Information

Platform
Coop Players	4
Developer	Valve Corporation
Publisher	Valve Corporation
Engine	Source
Release	Nov 17, 2008
Genres	Action, First-Person Shooter, Survival Horror

Ratings

Features

	Cooperative Campaign
	Drop-In/Drop-Out Multiplayer
	Local/Split-Screen Option 4 players, console only
	Online Multiplayer

On Steam

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Left 4 Dead

Left 4 Dead is a cooperative zombie shooter game. There are a lot of zombies in it. And, there is a lot of shooting. There is also some coop.

General Gameplay

You and zero to three of your friends must get from one side of a zombie mess to the other side. The basic zombies in this game are of the modern variety. They run fast, rather than shamble. They're all jolt, and the classic "will the zombies react or ignore us?" element is non existent.

About once every 2 minutes, a wave of about 50 will rush at breakneck speeds towards the party from every direction. About 4 times per level, you get to a switch that makes a lot of noise. For various mechanical reasons, you have to sit next to the switch for a couple minutes, while hundreds of zombies attack. Cooperative elements are present here of the "we need to cover more than one direction" variety. This mechanic got more than a little repetitive, but it was entertaining enough for us to play through once.

Breaking up the zerg zombie monotony are a series of tougher zombies. Some of which will feature forced cooperative mechanics.

At the end of the stage, you'll make it to a getaway helicopter that will crash and put you in another zombie mess; or maybe you'll get on boat that will take you to an island full of zombies. Rest assured, that island will have plenty of noisy switches that need flipping.

Style

The art and atmosphere of this game had reasonably high production values, but as a Source game, it was nothing too fancy. The characters were, at best, gross cliches, like the grizzled Vietnam vet or the "Oh No you didn't!" black woman, and, at worst, ciphers.