The Ramblings of a Moron: Left4Dead Review

[Cynagen]

Made bigger for the blind as effin bats folks: Just to get this out of the way before I jump into the review, any future editorial contribution to the site by me, I will file under the section name "The Ramblings of a Moron" so you know who it's written by, and to expect non-perfect editorial skills. (Not to mention the high probability of completely moronic things being said.) This is me trying to improve my written communications as well as contribute at the same time. Without further delay:

The Ramblings of a Moron, Articles by Cynagen
This post does not reflect the views, opinions, or stance of Widescreen Gaming Forum and it's staff. It is only of my own, so anything you have against it, PM me or comment.

November 6th, 7AM PST, Two weeks after First Infection, you and your follow survivors brave the streets filled with the Infected whom seek to kill you. You make leaps and bounds in your effort, skill, and teamwork, it's enough to get you, across the street. Now it's up to you, player, to take on the horde of Infected and shoot, bash, and otherwise maim your way to your own safety. Armed with your choice of a submachine pistol, or shotgun, you're pitted against the undead masses in quick time, and not only that, but in close quarters too.

As you settle in, your mission is to get from point A to point B without getting killed. As you plow through mindless horde you end up thinking to yourself, "Ah this ain't that bad". All it takes is being puked on by a Boomer, ensnared by a Smoker's tongue, being pinned by a Hunter, or hearing a girl crying to just make your day turn to shit and change your mind real quick. And that's without mentioning the Tank. Now you understand some of what you're up against... now put any of those into any combination, and you've got utter chaos. And apparently that's the way I, and millions others enjoy it. Left4Dead is by far one of THE best "Zombie Apocalypse" games I've played to date. Sadly there is still the same "depth" factor which is missing, it IS after all a get from Point A to Point B game. What the plot lacks in depth, the Director, or the soon-to-be players playing as Infected, will be more than happy to do what it takes to make your mundane trip to granny's house a living nightmare in exchange. This ain't Resident Evil (the game), this ain't Zombie Panic Source, this ain't Shaun of the Dead, this is, ruthless, in your face, extreme bloodbath, zombie slaying action.

The graphics are top notch, when you get the zombies up close for some quality 1 on 1 time, you can almost feel and smell their rancid breath on your face as they claw at you. The audio is a cut above all the other zombie games I've played, the zombies, the ambient music, and even the character's voice acting. It all lends itself to a realistic experience of "oh... my... god...". The (short) plot plays out in acts, acts that are never the same twice thanks to the Director and Infected players. The demo only encompassing the first half of the first act, aptly named, "No Mercy". Each act has a final goal which you'll more than likely need your entire team alive to accomplish, As per previous reports, No Mercy is to end on a helicopter landing pad atop the Mercy Care hospital, where you must wait for a rescue helicopter to arrive, while fighting off the horde. How this will play out, will be interesting, but what'll be more interesting are the acts afterwards, the ones not mentioned by Valve.

The wait is on now that many have had their first bite of the new zombie apocalypse thriller, Left4Dead.

Scoring:
Graphics: 9/10
Audio: 10/10 (music is on par with action, and voice acting is superb)
Action: 9/10 (there are lulls, and times where you don't see zomibes for a while, but it does culminate to getting raped by the horde later)
Re-playability: 10/10
Value for cost: 9/10

Overall score: 94%

The thread is open for comments, light talk about the game (since there's already another discussion thread), but mainly for myself, seeking literary aid on what I'm sure was a massacre on the English language in all sorts of cruel and unusual ways.

[KelsieKatt]

Do you have to preorder it to try the demo?

[Cynagen]

Do you have to preorder it to try the demo?

There was another way around, but I forgot how.

[Frag Maniac]

Admittedly I sort of skimmed through that review, but mainly because I didn't see you explain anywhere what mode type you were playing on. My main concern about this game is how it plays in sp mode? I have read a very lengthy review on L4D 411, but nowhere in it did they describe how sp mode plays.

Oh, and don't worry so much about the moron part, the ultra small fonts explaining the review concept is actually more of a problem than that. I pity those whom have high res desktops. Mine is only 1152x864 on a 20", and I had to scroll zoom it several clicks.

[Dem Pyros]

Personally, I think SP mode is just "okay." It's a team game, and your AI (expectedly) is rather lacking. It's more of a HL2 style "Follow Freeman" type gameplay in SP. Although to be fair, someone more experienced usually takes over that role in multiplayer as well (unless you're going on either a LAN or an online game with superb communication).

Why did you give graphics a 9/10? It seems rather bland, but after several playthroughs you begin to pick up on all of the post processing they're adding at different stages (varying through how you're playing).

[Frag Maniac]

Are you saying sp play is too difficult because your AI teammates don't help much? I was hoping the fact that all the enemy bosses are AI too would give it balance.

