Left 4 Dead

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=90 BGCOLOR="#006699" TEXT="#080000" background="20f785a3.jpg"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#FFFFFF" FACE="Arial" ><B>Mikes Homepage</B></FONT><B>    </B><B> |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Mikes Homepage"><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id491.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Untitled Zombie Game"><U>Untitled Zombie Game</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id492.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Zombie Attack 2 Break Out"><U>Zombie Attack 2 Break Out</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id493.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Zombie Chaos"><U>Zombie Chaos</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id494.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Untitled Zombie Game 2"><U>Untitled Zombie Game 2</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id498.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Zombie Hunter"><U>Zombie Hunter</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id637.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Typing of the Dead"><U>Typing of the Dead</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id646.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Cry of the Infected"><U>Cry of the Infected</U></A>   |   <B>Left 4 Dead</B>   |   <A HREF="id649.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Zombie Smashers X3"><U>Zombie Smashers X3</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id650.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Monster Madness"><U>Monster Madness</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id651.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Bloody Zombies"><U>Bloody Zombies</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id652.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Zombie Shooter"><U>Zombie Shooter</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id653.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="NOMBZ"><U>NOMBZ</U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#FFCC66" TEXT="#080000" background="210d2b03.jpg"> <div> <A HREF="http://www.l4d.com/" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.l4d.com/"><U>Website</U></A></div> </td> <td valign="top" height=390 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <I>Left 4 Dead</I></div> <div> <IMG SRC="16ccfc6d0.png" border=0 width="252" height="365" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <bR> <div> Two key things will undoubtedly run through your mind as you play Valve's first-person survivors-versus-zombies shooter Left 4 Dead: the phrase "oh, s***!" repeated ad nauseam in response to a stressful turn of events, and the phrase "goddamn sadistic Director system" after either surviving or failing that stressful turn.</div> <bR> <div> The Director system in question is what makes L4D so special, although a lot of things make the game pretty damn good already. Its subtle yet pure focus on co-op play (don't expect dorky gimmick maneuvers like having one guy hold the gun while another pulls the trigger; L4D simply demands basic teamwork for any chance of survival), its satisfying gunplay, its deliberate B-movie tone, its surprisingly good single-player A.I. (it's no real substitute for multiplayer, but, yes, you can play this game alone and have fun), and its focused and interesting array of Infected (the game's technically not about undead zombies, but rather, a weird form of superrabies that infects most of the planet). In short, it's what you expect from a Valve shooter: a refined, well-crafted event. Yet what makes L4D so much more interesting is the aforementioned A.I. Director -- a character in its own right.</div> <div> <IMG SRC="16d0705f0.png" border=0 width="624" height="351" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> On paper, the Director is simply an A.I. system that continually examines things like player performance, health, ammo count, and progress and sets up factors such as weapon locations, ammunition and health caches, the presence of Infected, and even the mood music at key intervals. In reality, when you're playing, the Director and its execution make it feel as if some sadistic, vindictive bastard is the one controlling the zombies. The Director floods your location with Infected and then rewards you with a two-minute break if you survive the deluge. The Director notices that maybe you're off your game tonight and slows the Infected down to a trickle. The Director taunts you into feeling like a powerful badass...before cruelly swatting you down. Just when you sigh in relief as the end of the level's in sight, it tosses in a Boomer (whose vomit instantly attracts all other Infected toward you), a Tank (an obscenely large and powerful Infected), and a Witch (when startled, she erupts into a one-hit-kill ragestorm). All at the same time.</div> <bR> <div> The Director also makes its presence known in the Versus mode, where four Survivors face off against four opposing Infected players. The Director determines what role each Infected player takes at any given moment -- it's as if it's testing you by implicitly stating, "OK, I'm giving your team two Hunters, a Smoker, and a Tank. Demolish the other team," and then, as always, adjusting the flow based on how well both teams are doing.</div> <div> <IMG SRC="16cf705f0.png" border=0 width="624" height="351" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> Ultimately, it all circles back to just how phenomenal the Director is and how it manages to effectively turn every match -- even if it's on a map I've seen many times -- into a unique story. It's amazing to see how much of a difference placing an enemy at location X instead of location Y makes. The Director's helped to create so many memorable play sessions that I overlook stuff like how the graphics aren't quite up to par with modern shooters, the scary and uncertain future of downloadable content for the Xbox 360 version (compare the PC version of Valve's Team Fortress 2 to its console counterpart), how sessions suffer from random glitches (players getting stuck in the level or the friendly A.I. suddenly acting dumber than a bag of hair), or how repetitive each campaign's overall escape-escape-escape-escape-finale structure feels. The Director's so damn amazing that it makes these minor flaws quite forgivable -- I can't wait to see if it makes an appearance in future Valve titles. Imagine how crazy it would be to have the Director determining the behavior of Half-Life 2: Episode 3's Combine. Crazy!</div> <bR> <div> Simply put, every time the Director brings down a swath of Infected, who then pound me into hamburger, and every time my team and I manage to survive against incredible odds until the end, and we hoot and holler about besting the Director, I do the same thing: I jump into another lobby and wait for a match to start. I love this damn game. </div> </td> </tr></table></body>