Posted: 31-03-08 In: Editorials By: Evo |


Four Survivors, five big monsters, countless Infected, this is Left 4 Dead, the upcoming game from Turtle Rock studios, the latest addition to the Valve family. Left 4 Dead is destined to be the ultimate in cooperative survival first person shooters. Combining some of the best gaming elements ever to grace the PC, Left 4 Dead is a game destined to change the face of PC gaming as we know it.

Team Up

Cooperative FPS games may be the next big thing in the gaming world but few, if any have pulled it off well. Left 4 Dead is a game that wants to change that. Throwing four ‘Survivors’ against an outbreak of ‘Infected’ 28 Days Later like zombies your job will be to escape the map in question, or to kill the Survivors.

Fours Survivors will be playable at the start of each map, you can chose from a wide selection of different avatars to play as, all with the same underlying abilities. Armed with conventional weaponry like pistols, automatic weapons and Molotov Cocktails your task is to get from point A to point B in each map of a four map mission structure. Avoiding the Infected, the boss Infected and whatever geographical pitfalls you may find in your way you must survive being Left 4 Dead.

The focus of Left 4 Dead is on cooperative gameplay pitting Survivors or Infected bosses against one another, the only chance you are going to have of winning this is by working as a team, with your friends or even with random people, to win and defeat the enemy.

What to expect

Taking in environments such as farms and urban-cityscapes the Survivors are challenged with getting from the beginning of a map to the end without being decimated by the rampaging hordes of Infected. Each area will require the Survivors to complete a handful of maps by working together to overcome the masses of Infected. You will have to work together to manoeuvre around obstacles in your path and maintain a critical awareness of your surroundings in order to keep your team-mates alive and fighting.

The basic Infected you will be fighting against are controlled by the ‘Director’ a powerful AI created by the guys down at Turtle Rock. Having worked on the AI for Counter-Strike: Condition Zero ,Turtle Rock sure know how to craft some mighty fine AI, and with the Director they seem to have done this. The Director controls everything the Infected do, from when they spawn to how they attack. When you are playing as Survivors against the AI you are going to be in for some tough, intriguing, mighty fun battles!

The Enemy

There are four playable boss Infected, the Smoker, Hunter, Tank and the Boomer. Each of these characters will require you to have different approaches to playing them. The Smoker, to be used to best effect must lay low and ambush the Survivors. Using its long lethal tongue the Smoker can grab Survivors from great distances and drag them towards itself and into the arms of other boss Infected, or to kill on its own.

Similar to the Smoker, the Hunter is designed to be used in ambush. Unlike the Smoker it doesn’t bring the enemy to itself, rather it uses a pounce ability to leap massive distances and savage the Survivors. By crouching and waiting for the pounce to be fully charged patience is sure to be a key part of the Hunter’s arsenal. However, once the pounce is ready, you should use it before the Hunter growls away his position.

The massive Boomer requires a different approach, filled with poisonous gloop the Boomer can spew this substance up and fire it at the Survivors coating them with an Infected attracting aroma. This gives rise to suicide tactics, hurl a boomer from a roof top into a group of Survivors and see them attract swarms of other Infected.

The Tank is only playable when the AI Director chooses a member of the Infected to become this monster. Once the Tank is in the game all hell is promised to be let loose. Its massively powerful arms can decimate all of the Survivors if they don’t react in time and take it down quickly.

There is one more boss which is unplayable by us gamers. The Witch will only appear on the harder difficulty modes, and like the Tank will only start to lurk on the battlefield at the discretion of the AI Director. Little is known at the moment, but the Witch will only attack the Survivors if they approach too close or agitate her.

Last Word

Left 4 Dead will take gamers through 4 different campaigns comprised of five maps, there are two rural and two urban campaigns and all will require you to use your surroundings and team-mates to the best of your abilities to survive, or to hunt.

This promises to be a special game bringing together the best bits of zombies and cooperative gaming, this is sure to infect your lives, will you survive?