The Awesomeness That Is Left 4 Dead

[Drakona]

Woot! Zombie apocalypse!

Lothar and I have been playing Left 4 Dead obsessively for the last week or so. Or, I should say, we've been playing the demo obsessively. That should tell you something about how much fun the demo is.

The teamwork aspect of the game is hardcore. Almost every single time we've lost, it's because we got a little careless and split up. Or somebody didn't check their fire. Or the game just decided we should die and spawned a tank. That happens, too. The levels only take 15 minutes to play from end to end, but we just spent two hours trying to win. Balls to the wall combat all the way, and we came close to defeat many, many times on that last run. And the victory, it was sweet.

If you're at all on the bubble, I highly recommend checking out the demo. They'll deactivate it on Tuesday, but it's a fun game all by itself. Me, I can't wait for the full thing to come out. TuesdayTuesdayTuesday. It can't get here fast enough.

(If anyone else from around here is playing, come find us on steam under completely predictable handles.)

[Lothar]

\"completely predictable\" meaning, LotharBot and Drakona.

[Kyouryuu]

Yeah, the demo is awesome alright. If I have some free time, I might make some maps for the game.

[fliptw]

I have yet to lose

then again I take most of the damage...

[Jesus Freak]

I literally was just recommended this game by an acquaintance when leaving the dining hall. heh he said something about it being Counterstrike but with zombies for terrorists.

[Drakona]

I have yet to lose

Then you're not playing it right.

Just got through it with 3 players on expert (we killed the AI and didn't rescue it). Many, many losses. Even the win was brutal. And awesome.

I love this game.

[Lothar]

It's a phenomenally good game... the purest cooperative game I've ever seen. Several interesting game mechanics that REQUIRE teamwork:

- enemies that can incapacitate you and you can't stop them, but a teammate can shoot or melee them off of you
- attacks that cause one player to be the focus of all of the enemies, but other players can protect them
- your hitpoints go all the way down to -300, but when you're negative you fall down. A teammate can help you back up, but it takes them several seconds.
- if you completely die (after dropping below 0 3 times, or hitting -300) you respawn in a closet a few minutes later, and someone has to let you out
- as long as one player is still standing, the game continues.

I can't tell you how many times we've had a situation with all but one player down, they're going to pick someone up, and a smoker grabs them... and the player on the ground takes out the smoker.

If you haven't yet lost:
(1) play on the hardest skill levels, and
(2) play with real people, not AIs. When they have a mind of their own and imperfect aim, it really changes things.

Catherine and I just finished playing the demo with a friend of ours, on expert. We killed the AI player. Man, it's a tough game with only 3...

[Krom]

I have yet to play it multiplayer or on a skill level other than normal, but I've already died a couple times, once for real and couple other times I was rescued. Using the secondary fire to push enemies away is very handy when a swarm comes at you, having a spare grenade to toss and draw their attention away from you is also a major life saver at times. Most of the weapons are brutal when a swarm comes at you in a straight line, talk about mowing them down. The shotgun really is useful when they line up and swarm after you, if you can keep them lined up and aim high it will mow down what feels like dozens of them per shot.

[[]V[]essenjah]

I wasn't impressed at all. The AI is cheesy, enemies are incredibly easy to kill, AI isn't intelligent or interesting, graphics aren't that interesting, gameplay and story is pretty much Lara Croft meets Resident Evil wannabe. Co-op is and gameplay in general is boring, linear, and repetitive. You also seemingly never run out of ammo or actually have to look for any items of use. Boring.

Get GOW2, then you'll see a really good co-op game with decent multiplayer. Even Halo 3 beats it out. Both Fallout 3 and GOW2 are much higher quality games. I might pick Left For Dead up in a bargain bin sometime.

[Warlock]

X2 on GOW2 its sick

[Lothar]

enemies are incredibly easy to kill

What did you expect from a game about zombie hordes? The zombies aren't tough, they can just do a lot of damage in a hurry, particularly if you're playing on the harder difficulties, which I bet you weren't. (Now, some of the bosses are hella tough... but the zombie minions are pretty easy to kill.)

This is not a traditional game about killing the bad guys and clearing the levels. It's about surviving the zombie horde. The zombies aren't meant to be tough to kill, they're just meant to hurt you on your way to the exit.

