Left 4 Dead: Will make your sex organs stronger, faster, fiercer (NSF56K ZOMG IMAGES)

[Occulus]

SO WTF IS THIS "LEFT 4 DEAD"?

"Left 4 Dead" is Valve's zombie apocalypse game. It's built in the spirit of every good zombie horror film out there; it takes heavily from such modern adaptations such as "Dawn of the Dead", "Resident Evil", and "28 Days/Weeks Later".

In "Left 4 Dead", you play either one of four immune survivors, or one of four zombie bosses.

THE SURVIVORS:



FRANCIS



Francis hates everything except the Zombie Apocalypse. Francis rebelled against his foofoo French name by becoming a badass multiple felon. His crimes include armed robbery, assault with intent to commit bodily harm, and Fucking Up A Judge. His favorite activity? Debraining zombies.

BILL



A former Vietnam veteran, Bill has been awaiting the Zombie Apocalypse ever since his first hit of LSD. Bill is "trained" in military tactics, which for him included copious amounts of cannabis. Serious, dedicated, and reliable, Bill represents the only military presence among the Survivors, and perhaps the only real leadership among the immune survivors.

ZOEY



Following her boyfriend being voted off her island, Zoey embarked upon a solo life pursuing a degree in human psychology. Alone and distraught, Zoey was about to take a bath in warm water and razor blades just before the infection revealed itself. Now an immune survivor, Zoey seeks to kill as many infected as she can on her way to safety.

LOUIS



In spite of his boring office job, Louis has an adventurous streak, and loves to spend his days off at the gun range near his apartment. Despite his cool, clean appearance, Louis is a top-ranked marksman in the state, and prides himself upon the 'headshots' he scores on his range targets. Nevertheless, Louis prefers to avoid physical confrontations, which make the zombie apocalypse all the harder for him to deal with.

THE ZOMBIE BOSSES

THE BOOMER



The Boomer boss is bloated because of the gases produced by his own decomposition. Only a few shots will cause him to burst, spewing his bile upon anyone nearby, which will summon a zombie horde. The Boomer can also vomit upon the survivors and accomplish the same thing. Boomers can be controlled by opposing players.

THE HUNTER



The Hunter is able to leap over long distances, and tears the face off his target. Like the other infected bosses, a solid few shots will remove him as a threat. However, his ability to leap from rooftops and out from dark hallways makes him a menace to constantly be aware of.

THE SMOKER



The Smoker's 30' tongue makes him a force to be reckoned with. Easy to kill, the Smoker can nonetheless take the trailing member of your group out of commission.

THE WITCH



Beware the Witch. Immobile and uncontrolled by other players, the Witch is an AI beast which will wait for you to screw up. She's always hidden and always dangerous. Listen for her sobbing and shut off your light is you hear her- the Witch is far more dangerous than her immobile form appears.

THE TANK



TAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNK!

Enough said.

THE MODES:

CO-OP: Not hard to figure out. Evade/kill the AI zombies amongst three of your friends (or bots) and beat the campaign by leaving in the final survival vehicle.

VS: (FAR more fun than Co-op): Play each map twice, as a survivor AND as an infected boss. Ambush your enemies/friends, jump on them, tongue them, puke on them, and in general grief team player in a whole new way.

So what's the verdict?

Go to YouTube and watch a few Left 4 Dead games if you think it's not for you. Personally, I'd say that Valve's "Left 4 Dead" is among one of the best games of the year, and certainly worth a look for anyone who is into zombie horror flicks. With five increasingly difficult maps per scenario, and plenty more on the way via the L4D SDK, "Left 4 Dead" is, it seems to me, here to stay as a classic zombie apocalypse survival game, and is definitely worth the price of admission.

[YOY]

1. The vertict is that it needs a single player.

Great multiplayer fun but that ain't my bag baby.

[Ignis]

2. Oh it will be once I get a copy, damn you!

I'm not going out there alooooooooooooone!

[YOY]

3. Somehow I think Francis would be best played by Curt!

But let's let the man have his romance.

And you! Get back to that wife man. You're in Hawaii dammit! Enjoy that poi!

[Ignis]

4. No Hawaii yet. Next month.

I'm stuck at work dreaming of my Choppa.

[YOY]

5. My wife is studying for a major test on the machine...I will be on this Friday if you and A are.

n/t

[Ignis]

6. ...And I'll be playing Whiskey Pete in the background.

:hi:

[Occulus]

7. You can play the campaigns alone, you know

What would be your ideal single-player mode? I ask because the SDk is coming, and well... you can do pretty much anything you like with that, as far as making new content goes.

[YOY]

10. Tried it.

Yes the multiplayer is awesome...but the single player leaves much to be desired.

Well designed levels that are too short for any single player long term playability, but the characters could have used a tiny bit of individualizations (e.g Bill has slightly better aim, Louis uses med kits/items faster, Zoey can run slightly faster, Francis is slightly tougher.) but no. They didn't do that. They did give them personality though. I liked that.

[Occulus]

11. Well... if you want those things from the characters.....

as I said, the SDK is on its way; there are also several current mods available, such as Death Aboard (only 3 of 5 maps thus far), but. BUT! Those things you describe are very likely doable once that appears.

Their commentary was awesome. "I hate doctors... I hate hospitals.... I hate elevators..."

