Friday, December 26, 2008

1 Hour Review: Left 4 Dead

Zombie games, up until now for me, have been slow progressing, sneak around corners, solitary types of games. Resident Evil was my first zombie game on the Sony Playstation. I didn't touch the series again until Resident Evil 4 on the GameCube, some 6 or 7 years later.

When 28 Days Later hit theaters, they changed the zombie genre forever. Zombies were popular again in main stream culture. There were different: fast, mean, traveling in packs.

Left 4 Dead is the first game I've played with zombies like that. Resident Evil games have had zombies that lurch. This is not lurching. It's flooding. Stampeding. Flowing. Releasing through hallways and gates, large areas become pools of zombies that ebb and flow towards you, finding pathways to you. And it's just you, two pistols and a shotgun and three of your most alive friends trying to reach the hospital roof for rescue.

I love this game. It's fast, loud and bloody. It's built for speed and reflexes. My only complaint so far is surprisingly not about the computer controlled friendlies. My problem is with the flashlight. Shown in a dark room, it illuminates only the circle of light within the beam. No glow anywhere else. I guess it could be considered part of the challenge. It's unrealistic, but we are talking about a zombie game.

I can't wait to play this with a few friends online and yell and scream like little girls.

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