Left 4 Dead: Tons Of New On Hands Info

[thekingofkings]

Left 4 Dead is absolute chaos. It is intense, fast-paced, thrilling, exhilarating, and exhausting. It is everything you could ever hope for a game to be and more - every single expectation I had for the game was blown away entirely. I was literally in awe over how fun and unique of an experience it offered and I have to say that it was honestly the best gaming experience I've had in my life.
We as gamers seem to hear this kind of sensationalism for unreleased games far too often, and believe me that I too have been the victim of such unwarranted hype - but I promise you that these are not empty words. This game is truly original and it offers up a pure gaming experience. Everything in Left 4 Dead is geared towards reaching that mindset of pure gaming bliss. It is challenging, and you will fail. You will scream, curse, laugh and cry, and love every single second of it.



The goal of Left 4 Dead is simple: survive. You are one of the lucky few survivors of a new and highly virulent strain of the rabies virus that has spread throughout the human population, turning the unfortunate masses into rabid, bloodthirsty zombies. You must work together as a team if you want to have any chance of making it out alive. For those of you who don't already know, Left 4 Dead is a first person multiplayer co-op survival horror shooter built on the Source engine. Left 4 Dead pits 4 human Survivors against 4 human or AI controlled boss infected, which with the help of dozens upon dozens of the AI-controlled infected horde, try their hardest to make the Survivors fail. The four campaigns that will be released at launch are all of the "Survive and Escape" variety, where the group of survivors will have to battle their way through large, varying environments filled with boss infected and zombie hordes in the goal of escaping.
I have to point out a very important detail - THIS IS A CO-OP GAME. It is not Counter-Strike, it is not Unreal Tournament, it is not Doom, it is not Half-Life. I will repeat, it is a co-op game. Everything about it is catered to you and your three friends working together and trying to stay alive - you really don't have much time to worry about anything else! As I will explain in this preview, Turtle Rock Studios has taken a concept that seems so perfect for a game (co-op and zombies), and just about every imaginable feature you could think of and has turned it into an amazing, fluid, immersive co-op experience that has shaped up to be a truly unique and awesome game.



HOSPITAL RUNTHROUGH
The hospital mission starts on the roof of an apartment building. We grabbed our guns (I took a pump shotgun), health packs and grenades and headed out. We opened the door and headed in. Right at the bottom of the stairs a zombie was waiting for us. Bam. I immediately noticed the amazing blood and gibs effects, and a smile came to my face.. oh was it beautiful. We continued on, killing many zombies in the apartment building, finally making it out. Everything was going great so far, a pretty normal experience..

.. and then we made it outside. A large open area awaited us right after the alleyway, and what happened next will remain imprinted in my brain forever. To our right were a couple dozen zombies, all walking around like zombies do, some up close and others far away, and then one turned and looked our way. And then another. The music started to build and get more intense. In what has to be the most amazing scene in gaming I've ever laid my eyes upon, this mass of rabid zombies all turned and dashed right towards us, with incredible fluidity. Not only that, but on our left was a chain-link fence that another dozen or so started to climb over, hell-bent on killing us. This mass of zombies climbed over cars, fences, and came around buildings and it was so amazingly realistic and blindingly fast that I was quite literally stunned. My instincts took over and my shotgun started shooting, mowing down zombie after zombie, but they were far more in number and speed than I would have ever prepared for. With only 8 shells in the shotgun, they ran out fast.. fortunately for me, my teammates were right there beside me and we successfully defended ourselves against the zombie horde.

I need to stop my story here to really emphasize exactly how the horde moves. The zombies in Left 4 Dead are amazingly fast. I can assure you that whatever you have imagined, and certainly what you've been accustomed to in games past, doesn't come close to what the reality of the situation is. If you've ever seen 28 Days Later and the way the zombies sprint and attack like it's their only reason for existence, which really is the case in L4D, you might have a better understanding. They don't just run straight at you, either - they're very good at dodging one way or the other right when you want to shoot. I was really shocked with how great they looked running around corners, over cars and fences, and through doors and windows. The view and the sound and the environment really come together brilliantly to create a feeling of real fear and awe.

