Customer Reviews

Left 4 Dead - Game of the Year Edition

5 star:		(42)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

First let me comment on the GoTY version. Yes, all the additional content in the GoTY title is available on xbox live for free as a DLC. The only perk to having the GoTY version is that you wont have to use up memory on your harddrive for the survival pack because its already installed on the disc. Other than that i would suggest just getting the normal game if you find it cheaper. I found the GoTY version and the normal version for the same price of $29.99 at gamestop brand new! the funny thing is, right next to it they had the used version for $44.99 still, $15 more then the brand new ones!

This isn't just a Call of Duty World at War Zombie mode revamped...even though the premises is nearly the same there is four people, and if you don't have 4 players to play the 4 survivors then the remaining survivors will be OP'd by computers. In the multiplayer mode you can be the zombies (the special zombies with super moves). The only thing that i didn't really like about this game which others may have liked is that there is no story mode at all. The weapons aren't extensive at all in this game. You can either have the pistols, shotguns, sniper rifle, or uzi. theres some health packs, pills, molotovs, and grenades. to me, this was just a renter after a week or two of playin this game just became pretty boring and repeptitive.

theres only 4 main maps that the survivors fight their way through 4 or 5 stages of the map to get to the end where they will try to be evacuated. its the same story on every map! i gave this 4 stars because 5 stars would just be overatin the game and 3 stars doesn't do it all justice, but know this i wont be buying or playing the sequel because unless they add a storymode or drastic changes all a sequel could be for this game is just a big expansion.

**Edit**
DO NOT buy this with the $59.99 price tag its cheaper at gamestop for $29.99

For starters people might turn down Left 4 Dead considering it runs on the Source Engine which is not Unreal Engine standards but the game looks great. The lighting, scenery, and blood all look very realistic and stunning. One thing that bothered me was the textures on some rocks. But you'll rarely notice them to care. The controls could be better but for most first person shooter fans, I'd say go with Config 4. The game contains 4 campaign levels each with 5 sections. These can be played in single player and over xbox live as well as offline split screen with two players. In addition to the campaign there is Versus mode and Survival mode which comes with Game of The Year. In Versus one team is the infected and the other are the survivors. In Versus you play through the campaign levels switching teams at each safe house. It offers fresh gameplay with constant suprises. Say you're in the forest and an enemy smoker grabs you and pulls you away and no one knows where you are. Lets say if that happens, your dead. Overall Left 4 Dead is a great experience and I would reccomend it to anyone who owns an Xbox 360

Try before you buy. Don't just read the hype.

First, let me say that I have the xbox Game of the Year Edition, I have downloaded everything I could find for the game from xbox Live, I have played the game a few times (but I play many many hours at a time), and I've already got over 3/4 of the Achievements available for the Survivors.

Whether or not you will like this game depends on the style of play you like in your games. Some people might like this type of play, but I didn't. I've enjoyed playing everything from the Evil Dead games and Dead Rising to Resident Evil 1 & 4 and a bunch of other "zombie" type games. The issue I have is that Left 4 Dead doesn't play like how it feels like it should play - or it feels one way but plays another way. Left 4 Dead feels like it should play like a tight strategy game of team tactics and smart game play - hardcore Zombie Apocalypse survivors: The smart & the dead, ... but it isn't, it just isn't. I'll get back to the game play in a minute.

A lot of the game looks OK at first (maybe "Good", but nothing "Great"). The graphics break-down badly when you are getting stomped on by zeds (any time you are on the ground, or when zeds are too close to you) and when you get dragged by Smoker zeds it gets really glitchy. And the fire effect (i.e. from molotov cocktails) is awful. But, for as flawed as some of these things are, I wouldn't necessarily say that they detract too much from the game play.

The areas/maps aren't very open; there is a definite "tunnel" feel to the game. Which, given the nature of the objectives, is probably unavoidable. Yet some of the tight tunnel areas, like the ones that are outside, do provide an illusion of openness, which is nice. But, what this all means is that, game play is relatively linear; the route to a destination is pretty tight, and your style of game play will be pretty much forced upon you. So all that turn-off-your-lights and sneak-around-the-witch dialogue is garbage - she's either in your way or she isn't - anyhow, just shoot her.

And, now speaking of that game play, it's just an ammo-burner game. You have limited ammo for your "special" weapon of choice (shotgun, assault rifle, Uzi, whatever), but unlimited ammo for your pistol(s) - and you go through a lot of it really fast. Forget about S.W.A.T. play, forget about being a ninja, forget about sniping to clear a path ahead; just forget about stealth and efficiency.

You shoot, you run and shoot, and you shoot and run some more. Lingering around areas, being cautious and thorough, will only get you more encounters with randomly generated zeds. There is not a general fixed number of zeds in an area, the game will spawn more zeds (crap-loads more) when conditions are triggered. This is a game of "whatever" (like "get from Point A to Point B", or "stand on a rooftop/Lighthouse") that is punctuated by random "Special Zed" appearances and waves of rushing zed hoards. Pointless wave after random wave of rushing zed hoards. A Run-n-Gun (or a Stand-n-Gun).

So the best tactic is to just run through an area until you hit a Special Zed, or a good vantage point, and then turn around and deal with everything in a hail of blazing lead (or a pipe bomb - they're magical zed magnets). Seriously, it works best that way; you'll save ammo, and time, and deal with less crap. Because, when you trigger a zed rush, they will spawn and come running at you from all directions: from the empty rooms you just swept clear, from the dead-end halls you just swept clear, from anywhere and everywhere they will magically appear to come charging at you. So forget your Spec-Ops mentality; it's pointless. And there is no meaningful stealth action. So just forget about "INTELLIGENT" game play, unless your idea of strategy is to back yourself into a closet and fire outwards.