AI isn't intelligent or interesting

The AI teammates are basically there just to let you get used to the game.

As for the Zombie AI's... they're freaking ZOMBIES. Brains are not their strong suit. Yet some of the bosses still manage to do pretty annoying things, positioning themselves in bad spots or just plain ganking the wrong person at the wrong time.

Co-op is and gameplay in general is boring, linear, and repetitive

Seriously? Are you playing the same game as me? L4D has been the most intense game I've played in a long time. Even playing the same 2 levels over and over again, it's always unique.

You also seemingly never run out of ammo or actually have to look for any items of use.

If you run the shotgun, no, you don't run out of ammo much. But you DO have to keep your eyes open for items, unless you're playing on such a low difficulty that you never get hurt.

I don't know about GOW2. But I do know I've been playing L4D ridiculously much, and the friend I played with said the game was "frickin' awesome" (something he normally only says about his vorpal sword.) I think it's a great game.

[[]V[]essenjah]

Compared to GOW, GOW2, Halo 3, Halo 2, Army Of Two, the overall quality of the co-op gameplay just isn't that good. Heck, GOW2's Hoard mode even beats out L4D on a whole and that is just one of the multiplayer game modes available.

I was really built up about L4D after reading all the hype, as were a couple of my buddies. We eagerly downloaded the demo this last weekend and jumped on find that all of us were heavily disappointed.

[fliptw]

Messenger is just upset L4D isn't a multi-media franchise.

[Foil]

Sounds interesting, although I've never been a fan of the zombie game genre (although I love the movies). I assume co-op can be played online? Maybe I'll join you guys sometime when I have the chance.

[Drakona]

A story of pwnage, for your amusement.

[Foil]

To Blueberry, for every fantasy ♥♥♥♥♥♥ in the last 13 years I've *wished* I could just gun down, thank you from the bottom of my heart for finally giving me the chance to do so.

And to gamer girls everywhere who have to deal with this sort of thing (and we all do . . .), I can't recommend the assault rifle highly enough.

Awesome story.

[[]V[]essenjah]

Messenger is just upset L4D isn't a multi-media franchise.

No, I'm just upset that it sucks. Every game in the near future looks to be about the same as well.

Actually I've seen ton of advertisement for L4D. There isn't anything different or remotely interesting about it and I don't get why such garbage is getting as many good reviews as it has.

[Hostile]

- if you completely die (after dropping below 0 3 times, or hitting -300) you respawn in a closet a few minutes later, and someone has to let you out

Wait... So you had to come out of the closet to finish the game???

[Krom]

2,891 zombies were harmed during the making of this film...

[Lothar]

My D&D crew is trying to play through the first campaign on expert. It's brutal... requires way more teamwork than I'd imagined. I've been working up my thoughts on the game as a whole:

------------

Left 4 Dead is, quite simply, about making it out of the zombie apocalypse alive. To quote the gospel gangstaz, \"game is survival, don't be distortin it.\" On the lower skill levels (where \"hordes\" are barely 15 zombies), you can play it like any other FPS and only occasionally help a teammate out of a nasty spot, but once you start playing on expert, all the m4d FPS sk1llz in the world won't save you. You have to work together to stay alive. You need people to cover you, and you need to cover them, and you need to be EXTREMELY efficient at it. The game is survival, which means your key resource -- the thing you really need to hang on to -- is your health. When you're low on health, you also slow down, which makes it even more likely you're going to start losing it. What follows are lessons I've learned from experience. Please note there are exceptions to virtually everything I say here; this is not so much a definitive guide as a bunch of ideas I've picked up that I think will generally put you in good shape.

General group tactics

One of the main detriments to staying alive is getting separated from the group. If you're out of line of sight from your teammates and a hunter or smoker gets hold of you, you're going to lose a lot of health before you get out of it. (If you're good, you can usually kill them before they actually get you... but if they get you for 50 health even ONCE, that's a huge blow to the team. And if you're the last one standing and a smoker constricts you, it's back to the start of the level.) At a minimum, you should always have one other teammate with clear line of sight to you; preferably it should be all 3. One of the key skills in this game is group positioning -- not just standing somewhere where you're safe, but standing somewhere where you can keep your teammates safe while avoiding damage yourself, and moving as a cohesive unit so that you don't hit each other with friendly fire or get too spread out. Everyone on the team should be in voice communication with each other to coordinate this.