Anyways, back to the hospital mission. I wish I could tell you that we valiantly fought our way through the entire scenario, through the subway, office building, another long street, a pawnshop and convenience store, outside and into a warehouse, down through the sewers, up into the hospital, onto the roof, battled our way through the finale and escaped happily ever after. I wish I could tell you that. The truth of it is though, shortly after the first outside area, we died. When all of the survivors die, you start all the way back at the beginning of the scenario no matter how far you have gotten. I also wish I could tell you that we learned from our mistakes and then survived. We didn't. A combination of the infected horde, Boomer and Hunter didn't let us go past the sewers - back to the starting for us. Third times a charm, right? Well, sort of.. we did make it to the finale, where we successfully dealt with wave after wave of infected attacks, but in the end, only one out of the four survivors made it out on the helicopter alive.
And that was on Normal.

Let's get this out of the way right now. Forget everything that you read in the first part, because this is a whole different ball game. Playing as the Infected is a brand new experience that proves to be very fun. While playing as a survivor encourages cooperative gameplay in a familiar, yet unique style, the Infected team offers players a chance to terrorize the other team in so many entertaining ways that it is hard to keep from smiling the first time you sit down behind a pair of twisted zombie hands.
The goal of the Infected is simple: destroy the Survivors before they have a chance to escape. This may sound like an easy task, considering the hundreds of zombies on your side, but I can assure you that it isn't. The three primary boss Infected are all quite fragile and will die from only a few shots from the Survivors. As such, you must rely on cunning and guile to ambush your prey. Playing as an Infected is all about finding the right moment to strike in order to cause the most chaos and destruction. This results in a system of griefing hit and runs and suicide ambushes that is truly fresh and entertaining.



I'LL TAKE MINE EXTRA CRISPY
At any time, an Infected player may bring up a screen to choose their preferred Infected: The Boomer, Smoker, and Hunter (or random). I say preferred Infected because you will not be guaranteed to spawn as that Infected. The game only allows one Boomer, one Smoker, and two Hunters to be alive at any one time. I was pretty disappointed that I could not choose to play as one boss the entire time, but obvious balance issues demand this and the preferred selection prevents one player from playing as the boss that I may want the entire game. Trust me, more often than not you will be playing as your preferred Infected, especially if no other player is competing for that spot.
Becoming the Tank Infected works a little differently. As the Tank is so strong, the AI director will only spawn it a few times throughout the scenario, including two at the same time during the finale. Mike told us that every player will have had a chance to play the Tank before anyone can spawn as the Tank a second time. When the AI director decides to spawn a Tank, a player will be notified by an on-screen alert and allowed a chance to accept the role. The player will have a few seconds to accept and will then immediately respawn as the Tank. Survivors take notice: a boss infected suddenly dying for no apparent reason usually means you're about to have a fun time.



MY X-RAYS ARE BETTER THAN YOUR X-RAYS
The first thing that I noticed when I first started looking around as an Infected was that darkness was no problem. Where rooms were once pitch black as a Survivor, I could now see just fine (although in a stylish, red super nightvision sort of way). This is perfect for sneaking around or hiding in a dark corner waiting to pounce.
Much like the Survivors, the Infected have the ability to see outlines through walls. Unlike the Survivors, these outlines are red and they are outlines of the Survivors (zombies cannot actually see fellow zombies in this way). Not only can the Infected see the locations of all Survivors with these outlines, but when an Infected holds still, they will be able to see the path most likely taken by the Survivors. As player zombies will always spawn in front of the Survivors, they will be able to see where the Survivors will be coming from and set up a proper ambush. Again, this is something that we really expected to hate. Like the Survivors, this outline adds so much to keep the gameplay focused, I can't imagine playing without it. It is even more essential for the Infected, who have much more map access that the Survivors