[YOY]

13. "Oh shit! They Killed GOD!"

That had me laughing my ass off.

[AZCat]

8. My LAN group has gone a few rounds with this.

It was really glitchy at first for us, but they seem to have fixed the problems with graphics card drivers. We still prefer COD5 Zombie mode, but L4D is in the rotation.

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

9. The verdict?

Beyond awesome.

This is a phenomenal game.

[Ignis]

12. I finally picked this game up.

It's pretty intense. We've only tried 2-person co-op offline multiplayer so far.

[Occulus]

14. If you get four people playing, make sure you use the "God of Vishnu/Shiva" tactic

Players clip into other players' space, so, if you have four people playing, and you're confronted by a horde, panic event, or a TAAAAANNNNK, simply stack into a corner to make an eight-armed column of death.

Edit: beware. The TAAAANNNNK can swipe multiple players at once, so that's maybe not the best idea for dealing with it.

I'm betting Valve is working on collision models for the players as we speak. :)

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

15. Yeah. We tried that on the end of Dead Air...sort of.

Hiding in the player-respawn closet worked for a bit, but when the tank showed up...
...everything went pear-shaped.

Last night I was playing by myself, trying to get the "use guns only" achievement, and the tank rumbled onto the scene. After dancing around him, dual pistols blazing, for 30 seconds, he charged me and swatted me clear off the building. I sailed over the adjacent rooftop and landed somewhere near the edge of the map.

Ouch.

I love this game.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

16. Who is playing this? I just got it recently and it's fun, but I suck. I'd love to play

online for a bit but only with players who won't get pissed at my suckitude.

I'd love to play campaign mode with some cool DUers. There's also the new Survivor mode but you'd probably want better players to do well in that.

[Occulus]

17. Ya know, we could make a Steam group.

And there are a lot of other games on Steam as well. I myself have... well... a few. ;)

But I'm sure there are enough people on here who have Steam to justify making a group on Steam for us. I'll put up a poll in a minute and see if there's any interest in the idea.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

18. Guide to practicing as a Zombie/Infected against Human Bots:

Here's how you can practice as a Zombie in Versus mode against a team of human bots (without needing any other random online players):

In the directory C:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\common\left 4 dead\left4dead\cfg, I created a file called "zombievs.cfg" that contains the following:

sv_cheats 1
mp_gamemode versus
sb_all_bot_team 1
sb_unstick 0
vs_max_team_switches 99
jointeam 3


(I created it as a .txt then renamed it when it was done)

I start the game.

At the main menu, I bring up the console and choose a Versus map by typing "map l4d_vs" which brings up a list of maps I can choose.

Once I choose the map, the scenario loads.

Once I am in the scenario, as a Survivor, I bring up the console again and type "exec zombievs" and voila, I'm ready to spawn as an infected.

It's good because I can practice the mechanics of the various Special Infected attacks without pissing off teammates due to lameness. It's good for getting a feel for the range of the attacks, their various cooldown times etc. and what kind of high ground, ambush spots or other terrain features help a successful attack.

Sometimes after a map change there is a problem where I can't switch teams because all players aren't ready or whatever, I think the "z_spawn" command in the console usually fixes this, I can't remember the solution but the problem does get solved.

[Occulus]

19. This. Exactly this.

Posts like this one make me wish we could edit our OPs indefinitely. Thanks a lot- now I can actually practice with the Hunter.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

20. Oh, the solution to the problem of players not being ready is to execute the .cfg again.

Then you're right back on the zombie train.

[Occulus]

21. Did you piece together that .cfg by yourself?

Because this method is just awesome.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

22. No it required some googling around and asking around from different sources.

But there it is, compiled from a few different sources. I have found it's necessary to be EXACT in describing the method and commands, because the ones I saw online didn't work for me until one command, the mp_gamemode versus, was told to me on another message board.

I also have a way to substitute the Michael Jackson "Thriller" zombie dance sequence as the background animation for the game menu if you want.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

24. Thanks for the compliment. I haven't really played any multiplayer online, just

noodling around with this.

Overall I seem most able to do damage with the Boomer. If I can get high ground and the Survivors are confined to an area, like a fire escape, and I can hit two or three of 'em at once I kick major ass. Still getting a feel for the vomit range, it's not too great but the attack is really good both because it summons the Horde and you can hit more than one target, but also because they can't see well and are ineffective while covered. If you can get a regular pattern of hitting, hiding, and hitting as soon as your cooldown is up, you can do intense damage.

Of course if you are spotted at all it seems like Boomer has the least hitpoints and dies most easily.

I can get people with the Smoker Tongue but I don't really know the good ways to use this, how they are breaking off the tongue, how to pull people off buildings to their death etc. I got one kill once because the other bot Survivors didn't help their buddy and I simply hacked them to death while they were still wrapped up by my tongue.


I can't figure out how to do anything useful with the Hunter at all, I never manage to pounce on the target, seems like I'm running into something or coming up short, my concept of the pounce is all wrong, I need to read about how to do it and what the ground rules are.

When I become the Tank I need to concentrate on learning how to grab and throw things.

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

23. For anyone who's not played this game yet: FREAKY FREE FRIDAY ON STEAM

Friday at 12:01 GMT, Left 4 Dead is unlocked for 24 hours of free play. Download it NAU!!! Play it Friday!!!



Or am I just preaching to the choir?