,
and the AI when off to help some of the other AI, that’s not what it’s there
for, its to bloody well make my job easier. However that is if you chose to
play with the AI, which I suggest you don’t; Left 4 Dead is solely a co-op
game, and if you don’t have 4 friends, then you can always play online, but it
makes the experience that much better if you are playing with friends rather
than shouting at the AI to stop shooting the witch and help me up. The AI
director is also a nice addition; basically no one campaign is the same as the
last, items are spawned in different locations, the game randomly chooses a
special infected and then goes from there. This only made the experience richer
and made it more interested to go back again.
The multiplayer is basically the only reason to buy this
game to be honest, I cant really find myself sat at the single player for too
long. I particularly enjoy the Versus Mode, where two teams alternate between
the special infected and the survivors (to be honest I found the survivors
irritating so I just left the game and found one where I could play special
infected again), I really enjoyed being able to attack the survivors and added
a whole new dimension to the campaigns, allowing you to play through them
again, but this time trying to stop them surviving. The game is built around
multiplayer, so if you don’t have Xbox Live (that’s if you have it for Xbox)
its not really worth it, get it for PC…actually, scrap that, get it for PC
anyway, the community is larger, there are bound to be mods and special servers
out soon to enliven the experience, man I wasted my money. Also if you have it
on PC, the graphics will be much better detailed, I’m afraid I’ve only played
on the PC version once, so I don’t really want to comment, but even on the
Xbox, using a standard Scart connection, I found the graphics nice, with some
light shadows and superb lighting to make it even more cinematic.
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Overall I found this an amazing online game, however that’s
it, and online game; don’t get it if you don’t plan to go online (however by
this time most people would have made up their minds). The community is huge
and just adds to the excitement of surviving if you have someone by your side,
rather than having an AI trying to heal you in the middle of a horde attack. Now
I haven’t really come up with any real method of rating games yet, but hey,
this is only a draft really so that I can improve on my other reviews (that’s
If this one goes down well. So if I gave it an unoriginal mark out of 10, I
would have to award it a 9, well worth my time and money…except I got it for
Xbox.
BTW what i was planning to do was do reviews on the latest games, and update the latest demos/trailer releases, but i didnt see the point of putting this in a blog as its been out for so long, once i get a chance ill review later games and blog them. Also any response/criticism will be most welcome (and if you dont like it say so =P)