Use your health resources wisely. The AIs will yell out \"you should heal up\" as soon as you start to get low on health; they're wrong. You only get about 1 health pack per level per person, so you should save them for when you're gray-screened, or for when the team as a whole is in bad shape so that you have at least one person who's healthy. Use pills when you're down to temp hp, to keep yourself in good enough shape that you won't go down to a single zombie hit and to keep your speed up. Be willing to share health resources -- heal up a teammate who needs it; it's better to be hurt with a healthy teammate than to be healthy with no teammates. And if you're already in bad shape, be willing to take damage to protect a teammate who is in good shape! It sounds counterintuitive, but it's better to have a teammate at 80 health and you at 30 temp health than to have a teammate at 20 and you with 5 normal.

Know when to explore, when to hole up, and when to press forward. The director will keep spawning monsters as long as you're in the level, so don't take too much time. There are some areas that tend to be rich in explosives or pills, and if you happen to need them, it may be worth taking the time to look. It's also sometimes worth stopping to heal up or going back a few steps for ammo, and it's definitely worth facing hordes in safe areas rather than getting caught out in the open. But it's not generally worth trying to explore whole levels (do it beforehand on single player if you must.) As soon as the group is together and ready to move, do it!

IMO, a well-balanced team will have four roles: point, wing, sniper, and rear guard. These aren't set in stone; you can change between roles midstream depending on health or many other factors. Rear Guard is the simplest concept: watch everybody's butts. When there's tons of chaos going on up front, swing around and fry some zombies, but check behind every few seconds so the team doesn't get ganked by a horde or boomer you didn't see coming. The sniper's main role is to keep hunters and smokers from doing too much damage or from breaking up the team structure too badly. Point and wing generally keep the group moving forward and secure a foothold in new areas. The only difference is that one of them makes the decision as to which way to go -- as above, you can't explore the whole level, so the group should stay together, and I find that's easiest if one person is unambiguously \"on point\". Of point, wing, and rear guard, I'd have 2 shotguns and one automatic, though it doesn't much matter who takes which. The sniper should take either an automatic or a rifle.

Tactics against specific monsters

Against hordes of zombies, your best individual tactic is to find a corner or choke point, crouch, and club them. Melee is extremely effective against hordes; 3 or 4 swings will take down any zombie, and in the mean time they'll be pushed back so they can't hit you (except if there's a low ceiling or obstacle -- so be aware of those things when you choose your position!) As a group, if you can get into a corner, have 3 people melee (one right, one left, one center) and the fourth stand in the corner shooting over the others' heads to thin out the horde and pick off dangerous targets, or 2 melee and 2 shooting. If you're in a hallway, have 2 side-by-side melee in the front and 2 melee in the back, and if one end empties out, one of the people from that end should stand up and shoot over their teammates, but the other should keep watching everone else's backs. If you're in a narrow hallway or a room with only 2 narrow entrances, have one crouch&melee and one stand&shoot at each entrance. And if you're in melee and you've pushed everything back, you may be able to get a clear shot or two and drop some enemies before they get into reach again; learn the timing of your weapon and melee cycle. Use the same anti-horde tactics if you've got boomer bile on you, with the caveat that you should only shoot if you're sure you're not blasting a teammate in the back. (Normally, you should shoot boomers at range; they're easy targets.) Recalling the above point about tactical positioning, you should always be aware of where your nearest corner or choke point is, and the team should be ready to move there quickly. Pipe bombs can be a huge help against hordes as well. If you must take a horde in the open, get the group together and try to mix crouching melee with shooting over heads.

Against hunters and smokers, if you know where they are, communicate that clearly to the team -- \"hunter hunter hunter HELP ME!\" is bad; \"hunter forward, left of the train car\" is good. If you or a teammate can kill it before it gets someone, that's ideal. If a grabbed teammate is within melee reach, you can swing to knock a smoker tongue or a hunter off of them, and that's a good way to keep from damaging them (and if a hunter is jumping on you or a nearby teammate, you can melee it out of mid-air! Hunters are actually quite easy to punch out.) At range with a grabbed teammate, just shoot the thing -- you may hit your teammate, but probably for less damage than the hunter/smoker will do to them in the time it takes you to walk over. If you've got a shotgun out, it may be worth the split second to change to pistol; if you have an automatic or rifle, just fire. One of the sniper's main duties is to get people out of those potentially HP-draining situations quickly.

