The “zombie” sub-genre has been a popular one in entertainment, dating back to such classic horror films as George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (and the sequels he directed) and the loosely related The Return of the Living Dead.
These movies influenced video games like LucasArt’s campy and fun Zombies Ate My Neighbors for the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis, the House of the Dead series that ruled the arcades of the mid to late 90s and Capcom’s ever popular Resident Evil series of games with the latest entry available for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles.
There’s even a pair of books by Max Brooks covering an alternate universe in which our planet is overrun by a sort of zombie apocalypse and details how humans were able to survive it. World War Z, which is being adapted for the big screen, is written as if it were a collection of historic accounts from survivors of this disaster whereas its decidedly more light hearted companion, The Zombie Survival Guide, is like a “how to” manual for defending yourself against the creatures of the night.
There’s even a popular version of Jane Austen’s classic novel Pride and Prejudice called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies that’s being adapted into a motion picture. You know something’s big when people are creating literary mash-ups with works by revered authors.
Considering almost all zombie-themed entertainment focuses on humans trying to survive a seemingly endless horde of the flesh-eating undead, it seems rather odd that until 2008, no publisher had released an immersive first-person shooter that pitted the player against waves of zombie attackers. Yet in November 2008, both Activision and Valve Corporation released zombie-themed first-person experiences, much to the delight of video gamers everywhere.
From what little I’ve played of Activision’s Call of Duty: World at War multiplayer mode Nacht der Untoten (German for “Night of the Undead”) which puts 1-4 players in a house that they have to cooperatively defend against an unlimited number of Nazi zombies by shooting them and boarding up windows, it seems to be the more “authentic” zombie game (even though it’s just one of a few modes in the actual core Call of Duty game).
However, Valve’s Left4Dead is undoubtedly the more fun gaming experience by leaps and bounds. While the game doesn’t involve true zombies in the traditional sense (i.e. the flesh-eating reanimated corpses introduced to pop culture by Romero’s handiwork), it certainly delivers intense doses of action and the adrenaline-pumping thrills one would hope for from a “zombie apocalypse” scenario.
You play the role of one of four Survivor characters – Francis the tattoo-covered biker, Louis the systems analyst, Zoey the college student and Bill the former Green Beret – who are trying to make their way out of the city to find some sort of safe haven from the hordes of people who have been infected by the intentionally unidentified contagion that turns its victims into mindless, bestial creatures with rage issues.
The enemies you attack aren’t your typical undead zombies with a craving for human brains but are in fact regular people who have succumbed to this mystery disease in much the same way that the citizens of London were affected by the “Rage” virus in the Danny Boyle film 28 Days Later.
You never once see any of the enemies, referred to for the most part not as “zombies” but as “The Infected,” try to eat or even bite you – they seem content just trying to tear you from limb to limb for the fun of it. And when you shoot them, that’s regular old crimson blood spewing from their bodies, not the swampy green bile that you see in cartoony, fun-filled games like Plants vs. Zombies.
Further, the Infected are like the extras in 28 Days Later with regards to their speed and voracity. While you’ll certainly encounter a fair share of enemies just moping about on their own, any who take notice of you and aren’t put down by a bullet from your rifle will come charging at you like a parent who just spotted the last Zhu Zhu Pet at Toys R Us on Christmas Eve.
And that’s just the individuals or small groups you actually see. Every so often, the game will send a raging horde of Infected at you, swarming in from every which way (including behind you). They’ll climb up the sides of buildings and smash their way through doors to get to you – the only thing that will stop them is a fiery surprise from your pistol, shotgun or rifle. If you’ve ever played the classic PC game series Serious Sam, you’ll recognize the frenetic style of combat.
To make things interesting, the developers included a handful of boss-type enemies referred to as “the Special Infected.” These are admittedly less realistic enemies who require a little bit more suspension of disbelief and somewhat bridge the gap between the definitely possible concept of a biological experiment gone wrong and the more fantastic, imaginary realm of scary undead monsters you see in the movies.
The least unbelievable of the bunch is the Hunter, who is not much more durable than a standard Infected but is fast and can leap impressive distances (such as when it pounces on you and starts ripping your torso apart). It basically looks like a person in a gray hooded sweatshirt.
Then there’s the Boomer, a disgustingly bloated individual whose only goal is to vomit green bile all over you which triggers an onslaught of Infected focused solely on devastating anyone soaked in Boomer puke. The Boomer is also not much more durable than the common Infected but explodes in a mess of blood and guts that damages anyone within proximity.
Probably the most annoying Special Infected is the Smoker, a lithe creature typically prowling roofs and upper levels (out of sight and out of reach), waiting for unsuspecting Survivors to target. It attacks by shooting out a ridiculously long tongue and dragging its victim back (and often up) towards itself to be strangled. If you manage to take it out, its demise creates a cloud of dense and gagging vapor which partially obscures your vision.
