“Curing The Infection… One Bullet At A Time.”  That’s the tagline on one of the “movies” that you’ll play through when you load up Left 4 Dead.

The hospital is accepting donations.

The game was made by Valve, the same development house that delivered Half-Life, Half-Life 2 and Team Fortress 2.  All three of those games are classics in my book.  With Left 4 Dead, Valve goes 4 for 4.

Read on for my review of the game I think is probably the best of 2008.

I bought Left 4 Dead because there are two guarantees in gaming to me.  1) When Blizzard makes a game, I’m going to love it.  2) Same goes for Valve.

I knew that I was going to enjoy this game, it was a matter of fact.

The man who tagged that is probably dead.

I bought a retail copy but installing it sets you up on Steam regardless.  Steam is Valve’s way of protecting its games, while giving the consumers some nice benefits.  Steam is the backbone for multiplayer, giving you a friends list similar to Xbox Live.  It also keeps a record of every game you’ve ever purchased and will let you redownload them, for free, on any computer you ever log your account into.  I applaud game companies when they do content-protection right.  Valve does it right.

So the game is installed, it was a pain-free process.  I double-click the icon and here we go.  From the opening cut-scene, the game is immersive.  Put on edge, I get ready to jump into my first game.  It’s a game that is mainly co-op, so I hope you brought your friends.  If you didn’t, it’s okay because you can jump into games online with some painless matchmaking.  There are three modes, single-player, campaign and versus.  (Campaign and versus are both multiplayer modes.)

If you shoot a car with an alarm, it will alert zombies.

I fired up the campaign mode first because I wanted to learn while playing with others.  Quickly, I was taught that there are some things in the game you just shouldn’t do.  For one, sometimes cars that you walk past are more than just burned out wrecks.  They’re still blinking–some of them even have alarms.  You don’t want to be the player in your group that alerts the horde, it’s not a good thing.

The game’s progression in the campaign mode is impressive.  You’ll play through the same movie (of which there are four, each with 5 separate levels) and the experience will be completely different.  Zombies will not be in the same spot and if they are, there’s a good chance how many zombies are there will be different.  In one spot, where you know there was a second pistol, the next time through you’ll see nothing.  It’s all part of the game’s advanced A.I. “director” who gives delivers to you the zombies, weapons, health and ammo. Speaking of guns…

With the sniper rifle you can pick off zombies from afar.

There are plenty of them.  You start with a pistol and your choice of an uzi or a pump shotgun.   Ammo with the pistol is unlimited, but it’s not as powerful.  There’s a good chance you’ll have to turn to the pistol as uzi and shotgun ammo runs out while shooting through zombies.

Trying to escape the zombie apocalypse you’ll get a chance to upgrade your weaponry.  A second pistol is always nice to carry.  Then there’s the option of the second tier weapons.  Automatic shotgun, assault rifle and sniper rifle round out the compliment of weapons.  Pick your favorite, but don’t hang back from the group sniping, you’ll just get killed.

The automatic shotgun is probably the most satisfying when you’re surrounded by zombies, but it only has 10 shots before you have to reload.  Watching your ammo diminish when surrounded by the hordes of zombies is tense to say the least.  And that’s when you are just shooting at normal zombies… but there are some special ones out there too.

The special zombies come in 5 flavors.  There’s the hunter, smoker, boomer, witch and tank.  I’m only going to show you a picture of one though.

When the hunter pounces your friend, you should shoot it.

You don’t want to be alone when you run into a hunter.  If you’re not lucky enough to shoot him before he pounces on you, there’s a good chance he will destroy you.  He has a crouch attack that allows him to leap further than you’d expect.  Do your allies a favor and don’t let them get pounced.

Sometimes, your allies will be killed by zombies.

n the campaign mode, when an ally dies mid-level, if there’s enough time you’ll probably find them somewhere else in the level.

In between levels you see how well you fared.

The boomer is a big guy.  You could say that he’s been drinking, because he’s a puker.  The boomer will sneak up on you (and when he does you’ll wonder how, because he’s a HUGE guy.) and puke all over you.  If his puke connects with your skin, other zombies flock to you.  The boomer’s main purpose is to cover you with what is like candy to zombies.  When you’re covered you can’t see much and just have to push off the horde the best you can.

Lots of people have passed through here.

The smoker is another kind of zombie that you don’t want to run into alone.  He has a sort of tongue-like thing that snatches up you or your allies and pulls them great distances.  Not only does it seperate you from the group, it also hurts you and gives other zombies the chance to start beating on you.  There are many of times while playing that I thought I was good enough to take on a smoker by myself.  I wasn’t and got wrecked because of it.

You should turn off your flashlight when you hear a witch.

The witch is totally avoidable.  And you would be wise to avoid her.   She’s ferocious.  Claws that cut you down, and if she cuts down everyone, it’s round over, start the map again.

Currency Exchange straight ahead!

Then, there’s the tank.  He’s big, huge even.  Tough to take down is an understatement.  (Depending on the difficulty and what guns you have and what else is around and killing you at the time.)

This plane is not available to fly out of the zombie apocalypse.

The special zombies in the game make it a pretty intense experience.  You can hear them when they’re around and they all make a unique sound so you know what you’re heading in to.

You made it outside and there's a plane!

In the versus mode, all of those special zombies that tormented you during the campaign become playable.  You get to step into the shoes of a boomer, hunter, smoker or tank.  (The witch isn’t playable, but she is there, and it helps if the survivors get her attention.)

Oh no! It's crashing!

The levels are a mixture of linear and open.   There are multiple ways to get from the safehouse you start in to the safehouse you’re trying to get to.  If you take the shortest path from a to b, there’s a good chance you’ll miss some valuable boosts along the way.  The game’s AI director sprinkles ammo, guns, medpacks and pills. (The pills give a temporary health boost that slowly trickles away)

The screenshot does not give this sequence justice.

In Left 4 Dead, all you want to do is escape alive.  Trying to do that is what makes the game so fun to me.  It’s a great experience when playing through the campaigns and the intensity only ramps up when you start playing the versus mode.

When you make it out alive, it's a nice feeling.

Playing versus as a survivor is harder, because the special zombies are controlled by real people and they’re talking to each other about how best to trap you, split you up and ultimately end your existance.  And they do, often.  If you die in the versus mode, there’s no coming back.

You get to kill a lot of zombies in the game.

After playing through each of the four campaigns many times, I find myself going back to the versus mode most.  It’s what makes the game so unique.  I’ve never had the ability to do the things in a multiplayer game that the special zombies can do in this game.  It’s great.

Left 4 Dead is best played with others, which means either online or on a LAN.  If you don’t have a connection, there is the single player option available.  It offers a pretty good experience of what it’s like to play cooperatively, because the other 3 survivors in the group all have some pretty good AI.

That being said, it’s more fun to me yelling help to your friends when you get pounced by a hunter or lassoed by a smoker or puked on by a boomer than having a bot come help you.

To wrap it up, Left 4 Dead is a fantastic game, and you should go buy it right now.  At the store, or on Steam, it doesn’t matter.  Just go get it.

Special thanks to Mr. Slippers for helping out on the playthroughs.

If you pick up a copy of the game, friend me on Steam, just search for Subway.

Have questions about something? You can email me at matt(dot)schuler(at)woodtv(dot)com. And for more, shorter updates, check out my Twitter by clicking on twitter.com/mattschuler.