I HEAR VOICES

Weapons are nice and all, but they won't really help your team too much if you aren't communicating well. It is a co-op game, and as such communication is key. So far, not much has been said about the voice system.
I'd like to take this opportunity to inform you that Left 4 Dead has the most well thought-out and useful voice communication system of any game I've ever played. It is a VITAL game mechanic and I really can't stress enough how much better the game is because of it.
The four survivors are Bill, a Vietnam veteran; Louis, an assistant manager at a retail electronics store; Zoey, the teenage daughter of a wealthy family; and Francis, the tattoo-covered biker. They all sound different and say different things based on their personality.
The way the voice system works is that there are three different voice command buttons (default z, x, and c) that bring up their own wheel in the middle of the screen. From there, you move your mouse in the direction of the phrase you wish to say. Each of these wheels have 9 commands, 8 different directions (up, down, left, right, and all the diagonals) and one in the center if you just release the button without moving your mouse. One wheel is for Orders, one for Questions and Answers, and the other I think was for Alerts/Warnings. Some examples are Turn off your lights! (for when someone hears a witch), Let's Go! (when someone is going too slow or taking too long in the checkpoint), along with "I hear a Boomer", etc. The great thing about it is that it's not your character saying the same thing over and over. For each phrase, your character has a ton of different ways of saying it.
When I say a ton, I am not lying. Over 1000 lines of dialogue have been recorded per survivor character. Some, you will hear pretty often. Others, you might hear only once a month if at all. We heard a few of these rare humorous gems, and they made us literally laugh out loud, but I won't ruin any of them for you!



Turtle Rock Studios seems to have thought of everything. Not only do you have the voice commands you trigger, but they've also saved a whole lot of headaches by including automatic voice triggers. Whenever you reload in the middle of combat, your character lets the rest of your team know about it by shouting "reloading!" This is such a critical feature and it helps meld the team together. Also, when your crosshairs move over a boss infected you automatically alert your team that you see that infected, freeing you up to do what needs to be done (shooting!). If any of you have a single negative thought about having uncontrollable voice commands, STOP. They are truly a crucial part of the game and I promise that you'll be amazed at how well they work and help.

FRIENDLY FIRE
An event that really gets characters talking is when their teammates are shooting them. Friendly fire is another CRITICAL game mechanic. You might be thinking it's a pretty basic concept, which in many ways it is, but I'm here to let you know it really changes a lot of things.
First things first, there will be no way to disable friendly fire. This is because without it, the game would be way easier. Imagine if you will, a commonplace occurrence in Left 4 Dead, where a teammate of yours is surrounded by a dozen or so zombies and he's getting mauled to death. Without friendly fire, you could easily just spray into the herd or throw a grenade and there would be no problem. This is not realistic nor is it very stressful, and we wouldn't want that, would we? I have to admit to you that there were several times that a fellow survivor was dying and I didn't do a single thing about it. I sat and watched. This is not because I'm a bad teammate, but because you need to be aware of your bullets. More often then not, trying to shoot some zombies near a friend will result in a red friendly fire demerit on the side of the screen, which usually does more damage than the zombie would have.

If I'm making it sound like it's a pain in the ass, let me try to rephrase a bit. Friendly fire changes the game from a deathmatch-style shoot first and ask questions later to a game where you really have to make sure what you're shooting is what you should be shooting. It adds a whole other dimension to the intensity of the game. I should note that friendly fire is different in this game than others because the majority of enemies attacking you are all melee. This means that when someone IS in trouble, it's usually up close so you have to be very careful when you help.
It is also important for play balance with grenades. As I told you before, the first time I used a pipe bomb I ended up killing my entire team. If there was no friendly fire, you could easily just nade right by each other when you get overwhelmed which is entirely unrealistic and far too easy.

ARMED AND DANGEROUS
In Left 4 Dead there are two tiers of primary weapons: the weapons available at the start of the scenario and in checkpoints, the pump shotgun and the Uzi submachine gun; and then the weapons available later on in the scenario (found "in the wild", where you'll have to keep alert while getting them, and also in the very last checkpoint before the finale), which include the M16 assault rifle, the hunting rifle, and the auto shotgun. When you find the second tier weapons you usually have the opportunity to also pick up a second pistol (to dual wield).

