Product Details
 | Left 4 Dead |
| List Price: | $19.99 |
| Price: | $19.33 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details |
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Average customer review:
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #3727 in Video Games
- Brand: Electronic Arts
- Model: 014633098556
- Released on: 2008-11-17
- ESRB Rating: Mature
- Platforms: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 2000
- Format: DVD-ROM
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: .75" h x 5.50" w x 7.50" l, .20 pounds
Features
- Co-operative gameplay in epic struggle between survivors and zombies
- Choose to play as survivor or 4 types of infected mutants
- Set across 4 massive campaigns
- Game creates a unique and dramatic experience based on players' actions
- Multiplayer games for 1-to-8 players
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Set
in a modern day survival-horror universe, the co-operative gameplay of Left
4 Dead (L4D) casts four "Survivors" in an epic struggle
against hordes of swarming zombies and terrifying "Boss Infected"
mutants. Developed by Turtle Rock Studios and Valve, creators of the Counter-Strike
and Half-Life games, the latest AI technology allows for
multiplayer games of one to eight players.
A new and highly
virulent strain of the rabies virus emerges and spreads through the
human population with frightening speed. The pandemic's victims become
grotesquely disfigured widely violent psychopaths, attacking the
uninfected on sight. As one of the "lucky" few apparently immune to the
sickness, you, unfortunately, are also trapped in a city crawling with
thousands of the bloodthirsty Infected. Alone, you're dead. But together
with a handful of fellow survivors, you might just fight your way to
safety.
Players can play as a Survivor or as one of four types of
Boss Infected, each of whom possess a unique mutant ability, such as a
50-foot tongue lasso or a giant belly full of explosive methane gas. The
gameplay of L4D is set across four massive campaigns. The zombie
population of each mission is choreographed by an AI Director that
monitors the human players' actions and creates a unique and dramatic
experience for them on the fly.
Customer Reviews
Left 4 Dead, a co-op FPS...2008 Game of the Year!
Addendum: Oct 07/09
"Crash
Course"...some comments
First impressions from a co-op
viewpoint...initially disappointing, but better since they've updated it
(see comments below).
A very short game...maybe 30 minutes or so
consisting of only two segments. The map is mostly made up of streets
littered with abandoned cars and trucks, and the buildings are mostly
warehouses. This added map, although playable as single player or co-op,
was primarily intended I believe, for Versus players.
This map
has improved since its original debut; updates have apparently removed a
lot of the excess ammo and guns, making it a better challenge.
The
finale...interesting and takes some planning (although the final run to
the rescue vehicle is extremely easy). Which leads to the one drawback
in this new map...if you all die in the finale, you must restart at the
last safehouse...about 15 minutes of travel to the ending.
Conclusion:
Now
that the game (with the removal of all the extra guns and ammo) has
become more of a challenge, I'll probably play this map a bit more...too
bad they didn't make it a full map like the others (probably didn't
want to divert too much attention away from the upcoming L4D2).
Addendum:
April 22/09
"Survival"... some comments,
Well the much
anticipated update for Left 4 Dead has finally arrived. The new game is
call 'Survival' and it IS aptly named. There are several new individual
mods to this new game that use slight variations from some of the
different sections of the 4 established games i.e. No Mercy, Death Toll,
Dead Air and Blood Harvest. There is one brand new locale called 'Last
Stand'; its setting is at a lighthouse and it's probably the most
difficult game of the lot.
Rather than a prolonged campaign these
games are very short; and make no mistake about it, you are going to
die. The challenge here is to see how long you can last; 4 minutes gets
you a bronze medal, 7 minutes a silver and you get a gold medal if you
last for ten minutes. Unlike the regular game, there is NO option for
easy, normal etc. difficulty; just the one standard for everyone;
"brutal" might be a good name for this newness addition.
In the
regular game you get attacked by hordes of zombies, with an occasional
smoker, hunter or tank thrown in, but usually not all at once. However
in this game, you get attacked by ALL types of infected, all at once. In
addition, there is no long stretch to outrun a tank; not that that
matters, as you are fighting the horde, smokers and hunters the same
time as your trying to fight off the tank...yup, just about impossible.