Against witches, it's best to just not disturb them. If you have to, someone who has low health should do it -- if they go down, you're only out a few hp as a group. Once someone sets off the witch, everyone should lay into her -- and everyone should be positioned so that they won't hit teammates with crossfire as she approaches or even jumps on the teammate who set her off.

Against tanks, someone should try to hit it with a molotov immediately, as it's the best sustained damage you'll do to it. If you can, take the tank on your terms -- in a big space where you can spread out and multiple people can put damage on target. Don't be afraid to run away and make the tank come to you. The big automatic weapon is most effective, so if you're near the weapons, it may be worthwhile to switch. Don't worry about trying to rescue teammates the tank has grabbed, just put as much damage into its butt as possible while it's pounding on them. It's better to have one teammate die than all four get incapacitated. If you know it's coming and have time to use a health kit or pills, do that too -- being slow from having low health is a great way to get creamed by a tank. (Sometimes a crippled player will choose to act as \"bait\"; in that case, don't waste healing resources.)

More generally, if some threat has actually incapacitated a teammate... deal with the threat first, then help them up. Don't stand in the middle of a horde trying to help your teammate stand up while the zombies whittle away at your health. Kill the zombies first; your teammate will get up with 30 temp hitpoints either way, and you'll be in better shape. If you're fighting a horde and a smoker grabs someone, it's often but not always better to finish off the horde before you help your teammate out.

[Gekko71]

...words ...

...and this is just the DEMO we're talking about? Sweet Jeebers Lothar, how much time have you spent on this puppy so far???

[Krom]

In Lothars defense, he is playing the full game which came out late Monday. And I have already logged almost 14 hours of playtime in the full game since Tuesday (I didn't stay up late to play it on release night). Plus an additional 6 hours in the demo.

[Gekko71]

In Lothars defense, he is playing the full game which came out late Monday. And I have already logged almost 14 hours of playtime in the full game since Tuesday (I didn't stay up late to play it on release night). Plus an additional 6 hours in the demo.

Sounds like I need to get me a copy ...but I need to get me an upgrade first I'd say.

[Lothar]

I've logged almost 15 hours in the full game and 20 in the demo. Most of my observations were formed playing just in the levels available in the demo. Throwing a 4-player LAN party this weekend; I should have more to add after that.

[Kyouryuu]

So much venom you have for this game, Messenjah. I really don't get it.

I finished the last campaign in L4D last night in co-op with friends and it was awesome.

I only had two minor, minor quibbles about the game.

1. I didn't like how every campaign ended with a massive zombie hoard. I kept wanting to see a random alternative. Maybe a \"Super Tank\" boss you have to cooperatively destroy limb-by-limb. Instead, you just get a thousand more zombies in addition to the thousand you've already killed. It's not quite as special as it could be.

2. Obviously, the game itself is rather short. Once the Source SDK is formally updated, I'm sure we're going to see a healthy amount of custom maps and campaigns. The official levels cover a LOT of ground: hospitals, hotels, national parks, farms, airports, sewers, train stations - there's no shortage of \"real world\" locations you can make with just the stock assets.

[[]V[]essenjah]

So much venom you have for this game, Messenjah. I really don't get it.

I finished the last campaign in L4D last night in co-op with friends and it was awesome.

I only had two minor, minor quibbles about the game.

1. I didn't like how every campaign ended with a massive zombie hoard. I kept wanting to see a random alternative. Maybe a "Super Tank" boss you have to cooperatively destroy limb-by-limb. Instead, you just get a thousand more zombies in addition to the thousand you've already killed. It's not quite as special as it could be.

2. Obviously, the game itself is rather short. Once the Source SDK is formally updated, I'm sure we're going to see a healthy amount of custom maps and campaigns. The official levels cover a LOT of ground: hospitals, hotels, national parks, farms, airports, sewers, train stations - there's no shortage of "real world" locations you can make with just the stock assets.

Because, it is not new, inventive, or original in any sense I can find.

Just a cheap Resident Evil knock-off that wants to be another boring ordinary FPS.

