Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Review - Left 4 Dead

First Thoughts: Oh great. Another modern-world game.
OH #^&*@ THATS A LOT OF ZOMBIES! *Random gunshots*
That weird crying lady zombie is scaring the death out of me..
OH #^&*@ THATS A NASTY ZOMBIE LADY! *-more- random gunshots*

Story line - Zombie invasion. Get away from the zombie invasion. Thats all. In other words, no story line, but it doesn't need one to be fun.

Gameplay - Amazing. The whole game is excellently made, so the gameplay doesn't get boring. I found myself scared to move forward sometimes, wondering where that crying lady zombie (the Witch) was. Tons of zombies seem to randomly swarm you, although you can often hear them coming as they roar like the furies. There are several "special" enemies that you can actually define by the sound they make, for instance a really annoying, creepy crying is the sound of a Witch, who will look harmless until she leaps to her feet and charges you, screaming her head off. Then she tears your chest to shreds. I dread the sound of a crying witch, the sound is strangely freaky. Another monster can be identified by it's hacking cough, made by the Smoker, who will hide on the roof of a building or behind a rock and shoot its mega-long, spiky tongue at you and drag you towards it, strangling you at the same time. There is also the Hunter, which makes a screaming noise. Hunters leap at you from where they hide and, akin to the witch, tear your chest to shreds. The hardest of all the zombies is the Tank, a giant muscle-man who charges you, punches you across the world, and takes forever to kill. And finally there is the Boomer, a uber-fat man who makes disgusting belchy, barfy noises and then, yeah, barfs all over you. The problem with that is, Boomer Barf not only attracts hordes of zombies, but also makes your screen all green and drippy so you cannot see what you are shooting.

Sound - Well done voiceovers, realistic gun noises, freaky zombie noises, subtly scary music. Everything is very well done.

Graphics - Great graphics, very realistic, although some affects such as the Smoker's Tongue and the Boomer's barf could have been done better. Still, hard to complain. I usually don't like games with really realistic graphics, but this is an exception.

Controls - Smooth and easy to use. It didn't take me long to figure out how to move around, jump, turn, switch weapons and everything else. The Controls aren't cumbersome and don't make things too complicated.

Entertainment - Very high, although I find myself unable to play for long periods of time. After a few levels, my nerves are shot. Also, it's best played with two players or more, solo is slightly less fun and it's not nearly as epic when you are simply saving a computer-controlled character.

Overall rating - 9. This game rocks.