None of the weapons have any sort of silencers or secondary fire. The only use besides shooting and killing is the melee attack, which is an indispensable tool that you will use very, very often. When you right click your mouse, you swing whatever weapon you have equipped and push away whatever zombie is closest. The coolest thing about it is that when you're surrounded by a mob of zombies, one push can send many of them flying back. If you push one zombie into another, they both fall back. It looks great and many times it's the only way you can stay alive. Also, if a Boomer gets too close, the only method to further yourself from him is to continually just push him back, run away then blow him up.



First Tier Weapons

Pump Shotgun: Not much needs explaining here.. it performs exactly like you would expect. It's a solid gun that gives a very satisfying feel whenever you blast a zombie. There were 8 shells maximum, and if you're going to go Rambo and just blast away at everything you will find yourself in a bad situation (as I did).. the great thing about the shotgun is that with it's power you can kill 4 or 5 zombies in one blast if you aim it and time it right. An advantage the pump shotgun has over the Uzi is that you can reload a single shell at a time, meaning when you do find yourself out of ammo, you can melee push a zombie back, reload and shoot. The pump shotgun has huge power up close, but don't even bother using it at a distance.


Uzi SMG: The Uzi fires real fast and doesn't feel weak to use at all. It sounds and feels like it actually has some power, which is a nice change from a lot of games where SMG's feel like toys. In my time playing I preferred the Uzi to the shotgun because I prefer being able to take out targets at range instead of letting them get close. The Uzi is surprisingly accurate over long distances, as long as you crouch and burst fire.

Second Tier Weapons


M16 Assault Rifle: The M16 looks very much like the beloved M4A1 in Counter-Strike, so if you think of that you have a pretty good idea of what this weapon is like. It is a good weapon at all ranges, allowing you to spray and pray and mow down entire legions of zombies in one clip, or being able to pick off wandering zombies from afar.

Hunting Rifle: BOOM HEADSHOT. AWPers, I present you your weapon. The hunting rifle is the most satisfying weapon I played with, and I certainly played with it a lot. It has a scope, but when you're indoors or in close quarters you don't need to use it. Scoping does make it more accurate, but from what I could tell it was accurate enough without it. As I've mentioned before, the graphical effects in the game are amazing - blowing heads, arms, and other body parts off is a common occurrence especially when using this weapon. It has penetrating power, so it can shoot through some walls, which (if we had known the map better) would be great if you suspected a boss infected was hiding around the next corner.



Don't think of it as a slow and cumbersome sniper rifle, because it shoots fairly fast and shooting it without the scope is perfectly fine. Do not think you will be strafing between shots, either. Movement affects the accuracy of your weapon much more easily than in Counter-Strike, so moving and shooting is a definite way to get killed. I should also mention that when you are scoped, your movement is severely slowed so you better make sure somebody's got your back.

Auto shotgun: The most powerful weapon in close quarters, and also the fastest at delivering a whole lot of pain. This gun was great for every time the horde rushed you through a doorway. It is very useful against most boss infected, especially the Tank. Also, for both this shotgun and the pump, an advantage over the others is that it can be fired effectively while on the move.

Secondary Weapons


Pistols: If you run out of ammo, you always have your pistols. You start off with one and later can pick up a second one. I tried going through a couple maps with just using the pistol and it didn't turn out so bad. For any shotgun users, these will be great to switch for when enemies are at range. You'll be using these a lot, because when you get knocked on the ground they're the only weapons you can use. Accuracy is pretty bad when you're lying on the ground, but usually any dangers are right next to you so it doesn't matter too much. Dual wielding these is far better in terms of feel and usefulness than dualies in Counter-Strike.