I'm also tired of the same old zombie based enemies. Not to say any of the other games I mentioned are different in that sense. Just that I don't play them because of the cheap zombie elements of any particular game.

Valve is also going with the most linear and unimaginative design I've ever seen. They Their intentions behind this design, were simply to create 4-5 levels that are well thought out rather than 20 or so levels. And as usual for an XBox based game, I'll bet we won't even get an editor. After six months of Halo 3, I even became bored with the repetitive gameplay and the limited number of multiplayer levels. It is fun because of balance but after seeing the same level pop up in the playlist 15 times in three hours and get vetoed every single time... you would think that someone over at Bungie would get a clue.

Same reason I rarely play D3, everyone just plays Abend all of the time. Valve is designing a L4D based around this idea, right from the get go.

I'm probably a bit over the top with my commentary but it just isn't that good.

[fliptw]

messenger is just a contrarian.

[Gooberman]

After six months of Halo 3, I even became bored with the repetitive gameplay and the limited number of multiplayer levels.

Hats off to any game developer that makes you bored after six months

[Nightshade]

Meh. Zombies. Whee.

I'd rather have a story based game thats slow in pacing and have a mystery or plot twist behind it.

This game is about as mindless as the three billion zombies you blast.

[Kyouryuu]

Just a cheap Resident Evil knock-off that wants to be another boring ordinary FPS.

Have you even played Resident Evil? Just because both games share zombies doesn't mean they are the same game. Good gosh, in terms of everything - gameplay, pacing, control style - they are polar opposites! Resident Evil is exactly what TB described above. Left 4 Dead, in comparison, is like the Smash TV of zombie games.

Their intentions behind this design, were simply to create 4-5 levels that are well thought out rather than 20 or so levels.

Actually, there are 20 levels spread across 4 different campaigns. And what's wrong with having fewer, more thought-out levels anyway? You have a problem with quality over quantity?

And as usual for an XBox based game, I'll bet we won't even get an editor.

First, it's on the PC too and second, Valve always updates the Source SDK. In the case of the Orange Box, it just took a few weeks to do it. But that was more than just a minor update, that also brought a substantial upgrade to the editor, so it's understandable that it took time. Know what the heck you're talking about before you post.

And what is Bungie supposed to "get a clue" about? Players get to vote on what Halo map they want to play. It's not Bungie's fault if they keep picking the same one. What's Bungie supposed to do? Randomly override the will of the gamers? And how in the world does that flawed logic even begin to apply to Valve?

I'm probably a bit over the top with my commentary but it just isn't that good.

You're right. Your commentary leaves much to be desired.

[Krom]

Left 4 Dead is much more entertaining when you are actually playing co-op with real people, the AI players are at times frustratingly stupid.

Last night I played a game of Blood Harvest in advanced skill with two other people (and one stupid AI) and once we found the correct location to camp, the final swarm showdown was almost too easy. Almost because I ended up being the only survivor by only a couple seconds...but it was still quite entertaining.

[[]V[]essenjah]

Kyouryuu,I guess it isn't quite fair to say that it is a knock-off but come on. The advertisements basically play it up to look like an RE style co-op game.


As for quality level designs... I didn't really find myself enjoying the levels. I was frustrated by them. They are ok I guess. Just not my thing. I did enjoy the elements of complete darkness here and there however.


As for Bungie getting a clue... maybe by watching how many people vote. NIGHT AFTER NIGHT the same maps get completely vetoed repeatedly unless someone is watching TV and didn't notice in time to hit the X button. I also hear complaints about it all the time over my headset. 9 times out of 10 certain maps will get vetoed yet they are the same maps that show up more than any other maps on the playlist since the day Halo 3 came out. IE: Snowbound and Boundless. Two of the worst level designs I've ever seen. You almost never see anyone on the top fighting. Everyone just runs for the shotgun first thing and goes to the basement behind the shields. The rest of the game plays out with everyone else throwing grenades through the shield at whatever team has the shotgun. Boundless is the same map but they removed the shields and the ghost and everyone still hides in the basement with the shotgun. Seeing anyone fight in any other part of the map is almost never seen unless it is swords or rockets only. It's like Abend for Descent 3 except for the fact that even Abend has more skill level involved in comparison to Snowbound.

