...So anyway, the one paragraph summary is at the bottom, as usual.
Left 4 Dead - Demo 360 With 2008 quickly coming to a close, all eyes in the gaming industry are fixed squarely on the holiday surge, when big-budget blockbusters fill the shelves, when twice a decade, fanboys camp eagerly outside big-name electronic stores, and the game industry steals the limelight from hollywood, competing for your family's living room. Every year like clockwork, I, like many others, begin to prepare my list. The list of games I will grace with my hard-earned money. Only selecting the cream of the crop, and with November swiftly approaching, my list of purchases being narrowed down, Left 4 Dead was consistently a contender on that list. Having never immediately piqued my interest the way other, larger name titles had, I spent more time researching, reading impressions,and the more I read, the more I liked. There were zombies, lots of guns, four player co-op, and best of all, it was being developed by one of, if not the most influential codehouses in the games industry. Does Valve, zombies and guns assure a safe-bet blockbuster? Read on to find out.
I feel that, despite not being the primary focus of the game, I should get the subpar portions out of the way first. Namely, the controls.
They're twitch, and clearly PC oriented. I shot my teammates... a lot.
It's playable, to be sure, and the team-killing is probably more of my lack of restraint, and lack of concern for the welfare of my teammates than it is flawed design, but I would have an easier time with M&K, a setting I don't usually prefer. It's standard Half-Life fare, and during the more heated firefights it takes a few moments to become re-accustomed to the relocation of the reload button, however, the majority of commands and actions are mapped functionally. You won't find anything amazing here, but with the ability to adequately tune your sensitivity, Left 4 Dead's controls will suit a gamer of average skill.
Second, on my list of complaints, are the graphics. L4D's visuals serve the purpose of propelling the action, and that's about it.
Muddy textures are the biggest flaw I find with the game's aesthetics, but it really is a package deal. Parts of the game, namely the more claustrophobic environments still hold up well by today's standard, owing to the fact that Source's lighting (one of the greatest assets of the, now apparently aging engine) simply looks better in confined space, with plenty of walls, furniture and enemies to interact with. However, open air environments look sterile and empty, lacking a sense of life and energy. This was excusable in games like Half-Life, where the plot was consistent with a relatively sterile gaming environment, however the maps feel like they were created by a Half-Life mod team. There are plenty of primarily empty spaces, distracting your eye with a sense of emptiness. In some regard, it feels like the maps are simply half done. a little more time spent thoughtfully adding objects and obstacles would have done wonders.
Thankfully, where Left 4 Dead falls short in graphics, the gameplay makes up for in droves. Ideally speaking, entering into matches with your friends, with microphones, the game becomes one of the best investments a person could make in a piece of entertainment software this year. The game is in constant flux, juggling your character between moments of sheer terror as you're flanked, overtaken, and beaten to death by a horde of agile, cannibalistic flesh-eaters, and instances of pure badassery, as you unload magazine after magazine into oncoming bounding waves of the undead, felling them like glistening necrotic lumber.
With that said, every other experience will leave you wanting something a little more complete. Playing alongside strangers on Xbox Live is all well and good, but it loses the party environment, especially considering the number of people who simply don't use their microphones online. In essence, these people become more intelligent bots, helping you through the levels provided. By it's own merits, the game could be enjoyed in a single-player type environment like this, however single player is clearly not the gametype Valve intended you to play, and in comparison to the stellar experience that is four player co-op, with rowdy friends, everything else simply pales.
The audio in left 4 dead is fantastic. Valve proves time and time again that games are capable of matching, and in some cases surpassing cinema quality audio. The score was suitably eerie in moments of quiet, and positively jarring when the walking dead were about. The balance between weapons and other audio is far better than other shooters of it's caliber. Guns, arguably the most important component of first-person-shooter audio, carry a sense of volume and overwhelming noise, even when the volume is turned down. This adds to the fear factor, as it certainly kicks the adrenalin up a notch or two.
CONCLUSION Friends. Guns. Zombies. What more could a person want? The answer? A little more polish. My excitement over the game is not without disappointment, because let-downs are certainly present. The graphics are a subpar vestige of 2005 technology. The levels are (from my limited experience) short, almost to the point of being unfulfilled. Finding your way around for the first time can be frustrating, as can the exorbitantly long waiting periods to be healed, and helped up. However, the present flaws shouldn't dissuade you from sitting down with the demo and trying it for yourself.
<message edited by Eddie_the_Hated on Nov 15, 2008 05:22>