Impression:
Intense...yes.
Gut wrenching...yes. FUN...hmmm, I'm not sure. One of the great
strengths of on-line Left 4 Dead was the co-op fighting style needed to
get through the advanced and expert campaigns. Here in 'Survival', co-op
is needed but somehow, after a battle that begins with about 1 minute
of 'easy', all chaos breaks-out. And because your being attacked from
all side by ALL types of infected, the co-op gaming style, that made the
regular L4D sooo enjoyable, is gone; gone because at this point, it
becomes a game of personal survival, rather than the group...and that's
the real shortcoming of this update.
And finally, I could play
the regular on-line L4D for hours and never (well almost never) get
tired. But with this game, I found that not only did it take quite a lot
of time/effort to strategically set up gas cans, propane tanks etc. in
the area you want to TRY to defend, but also, that after 3 or 4 tries I
was frustrated, weary and eager to return to the regular game.
I
must admit, in fairness, that I've never been a great fan of time
based/get the highest score, type games, so I'm probably a little
prejudiced. I'll continue to 'give this a go' for a while; maybe it'll
turn out to be a great game. But somehow, I think I'd have liked a new
regular campaign map better.
R.N. (cujo)
**************************************************************************
Original
L4D review of Nov 18, 2008
'Left 4 Dead' is a great new 4 man
co-op or single player FPS game from VALVE.
The GAME:
This
game is a 4 player journey of survival; it can be played as single
player (with 3 computer comrades) or with 3 other people on-line. The
trek begins in any of 4 different locations and ends in another part of
town with an extraction to safety if you survive. (or a nice mention, in
memoriam, if you don't)
The Pros:
1.)Great graphics and
audio. The atmosphere is very dusky and eerie; lighting is sparse in
buildings except for your flashlight (kind of reminds me of 'Doom 3').
Creeping into a pitch black room with only a flashlight to find it
either empty, full of zombies or even worse, harbouring a super mutant
is visceral to say the least.
2.)The action is fast paced and
hectic; there is not a lot of down time between one attack and the next.
Attacks either by a hoard of undead or a super mutant comes at a fairly
regular clip. Half the fun here is trying to find out what weakness the
monsters have and what works best against them.
3.)Weaponry come
in the form of guns (shotgun, sniper rifle, automatic machine gun and
pistols) explosives consist of pipe bombs and Molotov fire bombs.
4.)You
can start the game from the beginning any one of four campaigns OR at
the beginning of any chapter within a campaign. Each section of the game
is reasonably short, so you don't have to redo the entire game if you
have to shut down for a while [see Cons: 2.) below]. Also, if your team
dies while playing, you restart from the last 'safe-house' you made it
to.
5.)The game resets weapons, monsters, and health packs for
every new game; so each game is slightly different than the last,
although played over the same geographic area.
6.)Certain
'achievements' are awarded throughout the game for accomplishing certain
things. I initially thought these were a perk or upgrade, but now I
don't think so...they just recognize certain 'accomplishments' i.e.
setting a 'tank' afire or pushing away a 'hunter', and many others.
They
add absolutely nothing to the game play and they were not available in
the demo.
7.)You have the ability to set up a game from the
Undead point of view; haven't tried this yet.
8.)A couple of nice
on-line game features:
a.] you can change the difficulty setting
ANYTIME; great if it's too easy or if your taking a continual pounding
b.]
if you have a player that is 'disruptive' to the team play, you can
kick that player out of the game by simply taking a vote among the other
three on-line players. (I was surprised that this actually happened a
couple of times while I was playing)
c.)And finally, a truly
great feature; You can 'Take a Break' from an on-line game by pressing
ESC> Take a Break> anytime while playing; great for a call to the
BR or to take a phone call. When you 'Take a Break' you go 'Idle' while
your away and your computer player takes over until you get back into
the game (by pressing the left mouse key).
The Cons: (all minor)
1.)A
fairly linear game; only a little room to travel off the prescribed
path. Yet, in retrospect, having played this game many times, it would
be difficult for this game to function properly with a 'open world',
given the fighting style required for on-line co-op; each segment is a
fairly short 'meat' run from point 'A' to point 'B'.