Believe it or not... but there used to be a time when you had tons of levels that WERE actually quality work and they were a lot of fun to play (IE: Descent, Quake, Freespace, & Unreal). That's why I still play UT2004 on occasion because someone always changes the map or adds in a new mutator in order to change how the level plays out.

Maybe Valve will... maybe they won't. More and more PC games have disappointed me recently though.

I'm sorry but I just can't be a Valve fanboy yet. I did like Portal though and I sort-of liked Half-Life 2.

[JMEaT]

Is the demo downloadable? Or do you need to belong to Steam?

[Krom]

In a rather stupid move, it seems valve killed the demo when the full version came out. (Possibly something to do with the demo being every bit as easy to mod and convert maps for as the full version is...)

[Kyouryuu]

Kyouryuu,I guess it isn't quite fair to say that it is a knock-off but come on. The advertisements basically play it up to look like an RE style co-op game.

No they don't. Where are you getting that idea from?

As for Bungie getting a clue... maybe by watching how many people vote. NIGHT AFTER NIGHT the same maps get completely vetoed repeatedly unless someone is watching TV and didn't notice in time to hit the X button.

Then maybe you need to get friends on Xbox Live and start your own matches in the maps YOU want to play. It's not the developers fault that its players are stuck in a rut.

Also, Snowbound is a horrible map.

Believe it or not... but there used to be a time when you had tons of levels that WERE actually quality work and they were a lot of fun to play

That's just not true. You're putting down modders all across the Internet with that statement. The ratio of crap to quality is no different than it was before. You just view the past through rose-colored glasses and assume everything was better.

If nothing else, mods have gotten better because the time investment required to make even a basic deathmatch map weeds out a lot of people who have no business even trying. Not to mention that the audience is far more critical than it was before.

[Gooberman]

Worlds Apart II anyone?

Hate the player, not the Dev.

[Drakona]

Yeah, I keep hearing people say the game needs more movies, needs more levels, needs more monsters, needs more guns. I don't think it does, though. It's not a question of having more stuff, but of having the right stuff. What we have has been polished to a mirror shine. It's not the usual cycle of get surprised and scared by a new monster, learn the monster's weakness, move on. No, the glory of the game is when a smoker is in the wrong spot and you know exactly how screwed you are because you know the monster so well and know what it can do.

I've heard people say it needs more levels, but the thing is, I've been playing the game literally every spare minute since the release, and I haven't even seen all the levels. I've mostly only played No Mercy and Dead Air, with a brief look at Blood Harvest. The replayability factor is enormous, and the time it takes to really learn the maps is akin to the time it used to take me to learn a level for D1 ladder matches. It's not just knowing what connects to what or where powerups can spawn. It's knowing where the right hold points are for a horde or a tank, and what angles you're vulnerable from. That's something you can really only figure out by facing monsters in the same area over and over and dying a lot. Know the maps that well, and then the game really comes alive--then you might have a prayer of a chance against the swarms.

Stories are nice, but they aren't a necessity. In this case, I like that the story gets out of your way and lets you play. For me, a story is there to contribute to the atmosphere of a game, and this game doesn't need help in that department. The graphics and cityscapes and graffiti and all that are nice, but it really comes down to this: the drama and atmosphere is drilled right into the core gameplay. They didn't *tell* me I was in an epic life or death struggle, they *put* me in one.

Time and again, I'm continually hit by a strong sense of terror and vulnerability, not because of the world and background, but because of the game situation. Sometimes I'm close to the end of the map, and a tank takes out three teammates, and I'm it--and I know exactly how vulnerable I am, having watched many teammates die for a sin no worse than getting slightly out of line of sight of the rest of the group. Sometimes the entire team gets incapacitated, and I'm the only one left standing, before a horde I simply don't have the firepower to hold off by myself. And the struggle of trying to push them back far enough to get one more person up is epic. Or sometimes everyone gets boomered while we're fighting a horde, I know that if someone gets hit with a smoker or hunter, there's absolutely nothing anyone can do because we're all fighting blind. Terror. Vulnerability. Tough Decisions. Sacrifice. Victory over stupidly overwhelming odds. When a tank or horde spawns at the wrong time, you feel totally hopeless, and it could happen at any time. The sense that it could all go horribly wrong in an instant carries across multiple runs and contributes to the general atmosphere of fear.

