Zombie Obsession/Left 4 Dead Review

Wow…you know you don’t write enough when you forgot  you changed your blog’s theme…holy crapasaurus, I can’t believe some of you people are still loyal to me! I’m still in a weird life transition these days, which is my only explanation for not writing much. But anywho, I thought I’d talk about this random obsession I’ve developed recently: zombies. I have to blame Left 4 Dead completely for this…

Being the gamer that I am, I do crave first person shooters a lot of the time. But in the recent few years, I haven’t been able to find anything that’s good enough to grab my attention and retain it. I seem to always end up with games like Crysis: Warhead, which is really pretty to look at but EXTREMELY short/boring in terms of plot. Also, I’m all about interacting with other people online – there’s nothing more awesome than laughing at some geeky kid screaming at you because you took his armor or something. Oh Diablo 2…how you’ve supplied such good memories. So after some researching and $1000 later (yay for building an Evan-made compooper can actually handle games!), we come to Left 4 Dead.

When I first saw the trailer/demo of this game on X-Play about a year ago, I seriously had a nerdgasm. First person shooter/4 player co-op/hordes of zombies running straight at you? Yeah, that’s my kind of game. Although I never was really all that into zombies and whatnot, I figured why not? I loved Resident Evil 4, maybe I should give the undead genre a go. Ultimately, it was a good move.

Shooting zombies has never been so pretty....

The presentation of this game is very nice looking (typical of recent Valve games) but is extremely simple. There’s not much a plot line: you’re one of four survivors trying to survive through a campaign of zombies running at you full speed. That’s it. No back-story or resolved issue at the end. No character development or leveling up. Literally you just grab a gun and start going through the world taken over by a zombie apocalypse, hoping to be rescued at the end. Each campaign is creepy on its own and supposedly references several of the more famous zombie movies that I haven’t seen. From watching an airplane crash land right in front of you to being able to blow up a gas station or just simply walking through a hospital with ambiguous bodies lying on the floor, this game is effective at creating a world infested by a zombie apocalypse. But here’s the beautiful part: the game’s engine makes each campaign different every time you play. Blood written messages that are written all over walls are different every time and things like once alive humans/zombies can be found lying on the ground in different places every time. Additionally, zombies never spawn in one or two spots – they can be generated in small or large amounts in any area. So even though there’s only four maps, it feels different every time you play because of things like changing dialouges between characters, zombie spawn locations, and intensities of the game.

In terms of game play, there are very few complaints that can be made. Rather than playing through your typical plot, you choose one of four campaigns that are set up like individual movies. Each can last between one to two hours, depending on the set difficulty or the party that you’re with and is split into five chapters. Although upgraded weapons are available as you trek through the level (again, these randomly spawn at different places that rarely seem to be placed in convenient places), you have a choice of a few but varied weapons. But what makes the game so fun is how different the scenario can change. One minute you could be walking through an abandoned subway tunnel (super creepy/awesome) and the next you could be running back, being chased by literally 40 or so zombies. Ultimately, the online co-op play makes it amazing, your team dynamics can make or break the game – without any communication, this game is meh. Good thing there’s plenty of “cool” kids like me that have headsets for this game…yeah…Oh yeah, and if you don’t feel like playing the campaign, you can play as a specialized zombie in the versus mode. It’s four on four mayhem of you trying to kill each other through a campaign…sexy…well, not really…sorta.

The only complaints that I have is that once you get to know the levels, you stop exploring the beautiful worlds that were created. They really should of made a way for there to be multiple endings to each section of each campaign. Also, a few new weapons would rock too, maybe a different kind of pistol or assault weapon? Is that so much to ask?! Well, actually it’s not; in a week an expansion set is coming out which is the price of FO FREE (you know you love how “gangsta” I am…) All in all, this is an EXTREMELY good game. Here’s to shooting zombies in the face: 9.5/10.

The worst part of this entire game obsession is now I start thinking about how I could stake out rooms if zombies really did start taking over. I was just in 30th Street Station thinking about it: how scary/awesome would that be? Just thinking about how eerie it would be – a dark, huge room with no lights on and only the sound of zombies shuffling and moaning – makes me shiver in excitement. Ooooooh, that would be freaky! Seriously though, make fun as much as you want. If a zombie apocalypse does happen, I think all of my “training” through Left 4 Dead will come in handy. So yeah, laugh now while you still can. When you’re a zombie, you’re gonna get pistol whipped and then taste bullet courtesy of Chef Evan, “The Zombie Womper”. Some title…I think I’ll put that on my resume.

God, do I need help…