Grenades: Survivors can carry only one grenade. They are very powerful and take a while to learn to use properly. The Molotov Cocktails are bottles with flammable liquid in them, and the pipe bombs look like white dynamite. Molotov Cocktails are real good against groups of enemies - when you throw one down, a very large area on the ground catches on fire and lasts for a while. I wouldn't recommend using them indoors, as they damage your buddies as much as they do the zombies, and you don't want to block off an escape route. Zombies are flammable - it looks amazingly cool to see them running and on fire, but on the other hand, the only thing scarier than a Tank running right towards you is a Tank engulfed in flames running right towards you.



After my first experience with the pipe bomb, I didn't go back to it because I was a little afraid of what I might do. I think it was our second time through the hospital level, in the sewers, when I turned around and saw a Boomer and a ton of zombies really doing a number on a teammate. I had no idea of how powerful the pipe bomb was, but I saw a lot of zombies and figured it'd be a great time to use it, right? I threw it behind the Boomer, and bam! The Boomer and all of the zombies in the area were dead! Unfortunately, so were the other three survivors... My bad. When I died I saw a whole lot of red demerits proving to everyone that I was the moron who killed them. From that experience and seeing other people using them, it seems to me that the pipe bomb is a much better direct damage dealer than the Molotov. I think once people learn to use the grenades intelligently the boss infected are going to have a real tough time.

Source: http://www.left4dead411.com/


One of my most anticpated games. If everything turns out as good as it sounds then we gamers are in for a REAL treat!

[rikwakefield]

Looks awesome. Finally a game that has zombies like in 28 days later. Zombies that can run fast are much scarier.

[gsxtacy]

is this just for 360, or is for ps3 or pc as well?

[Charon]

is this just for 360, or is for ps3 or pc as well?

Pretty sure its just XBOX 360 and PC...looks pretty cool though, very impressive, I hope it does well.

[BiggiVeL]

Graphics look like they're from manhunt, for the xbox

[Two4DaMoney]

This along with the new medal of honor was the worst looking games that were played at e3 imo.

[thekingofkings]

Pretty sure its just XBOX 360 and PC...looks pretty cool though, very impressive, I hope it does well.

It is only for 360 and PC and I too hope it fairs well because this game is tailored right to me. I'm a fan of zombies (movies and games) so taking them out is tons of fun. I'm also a sucker for online co-op which this is pretty much all about. The game HAS to be seen in action to really understand the sheer intensity you will face in this game.

[13th_Shell]

After reading the entire article, it sounds moderately different than I originally thought. Well, maybe just in the communication aspect. Will 360 players not be able to use the headsets to communicate? Because it looks like they were only able to play the game on PC's and the communication buttons were bound to keys on the keyboard.

I can't imagine that they wouldn't let us use the headsets for the console version. I'm really not going to care if the person controlling the teenager girl has the voice of a 50 year old, overweight trucker. I just want to be able to yell at my team without taking the time to press a button and choose what I want to say. If the game is truly as fast paced as they say, I'm just not going to have time to do that.

[Naxi]

Wow, that sounds really cool. Need to see some gameplay.

[maltrophstitan]

Wow, that sounds really cool. Need to see some gameplay.

http://ps3forums.com/showthread.php?t=89773
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/48267

http://gametrailers.com/game/4094.html

[rikwakefield]

It is only for 360 and PC and I too hope it fairs well because this game is tailored right to me. I'm a fan of zombies (movies and games) so taking them out is tons of fun. I'm also a sucker for online co-op which this is pretty much all about. The game HAS to be seen in action to really understand the sheer intensity you will face in this game.

Yes, co-op and zombies. My idea of gaming heaven! I wish Dead Rising had co-op, that would have been cool.

[Sufi]

Those zombies make me feel like I should pop something.

[Naxi]

Thanks, wow, this looks like the perfect LAN game.(not competitive)

[Sventax]

I think it is cool looking game...I hope it isn't the same as that other Zombie game...were you can only hack, slash,smash and euhm punch a zombie...

[X2]

Sounds awesome an it will cross platform play as well.

[thekingofkings]

I think it is cool looking game...I hope it isn't the same as that other Zombie game...were you can only hack, slash,smash and euhm punch a zombie...

I REALLY liked Dead Rising.