It's so intense. It's masterful.

Sure, a well-written story enthralls. I can appreciate that. But this game doesn't need one because the dramatic moments occur constantly in-game. Just last night, on our way out of the finale, Lothar got constricted. He was behind, and we were getting swarmed; he yelled, \"Just leave me, get out!\" Me and another player yelled back, \"No way, you're coming with us!\" At one point all three of us got OFF the airplane to make a path for him, and the risk that we might lose the entire game right there was quite real. Total rush. That's your story right there.

Here's the telling thing. I played through Dead Air on expert yesterday, with two IRL friends and a bot for most of it, and three friends from the fourth level on. We played for Twelve. Straight. Hours. At one point, about eight hours in, I tried to call it. And the general sense on the team was, \"I'm tired. I'm getting ragged and sloppy. We should definitely take a break. BUT I WANT TO KEEP PLAYING.\" We kept playing.

I'm willing to forgive a lot of flaws for a game with such seriously good design at its core. It crashes a lot for me. The matchmaking is painful. Playing with bots is a joke. Heck, playing with two friends and ONE bot is painful. Playing with random strangers is often a joke. In most games, I'd be critical of that sort of thing, but I just can't muster a serious sense of dissatisfaction. The gameplay experience is just too awesome for me to care about much else.

It's funny that it's so polarizing. Some people say, \"Well, I guess it's an okay mod, but there's not much there. I sure wouldn't pay $50 for it, and I don't see what the rest of you are so excited about.\" Other people say things like, \"get three friends together with microphones and Left 4 Dead is possibly the best multiplayer game ever – not something that we say lightly.\"

I'm in the latter camp. It's knocked Dungeons and Dragons out of my game of choice slot, which has been occupied uncontested for the last three years. I honestly thought video games had lost the capability to truly enthrall me, but I was clearly wrong. I'm losing sleep and skipping meals to play, something that hasn't been true of any game for over a decade. Lothar is constantly comparing it to DOOM 2, a game that has stood uncontested in his best game of all time slot since, well, DOOM 2. We had a conversation last night about whether it was going to dethrone Decent 1 for me as best multiplayer game ever. Too early to tell . . . but the fact that I'm seriously considering the possibility should provoke a spit take.

I don't know, your mileage may vary. For me, it really is that good.

[[]V[]essenjah]

No they don't. Where are you getting that idea from?

You haven't watched the advertisement movies all over Live have you?

Then maybe you need to get friends on Xbox Live and start your own matches in the maps YOU want to play. It's not the developers fault that its players are stuck in a rut.

I have a TON of friends over Live but I pretty much stick to playing with my REAL LIFE friends who also have XBox Live. Yes, you can play matches together but it is almost impossible to get enough people interested in Halo 3 all at the same time these days. Most of them have moved on to Gears Of War or COD because their tired of playing the same maps. If you want to play for rank or against any other players, you really HAVE to use the playlist servers.

Also, Snowbound is a horrible map.

Glad you see the point I'm making on that. I would love to log how many times that stupid map shows up on any given night within a certain amount of hours and how many people veto it.

That's just not true. You're putting down modders all across the Internet with that statement. The ratio of crap to quality is no different than it was before. You just view the past through rose-colored glasses and assume everything was better.

Putting down modders? I really don't see how I am putting them down. By saying that I have enjoyed the sheer amount of mods and levels designed by many of these individuals along with their counterparts produced by game companies I am insulting them? I would imagine they would be happy that some people out there remember them and the effort they put into their work. Even if some of them weren't high quality or perfect, they gave it a shot. Mods aren't really any better now than they have been in the past. Their just harder to produce. I've always been one that believes that anyone should be able to have their shot out there.

If nothing else, mods have gotten better because the time investment required to make even a basic deathmatch map weeds out a lot of people who have no business even trying. Not to mention that the audience is far more critical than it was before.

I've worked on all sorts of mods as a hobby for 9 years now. Not many of them fly out the door but I still try and I still enjoy working on them. True, they are higher quality but there is less creativity and experimentation with new ideas/concepts.

I guess L4D is ok for PC if they release modding tools but I wouldn't play it over XBox as it is very unlikely you will ever see user created content over Live. Sad but true.

[Jeff250]

This topic belongs in E&C with the other religious issues.