2.)No game
saves...none; and this is understandable from the 4 player on-line game.
However with the single player game, the chapters aren't terribly long
BUT they do require a degree of concentration and work to finish,
especially on the higher difficulty levels. And somehow losing all your
hard fought gains if you have to leave the game unexpectedly, seems a
little unfair; you'll understand more clearly what I mean once you begin
to play.
3.)The AI of your comrades in the single person game
needs one small modification; your buddies will guard you, heal you and
stay near you BUT, they won't pick up the extra pipe bombs or Molotov
bombs that often sit there before them. And it would be really helpful
in the single person game-play if they did, especially on advanced and
expert.
Suggestions:
I can not stress how much
headphones/microphone add to the enjoyment of playing this game on-line;
especially with communicating with your on-line playing partners. If
you can, try playing with a headset, you won't believe the difference.
Conclusion:
A
new FPS that requires 4 player co-operation (in both single and on-line
play) to be successful. You may get away with a little 'individuality'
on 'Easy', but on 'Normal', 'Advanced' or 'Expert' forget about it; if
you don't travel and fight as a pack, your toast.
The on-line
co-op version is one of the greatest games EVER...IF played with the 4
players who have an understanding of the game concepts and are willing
to work together. And that being said, having a maximum of 4 players for
on-line play is probably the perfect number; 3 would not be enough to
fend off the hoards (except on easy maybe) and with 5 players you'd be
getting in each others way.
The game chapters are fairly short
and there are no game saves. However the game play is intense and
visceral and you do tend to become wrapped up in the action that is
taking place around you.
And finally, this is one of those rare
games that I just don't ever get tired of playing, (at least, with the
on-line game)...and a game with this quality has to be in the running
for game of the year.
4 1/2 to 5 Stars
Ray Nicholson (cujo)
Exactly as it advertises
Co-op Zombie survival, that's
what the game advertises and that's what it is. You and 3 friends (or
bots) team up against a zombie apocalypse that has ravished possibly the
world. There's no puzzles, get key to enter room or deep plot, it's
grab a gun and try to make it to the next safe house for rescue. You
murder tons and tons of zombies to get from point A to point B, while
this may seem like it can get old really fast to some the game is
different each time you play it with enemies in different spots, there
are NO scripted events in this making replay easy. The game is only gets
better with more players, making it more of an intense experience. To
really throw a wrench into you surviving, there's 6 boss character
zombies which are not as common as the horde but are a lot more deadly.
The
PC version holds more hope to me because Valve always does updates for
their games adding levels, gameplay modes and weapons. Though they will
probably update the 360's content it's likely that it would cost money.
The other big plus for the PC version to me is others can make levels
and such for the game as well if they know about editing half life 2
content. A few Team Fortress 2 levels have already been added.
If
you're looking to murder tons of zombies trying to make it to rescue
this is a game for you, if you're looking for depth and puzzles you may
want look elsewhere. But this game is a blast.
Co-op Gaming Refined
Left 4 Dead is an amazingly
visceral, spooky, action-packed gaming experience! It is quite simply a
survival horror masterpiece. It also stands now, as probably the
greatest Co-op multiplayer game in gaming history. Yes, it's that good.
The
Source engine has NEVER looked (or ran!) better. And the zombies... THE
ZOMBIES are an incredible sight to behold! When you see a horde or
these crazed monsters running straight at you 28 DAYS LATER style, you
will know FEAR. And your jaw will hit the floor. And just wait till you
shoot these things! The way the bullets hit and impact their bodies, the
way they fly back from shotgun blasts... a thing of pure beauty for
those who can stomach it. =)
I don't know, I could go on and on,
but the bottom line is, we FINALLY have a full, honest-to-goodness
(read: not a fan-made mod) AAA zombie horror game that we can jump into
with three friends and fight through COOPERATIVELY!!! Been waiting for
Left 4 Dead for a long time and I can't believe it's finally here and
that it turned out THIS good!
It's the Zombie Apocalypse. Bring
friends.
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