More dangerous is the Tank, a damage-eating behemoth that charges at the Survivors like a rhinoceros on steroids and tosses anyone who gets caught in its grip like a rag doll. The Tank can absorb a massive amount of damage and moves with a surprising speed. It generally targets one particular Survivor and follows them around until it can pummel them or get put down by the others.
Perhaps the most dangerous Special Infected, however, is the Witch, a rather small and spindly female creature whose sobs can be heard from quite a distance (acting as a warning to everyone to tread carefully). The Witch is always found kneeling on the floor and crying, seemingly oblivious to everything around it. You can avoid it entirely by shutting off your flashlight and keeping your distance, but anyone who startles it with their flashlight or gets too close will regret it as the Witch zeroes in on that Survivor only. The Witch moves very fast and will incapacitate a Survivor with one hit at which point it rends flesh until the others can defeat it. It’s generally not wise to take on a Witch.
What makes the game really fun, though, is the artificial intelligence behind the game. Known as “the Director,” this A.I. will gauge how well you or your group of players is doing and adjust the density of the enemies, availability of weapons and items and frequency of Special Infected attacks accordingly. These things are all randomized such that no two run-throughs of any level will be exactly the same.
Left4Dead offers a few multiplayer modes and is in fact designed as an online multiplayer game. When you first load the game, the default game mode is actually the online cooperative multiplayer campaign – the single-player campaign is just the offline version of the same exact game with the other three Survivor characters controlled by the game’s A.I.
The Versus mode uses the same level maps as the campaign games but pits two teams of four players against each other with one team controlling the Survivors and the other controlling the Special Infected (the one a particular player uses is randomly assigned by the Director). The Special Infected are more limited than the Survivor characters in that they have no true ranged attacks (the Smoker’s tongue straddles the fence) but have more freedom in where they can go (they have the ability to climb buildings to maneuver into better hunting positions) and can see the Survivors through walls to plan their attacks. They also have the Infected on their side, of course, and can use a swarm attack to their advantage.
A Survival mode was added after the fact as a free downloadable update (and included in later versions of the game). This mode is fairly straightforward with a team of up to four players trying to survive as long as possible against an infinite horde of Infected.
I personally never got into Survival mode and I’m not a big fan of online competitive gaming anymore so I didn’t play the Versus mode much. I do, however, enjoy cooperative and single-player campaign games even now (when isn’t it a good time to kill some “zombies?”), over a year after the game was released, which speaks to the longevity of the game and its gameplay.
The game uses a fairly streamlined interface and control scheme. You can only “use” one item – be it a sidearm, a firearm, a throwable weapon (the two types are the Molotov cocktail which lights an area on fire and the pipe bomb which attracts Infected with its beeping before blowing them up) or a health boost – at a time, and you can only even carry one of each type of item with the exception of the standard pistols that you can dual wield. No firing and tossing dozens of grenades at the same time in this game.
To make things a little more challenging, you also don’t just magically heal when you use the first aid kit. You actually have to stop where you are and spend a few seconds patching yourself up (applying bandages and rubbing ointment on your body, I suppose), and hope that the Infected don’t decide to bum rush you (or that if they do your teammates can adequately protect you from the attack). Valve managed to strike a nice balance between fast-paced run-and-gun gameplay and a more methodic, deliberate style of gameplay.
Where Left4Dead shines dimmest is in the area of graphics. The game uses the latest version of Valve’s Source game engine, which debuted in 2004 behind Counter-Strike: Source and Half-Life 2, both impressive games for their time but somewhat dated now. The lighting, the details in the environments and the ability for the engine to handle dozens of Infected onscreen at the same time is quite impressive but the character models themselves are decidedly less impressive than the ones found in games such as Gears of War, which uses Epic’s Unreal Engine 3, and Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, which uses Naughty Dog’s latest proprietary game engine. However, you probably won’t notice this much considering how fast you’ll be running or spinning around dealing with swarms of enemies.
Despite its less-than-perfect graphics, Left4Dead manages to evoke a true sense of anxiety and be an immersive first-person shooter experience thanks to the intelligence of the game design and the creativity of the team at Valve. It’s not only one of the best shooters this generation but also one of the most fun games on any of the three platforms – and a bargain at just $29.99 retail.
If you’re in the mood for an exhilarating rush of action-packed thrills, do yourself a favor and pick Left4Dead up right now.
Final score: 5 out of 5
Parent to parent
This is definitely not a game for young kids. Gameplay consists of firing handguns, assault rifles and shotguns at enemies, setting your opponents on fire and blowing things up with pipe bombs.
I would even go so far as to say that some parents may want to avoid buying this game for kids younger than high school age due to the fact that players are not killing zombies but rather killing diseased people. None of the enemies have rotting flesh or missing body parts – in fact, they look like nothing more than grimy people hopped up on a little too much caffeine.
Of course, your mileage may vary – my nephews have long understood the difference between the fantasy in video games and the reality of the world in which they actually live, and assume that they’re simply making the undead dead again, anyway.
You know your kids best so just consider my warning and base your decision on your own comfort level.
Experience this for yourself!
(Amazon)