[Dem Pyros]

Are you saying sp play is too difficult because your AI teammates don't help much? I was hoping the fact that all the enemy bosses are AI too would give it balance.

Not that it's too difficult, it's just... distracting.

It plays fine and the AI teammates are just basically "there" until you get into trouble (pinned by a hunter for example) in which case you're their main priority, not themselves (which is NOT how human society works).

So it seems and feels more like a singleplayer experience, and every time you're injured you're reminded of it.

It just doesn't feel the same... :(

[Abram]

I prefer stupid A.I. for teammates. So long as they STAY OUT OF THE WAY! Not blocking doorways in particular, and don't go running fetch grenades. Does the game have explosives? Surely it must.

But I cun;t wait to try it when i LAN with friends.

[CrackerJackMack]

tl;dr

I would put the audio at a 9 instead of 10 because it doesn't have that "doom3" feeling. I don't feel that my death is all that tragic so I just jump into combat. The game play is addictive, but not emersive, so I can't agree with your rating of 94%, averaged out, 90% or 89% IMHO.

[DaFox]

Are you saying sp play is too difficult because your AI teammates don't help much? I was hoping the fact that all the enemy bosses are AI too would give it balance.

On normal, Singleplayer it was very easy, only one of the bots 'died' and had to be resurrected during the big final battle of the demo.

I don't know if theres any bosses in the game, its more of just like 400 zombies coming at you I think. "The Tank" zombie is somewhat of a miniboss, he does some massive damage and takes a few clips to kill. Luckily in the demo you only fight him practically solo. But him busting down a door and letting dozens of fast zombies in, shit would be bananas.

[Frag Maniac]

I don't know if theres any bosses in the game, its more of just like 400 zombies coming at you I think. "The Tank" zombie is somewhat of a miniboss, he does some massive damage and takes a few clips to kill. Luckily in the demo you only fight him practically solo. But him busting down a door and letting dozens of fast zombies in, shit would be bananas.

Well I'm not sure if you know what I mean by boss zombies or if you've heard how the game's AI characters/zombie human characters are described so let me explain.

Other than the typical zombies the game has 4 boss zombies, Hunters, Smokers, Boomers, and Tanks. In co-op and mp play for the most part you can only play as the first three, then occasionally someone gets to spawn as a Tank.

Hunters are stealth bosses that are very quiet and can go invisible when not moving while near a wall. They have a pounce attack that is tricky to pull off as they don't jump at but onto their prey.

Smokers have a 50' prehensile tongue they can shoot out and grab their prey with. They can also give off smoke to hide in, thus the name.

Boomers are big fat guys full of methane that vomit on you, which temporarily blinds their victims. If a Boomer is shot they explode violently and can take out the whole crew of survivors.

Obviously you already know what the Tank is. These are the 4 bosses that I meant would be AI when playing sp. At least that's the way I thought the sp would play, kinda disappointing if not.

There are also witches that are AI even in co-op and mp. They are fairly quiet and still until someone gets near them, then they start freaking out and attack if you have a light on or make too much noise.

Valve says the witches are only present at higher difficulty levels, but as far as I know the boss zombies are always there, in co-op and mp anyway. It could be in sp the boss zombies are only there in higher difficulty levels too though. They don't ever really talk about sp play much in the dev interviews and videos, so it's hard to get info about.

[Cynagen]

Admittedly I sort of skimmed through that review, but mainly because I didn't see you explain anywhere what mode type you were playing on. My main concern about this game is how it plays in sp mode? I have read a very lengthy review on L4D 411, but nowhere in it did they describe how sp mode plays.

Oh, and don't worry so much about the moron part, the ultra small fonts explaining the review concept is actually more of a problem than that. I pity those whom have high res desktops. Mine is only 1152x864 on a 20", and I had to scroll zoom it several clicks.

The game is designed to be played with humans. The AI is just there to fill in when there is no human available. So naturally I'm playing this online with other people rather than by myself. Admittedly, I've ended up with 3 AI characters in one of my online games (friends all crashed out due to some early memory leak bugs), and they weren't anywhere as good as a human, and sometimes flat out stupid.

The Boomer puke not only blinds, it also slows you down since you're actually covered in Boomer bile, and it also attracts the horde DIRECTLY TO YOU.

@Frag: SP mode is EXACTLY the same thing as MP mode, just nobody can ever join your game. Frankly, you have the game, you're prolly just only going to ever run MP mode, so you get smarter humans to help, rather than stick with the AI. The AI is pretty good, but can be stupid.

