Welcome to the Slant, where you'll find reviews and original writings by the members of Martin Library's Teen Advisory Board.

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Microsoft's Left 4 Dead review by Jose D.

Left 4 Dead…

Where to begin?

Left 4 Dead is an action packed survival horror game created by ValveE designer Mike Booth co-designer of both the Counter Strike series for ValveE.

This game takes place in an zombie apocalyptic setting based around 4 different scenarios all created with their certain bonuses and perks; and while the source of the zombie outbreak is never revealed, the intro scene does state that it is “2 weeks” after the infection began.

You chose from one of the four survivors
Bill -A Vietnam War veteran
Zoey-A horror movie fanatic
Francis-Your typical hardcore biker
Louis-A computer salesman

And on team infected are
Hunter-Agile, quick dangerously vicious infected, these attack with a vicious pounce and slash secondary attack
Boomer-A morbid obese infected who can draw the horde on specific individuals via vomit…Yes vomit, secondary attack being that of a punch
Smoker-Tall, slim smog induced infected with the ability to pull survivors from a distance using his tongue (which is very long) either strangling them, or bringing them in for a beat down, secondary attack being slash
Tank- A large, very muscular infected resembling the incredible hulk, minus the green. This large monster has the ability to punch with the grace of a thousand rhino’s and the power to life chunks of concrete off the ground before…launching it at you

All of these characters are playable.
NON PLAYABLE CHARACTER
The Witch-This beautiful infected does absolutely nothing. She usually is found in random spots on her knees crying…yes crying. She is completely harmless unless you bother her. Things that bother her are loud sounds, gunshots, screams and the almighty flashlight. If you mess and annoy her, she WILL kill you. No doubt about it.

Now, you begin the game by first selecting one of the four scenario/campaigns. Where the main point of each is to make it from safe room A to safe room B and so forth, safety with as many survivors as possible, all leading to the final scenario where you must hold up a base and await for extraction.

These are the four scenarios currently available.

-No Mercy: An urban setting taken place in a city, subway, sewers and hospital.

-Blood Harvest: A country/farm like setting where you must make your way to extraction via Military Evacuation.

-Dead Air: A scenario taking place in an airport setting where you must navigate your way through a traverse airport whilst defending yourself against the zombie horde.

-Death Toll: The survivors are once again brought out of there big safe room and thrown into highways, forests and a small town where evacuation is that of boat extraction.

These are the current available scenario/campaigns available at launch, more scenarios and infected, perhaps even more survivors will be released with the expansion of DLC (Downloadable Content) being released whenever ValveE feels necessary. (Hopefully in the near future)

Overall this action packed game is well worth the $50 offering very high replay. You will be playing this game, over, and over again. I personally, cannot stop playing it. I highly recommend this game to any avid first person shooter, horror, survival zombie fanatic.

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