Platforms: Xbox 360, PC
Developer: Valve
Publisher: EA

In the videogame industry, we have many genres and themes that have gone far beyond being overdone. One of those themes is that of shooting zombies. As hard as it may be to believe, Valve and EA have put out a zombie title that is innovative and fresh both in delivery and gameplay.

Left 4 Dead is a first person shooter that places gamers in the role of one of four ‘survivors’ of the zombie apocalypse. Simply put, your only objective is to survive long enough to get to a rescue location. The setting takes place across four scenarios that are setup as self contained ‘movies.’ Where things take a slight turn off the beaten path is the fact that instead of fighting alone, Left 4 Dead is completely co-op based.

Whether you’re fighting alongside three good friends on Xbox Live or with the formidable A.I. at your side, in Left 4 Dead you’re never alone. Just having a co-op function isn’t anything special in a game, but what Valve has done is to place the co-op dynamic at the heart of the gameplay experience. There are many situations that happen in game that will require someone else to lend a hand to get you out of a jam. While other co-op games will build this in by creating different classes that have weaknesses that depend on other classes’ strengths, Left 4 Dead takes a different route.

In Left 4 Dead, you can and will be easily surprised by zombie ambushes placing your life in danger and you at the mercy of your teammates. You could be walking out of a building that you just cleared as you make your way to the next safe-house, when all of a sudden you’re pulled off your feet, being hurled backwards at an alarming rate. As soon as you notice the elongated tongue of a ‘Smoker’ zombie pulling you up the side of the building, you realize that you’re completely immobile and helpless. Your only recourse is to shout through the mic to your teammates and let them know where you are so that someone can shoot him before you become an ex survivor.

You may be asking yourself how the zombie ambushes can be a surprise after you’ve played through a movie. This brings up perhaps the biggest part of Left 4 Dead, the Director A.I. Essentially, what Valve has done is to create a set of A.I. routines that examine how each of the four survivors are playing, their level of skill, positioning and other conditions. It uses this information to change all aspects of the game from the enemy placements, ambush spots, pacing, music, item and weapon placements and more. It may not sound like much reading it, but when you’re playing the same levels for the tenth time, yet you’re still on edge and shouting to your teammates to keep your tactics tight and help you out, it’ll all sink in of just what they’ve achieved here.

When you get used to being a survivor, you could flip the script and take the role of one of the special zombies as you try to ambush and kill the survivors making their way through the level. I did find this mode, Versus, to be less rewarding. Essentially, you’re playing in a multiplayer group where one side plays as zombies while the other side plays as survivors. The problem here is the balancing. The player zombies die with only two or three shots. That wouldn’t be so bad on its own, but combine this with the long ‘cooldown’ timers on the special abilities of the zombies and the problem starts to take shape. The special abilities inherent to each of the four special zombie classes are what seperate them from the standard horde fodder. Take away a Smoker’s ability to grab enemies and disable them with his tongue or Boomers being able to vomit on players, attracting hordes of zombies to bumrush your location and you’re pretty much defenseless. This is what happens when you miss with one of the special attacks and have to wait on average of 45 seconds to be able to do the ability again. First problem with this is that your location is exposed and you’ll get killed by just two or three shots from even a standard pistol. If this is the way the A.I. played the character, that would be alright as well, but they don’t have those limitations. It was probably a decision made for balancing issues, but it just doesn’t seem to be refined enough. Its a nice diversion, but I found myself disinterested with this mode very quickly.

Both the co-dependance built in from the co-op along with the suspenseful pacing and atmosphere inherent from a well done zombie flick combine to make quite the online experience. Anyone dismissing Left 4 Dead as just another zombie game would be doing themselves a serious disservice. Left 4 Dead is a title that close friends will be playing together often for quite sometime to come. Valve’s experiment was a success and we can’t wait to see what else is in store.