[Paddy the Wak]

Cool review Cynagen ... it makes me want to play the game ... :D

I've stayed away from checking out too many details as I didn't want to spoil the game for myself ...
Now from what I'm now reading here on the forum I think I'm gonna enjoy this one !
I especially like the sound of this ...

... this is, ruthless, in your face, extreme bloodbath, zombie slaying action. ...

... :mrgreen: ... sounds like my kinda game !
I'm not one for multi-player games but I might just get into this ... I do like a good PANIC ! ... :lol:

Looking forward to similar ramblings from you ... nice one ! ... :cool:

[DaFox]

Well I'm not sure if you know what I mean by boss zombies or if you've heard how the game's AI characters/zombie human characters are described so let me explain.

Other than the typical zombies the game has 4 boss zombies, Hunters, Smokers, Boomers, and Tanks. In co-op and mp play for the most part you can only play as the first three, then occasionally someone gets to spawn as a Tank.

Ah I see what you mean. Yeah the 4 special zombies are barely bosses I mean in the 2 levels you see over a dozen of those 4 mobs in singleplayer and online coop.

The mode that other people get to play those infected is Versus mode which I do not care for what so ever, I bought this game for the plain old sitting down with a few friends, and killin so mofuggin AI zombies.

Playing online coop with random people I found to be less fun than singleplayer, but i guess its luck getting the right group of people.
Often I enjoyed the AI Humans more; they don't ever shoot you --"

[Dem Pyros]

Playing online coop with random people I found to be less fun than singleplayer, but i guess its luck getting the right group of people.
Often I enjoyed the AI Humans more; they don't ever shoot you --"

Welcome to online gaming... :wink:

[DaFox]

[quote]Playing online coop with random people I found to be less fun than singleplayer, but i guess its luck getting the right group of people.
Often I enjoyed the AI Humans more; they don't ever shoot you --"

Welcome to online gaming... :wink:

Oh I play plenty of online gaming, usually im a rogue assassin though, helping my team by sneaking around on the other side of the map. You know where they cant shoot me in the back of the head!

[Frag Maniac]

Playing online coop with random people I found to be less fun than singleplayer, but i guess its luck getting the right group of people.

Yeah that's kinda my point. I play mainly sp anymore because of the ridiculous stuff that happens online. I'm not about to waste my time hoping to find good teammates. With the strict rep system the game has, you could also end up getting points nicked for idiots jumping in front of you while firing. You don't have to worry about all that with sp. I was hoping this game's sp would range from moderately easy to brutally challenging, like the bots you can ramp up in good old UT3.

@Cynagen,
Of course I know it's designed for co-op play. Most everyone that knows anything about the game is aware of that by now. The game DOES however have an sp mode, it's just that with the trend being towards the talk and support of mp play, it isn't mentioned much.

Lots of people seem to think better mp play is what's going to keep PC gaming a competitive platform. Well I tend to think the obsession with it to a large degree has caused a lack of time and quality put into sp, which is ultimately what's REALLY killing PC game sales IMO.

[Cynagen]

@Cynagen,
Of course I know it's designed for co-op play. Most everyone that knows anything about the game is aware of that by now. The game DOES however have an sp mode, it's just that with the trend being towards the talk and support of mp play, it isn't mentioned much.

Lots of people seem to think better mp play is what's going to keep PC gaming a competitive platform. Well I tend to think the obsession with it to a large degree has caused a lack of time and quality put into sp, which is ultimately what's REALLY killing PC game sales IMO.

The game is EXACTLY the same either way, MP or SP. It's just your preference here. And I don't really agree with that line of "SP sucks because too much time is being put in on MP" logic. There are plenty of titles on both PCs and consoles that either sucked ass or rocked. It was mainly how much time the developers CHOSE to spend working on the SP.

[Frag Maniac]

Well I'm not going to try and convince an mp addict of course, but the trend has been that sp bugs are common anymore and go unfixed due to most of the patching time being spent on a multitude of mp problems. So whether in essence the sp is good or not, it often times comes with such annoyances, and it does affect people's willingness to shell out money for them when they fell their support tickets are being ignored.

[DaFox]

Well I'm not going to try and convince an mp addict of course, but the trend has been that sp bugs are common anymore and go unfixed due to most of the patching time being spent on a multitude of mp problems. So whether in essence the sp is good or not, it often times comes with such annoyances, and it does affect people's willingness to shell out money for them when they fell their support tickets are being ignored.

Yeah I fully understand what you mean by that like thats even a problem for blizzard and valve which patch up their muiltiplayer games but never directly fix any problems in the singleplayer campaigns in hl2, wc3 ect unless something is majorly wrong.


L4D on the otherhand, every change should directly affect both singleplayer and muiltiplayer since they really are the same games. You can probably even screw with the game to make the singleplayer work exactly like muiltiplayer with a few console commands allowing people to join you.