The Cooperative Zombie Apocalypse

Published November 21, 2008

The zombie apocalypse has come once again to Xbox 360® with Valve's cooperative first-person shooter Left 4 Dead™. The acclaimed developer has awakened the living dead from their shuffling slumber and sent them screaming by the dozens at psychotic speed in a game that might be aptly described as "twitch horror."

Tanks should be run from, not confronted. Go!

Call it a blast from the past or classic gaming but Left 4 Dead revels in the kind of unrelenting action that brings to mind titles like Robotron and Space Invaders. The zombies on display here travel in sprinting packs, flinging themselves at you and your fellow survivors with alarming vigor.

These morbidly obese waddling zombies are bursting at the
seams with bile, which they're only too happy to cover
you with courtesy of their explosive vomit attack.

They don't just scramble over fences, cars and other obstacles to get at you, they thunder through walls, grope frantically through bars, and clamber up in droves through holes in the floor with such crazed bloodlust you may find yourself involuntarily recoiling from their ferocity.

Four Survivors, Four Campaigns
You play as one of four different survivors: the greybeard leader Bill, the wise-cracking tattooed biker Francis, the shirt-and-tie office worker Louis, or the sprightly no-nonsense female lead Zoe. Whichever character you choose, you'll always be accompanied by three other companions, controlled by the A.I. or other players in the cooperative Campaign.

The story in Left 4 Dead belongs to no one character but rather the group as a whole. It's their repartee and group dynamic that drive the game's drama and wry sense of gritty humor through each of the Campaigns, or, more accurately, movies.

Dual pistols never run out of ammo.

Each Campaign plays out in B-movie format, complete with names such as Death Toll, slogans like "Hell came to Earth. These four are going to send it back," and even end credits including dedications to the players that didn't survive, as well as the number of zombies killed during the making of the movie.

Each individual Campaign is broken up further into several Acts, with each Act focusing on the survivor's frantic quest to reach a safe house. Then, they must prepare again for the dangers ahead and move on to reach their eventual rescue point.

Notes from the Apocalypse
In terms of gameplay, Left 4 Dead plays as fast as the zombies themselves. It's basically a twitch-shooter, where shoot-from-the-hip reaction time trumps precision aim. Your reflexes are tested when recognizing and eliminating enemies, and by keeping tabs on your fellow survivors and their current situation.

If a Smoker zombie lashes out with their impossibly long tongue to snare and constrict your buddy, you must eliminate the threat before your friend is dragged too deeply among the throngs of undead to rescue. Luckily, Left 4 Dead employs a silhouette system, allowing you to identify other survivors when they're surrounded by enemies and even when they're behind walls.

This is especially important as friendly fire plays a perilous role. You can't just swing around and start spraying your shotgun with impunity, unless of course you want to fill your buddy's face with buckshot. Picking off a crowd of enemies clawing at your teammate requires both reflexes and aim, but you'll be rewarded with credit for "saving" or "protecting" your fellow survivor.

I'm not so sure that's a good idea.

Special Infected
While the crazed, swift-running standard zombies represent the vast majority of the zombie threat, there are a number of more sinister Special Infected that must be watched out for, immediately identified, and quickly dealt with if you hope to survive.

• Boomer: These morbidly obese waddling zombies are bursting at the seams with bile, which they're only too happy to cover you with courtesy of their explosive vomit attack. Alas, this foul liquid is catnip for other zombies and anyone so covered can expect an immediate, unrelenting swarm of zombies to descend upon them.
• Smoker: These cagey undead tend to position themselves on rooftops, down dark alleyways or side-rooms so they can pick out their target of choice and lash at them with their boa constrictor-like tongues, strangling the life out of the survivor from afar.
• Hunters: These preposterously fast zombies skitter about on all four and leap enormous distances to pounce on a survivor, pin them to the ground, and ravage them with razor-like claws.
• Tanks: These enormous Special Infected are named well, as they dole out and take mammoth doses of damage. When a tank rolls into the fray, you better hope there's high ground to be found.
• Witches: Huddled in dark corners and sobbing like a frightened child, Witches are fatally deceptive. While a cautious survivor can sidle past them unnoticed, a startled Witch is liable to incapacitate the nearest survivor with a single strike.

Cooperative Intentions
While Left 4 Dead can be played and enjoyed in single-player mode, it's really designed for four human players playing cooperatively. There's just no replacing the frantic dynamic formed by four players working in concert to defeat an entirely unpredictable and omnipresent threat.

Watch out, vomit incoming!

You just don't enjoy the same jolt of alarm and satisfaction with an A.I.-controlled partner as when your friend shrieks that he's been pinned by a Hunter, so you can swing around and pick off the offending Infected. And the groan blasting through your Xbox LIVE® headset when an unaware player gets blasted with Boomer goo is, well, priceless.

The Director
Left 4 Dead makes use of a brand-new, Valve-developed artificial intelligence engine known as "The Director," to direct the flow, difficulty, and even the outcome of each encounter. Depending on how well you play and how you act, the number of zombies, their speed, types, and where they come from are all funneled through The Director.

In essence, The Director ensures that no one encounter plays out precisely the same, and it's this, more than any other feature, that injects Left 4 Dead with the kind of replayability not found in other games.

Your Own Special Infected
Adding even further to the game's innovations is its decidedly unique take on competitive multiplayer. Rather than use standard team-versus-team matches, Left 4 Dead pits one team of survivors against all the game's standard A.I. controlled enemies while also slotting the opposing players into the roles of the Special Infected (such as Boomers, Smokers, and Hunters).

The survivors play through the game just as they normally would in Campaign mode, only now they must contend with real-life players working together in wholly unpredictable ways controlling the game's most powerful enemies.

You play through one Act of a Campaign at a time and at the end of that Act, the score is tallied and each team switches sides to play through the same Act from the opposite perspective. Once completed, the game moves on to the next Act in that Campaign.

Whether in cooperative Campaign or competitive multiplayer, there is nothing like Left 4 Dead on Xbox 360. Valve has worked their magic one more time and proved again that they are among the elite developers in all of gaming. Are you prepared to confront Valve's zombie apocalypse?

Article by Ryan Treit