Left 4 Dead

Ok so its been a while a while since I made a review and this one should have been done a while ago but I didnt get it untill Christmas (I decided to buy it as a Christmas present for myself).

So where to begin.... I know, how about the begining. So you play as 1 of 4 survivors of a zombie outbreak and you are trying to make your way to extraction points where you will be rescued by other survivors. The 4 main survivors are, Louis, Bill, Zoe and Francis. During the first cutscene (before the main menu) you catch a glimpse of several of the special infected (zombie’s with special abilities, i.e a tank which knocks everything in its path out of the way) and you see the 4 survivors “crossing the street” as Bill would say.
All the different campaigns are open at the begining so you dont have to worry about sitting there unlocking each one because believe me, when you actually get into it, you will see that they are fun enough as it is.

Game Play:

The gameplay is decent enough to keep you entertained for several hours on your own or if you like you can go public and play with friends or even just random people. The way the game is designed is so that all 4 survivors can be played by either the AI or by a real person and you can drop in and out of games whenever you like, you can even use a special IDLE mode which allows the bot to control your character if you have to go to the bathroom so that it doesnt hinder the progress of the game for the other players.
The AI though can be slightly stupid at times like not picking up medkits or causing a witch to be alerted to your pressence. This is where having real players comes in usefull especially in the harder modes.
The Director AI which is always running in-game will always supply you with weapons, ammo and health depending on your situation, sometimes it can be usefull spawns and sometimes it can be annoying (when something spawns that you dont need), the spawn points are never actually the same so can vary each time you play through the same level.

Weapons:

The selection of weapons can be decent enough to keep you going although could be better. You will always be given a pistol which has unlimited ammo and if you find another one on your travels you can pick it up to be able to dual-wield. You also have weapons like a Sniper Rifle, Machine guns and even shotguns in the matches which you can trade whenever you find a certain weapon that you like. One other type of weapon is the throwable types which are pipe bombs and molotov’s, the pipe bombs are usefull if you have a horde charging at you as they always go running after it and swarm round untill it explodes and kills them (what else would you expect zombies to do when they see a flashing, beeping thing, they are brain-dead afterall). Molotov’s are usefull for setting up a barrier between you and the undead as it creates a fire that zombies would run through and burn to death from.

Bad points:

Not really any bad points about Left 4 Dead except that the AI is stupid at times and that if you are overrun by a horde then you have to start back at the safe room (which is the begining and the end of each level in the campaigns).
You can use a controller to play like an Xbox 360 controller (which has all the major buttons mapped for) but it doesnt have buttons for the push to talk which can also be bad if you are playing with a controller.

Final Note:

Left 4 Dead is a game i would recommend to anyone who likes shooting mindless creatures and who also like First Person Shooters. I do advise that you play with friends as it makes the game more enjoyable, especially in the versus mode which 1 team is infected and 1 team is survivor, which you can guess what the objectives are for that.

My next review will be about Left 4 Dead 2 (which my friend Dan and his mum so kindly bought as a birthday present) and that will be either later today or tomorrow (depending on my mood and how busy i am with Team Fortress 2 (another game ill review)), so untill then, this is Simzy, signing off.

Peace!