Now, maybe everything I have complaints about is just the way the game is supposed to be? Maybe I'm whining about would'a, should'a, could'a, and crying about stuff that I want to have that just shouldn't be a part of the game? I keep wondering about that myself. But then the heavy-handed teamwork elements keep running up to me and smacking me in the face.

This is a total "buddy system" game. You aren't going to get anywhere without someone else there to pick you up-off the ground. It is FORCED upon you through the games mechanics. There is no running ahead and going solo because everyone else is cramping your style. This is a game about teamwork, team tactics, teammate support and assists. It is a key element in the game - there are several Achievements based off of this. It's good and it's bad; I'm still on the fence about how I feel about it. In some ways I do like it, and in other ways I think it totally hamstrings game play.

You are the "I've fallen and I can't get up!" lady. If you are grabbed: you are helpless until someone else assists you. If you are on the ground, no matter how much health you have: you are stuck on the ground until someone assists you. If your whole team gets knocked down, no matter how much health everyone has, or how many health packs everyone has: it is Game Over because no one is left standing to assist anyone else back up. And Survivors WILL get knocked-down and dragged-around (and probably bitten and mauled) a lot.

With this sort of forced and required team-play element, the game feels like it should be more at a level of SOCOM, Call of Duty, Ghost Recon, Halo, or even Splinter Cell or Tenchu; demanding a higher level of tactical style and strategic "cover your, and your teammates, butts" type of game play - but it's not. It's a sloppy trigger-happy fire-fest. This is not a game of clean shots and efficient kills, there is no "Go ahead, I've got you covered" stuff; Spec-Ops style tactics (or any thoughtful or cautious efforts) just don't have any credit here.

Fast zombies or slow zombies, infected or undead; I don't really have a preference, but I thought the "Special" zombie types in this game were kinda lame. Puker/Exploder fat thing stereotype. `Roid-Rage Tank stereotype thing. Leaper/Pouncer zed. Sniper-Tongue smoke-exploding (?!?) zed. "I just want to cry and I hate the light" emo Witch zed. I just don't think any of them are really cool or inspiring.

I can only rate this game a 2 or 3 stars. The only recommendation I can make is: Try before you buy. Don't just read the hype.

Great multiplayer game, offline is kinda boring so if u have no xbl, i would not suggest this, goty edition comes with survival dlc but its free over xbl anyways so if u just buy the reg. edition instead of this you can save yourself some money and just download the dlc free from xbl.

After reading some reviews about how good this game was I decided to rent it and play it with some friends of mine.
We started by playing 4 player story mode. For the most part, it was fun because one of my friends is a bit jumpy. But after about 20 minutes of playing, it just got repetitive. I thought to myself, "Wasn't I already here?" After 30 minutes of playing we all stopped because all you do in the game is kill zombies. There's no plot, no real dialogue, and nothing really stood out to me. This game isn't at all challenging because you never run out of ammo unless you never stop shooting throughout a level.
Graphics: I thought the game looked like an Xbox original or PS2 game. And there are very little different zombies models. For example, you may see the woman with medium length dark brown hair maybe 4-8 times.
Guns: There is very little gun variety in this game. I think there are maybe 6 guns. And the guns all shoot the same. Shooting a zombie from far away would have the same result as if you shot it with a pistol or even a sniper. The game feels very sloppy and thrown together.
Multiplayer: The multiplayer is pretty fun but not great. The first day I played I was on for a few hours but after that I found it to be, like the story mode, repetitive.
Overall: I wouldn't recommend it for purchase but for rental it would be okay. Hopefully the sequel will be improved.

Quite a fun zombie first-person shooter. The developers really spent wanted the game to be a co-operative experience, and that is when it works best. The multiplayer is really the reason to buy the game.

This is one of the best games I own. The campaign can be co op and is great with your friends, and the online game modes like survival and versus are awsome. This game is also very cheap- its a great deal. I have owned this game for years, and have never tired of it I also love the controls for this game, they are very easy to get used to. Would reccomend to anyone!

This game is lots of fun, but the fact that it lacks single player campaign made it a short exerience for me. It's going on eBay this weekend...

This is a "game of the year" version in name only. Everything "extra" that's on this disc is available for free on xbox live. Valve, the manufacturer, didn't have everything for online play on the original disc (why, I have no idea) so they came out with this version later. If you don't have xbox live, than you don't need to download anything as it's basically all online multi-player material(the only exception being survival mode, and that's not worth the extra money--it's free online, take your hard drive to a friends xbox). STOP BUYING THIS VERSION. It's a money grab and you are letting them take your money.

EDIT - The price has recently been cut (Monday, August 31, 2009). At $27.99, unless you find the original version in a clearance section, this isn't a terrible price anymore. Just understand that a sequel is being released in November (though DLC for this version, a short campaign, comes out in September).

I love the "zombie apocalypse" genre, enough so that when I saw Left 4 Dead on the shelf at Wallyworld for a measly $20 I had to buy it. I truly didn't know anything about it other than it involved zombies and a group of survivors trying to survive the zombie onslaught, but that was it. From the time I put the CD into my X-Box 360 a week ago until now I've had mixed feelings on this game and have struggled to quantify it and distill it down to its most basic elements.

There's really not much of a plot here, but then again what plot do you really need for any kind of zombie infestation? Chances are there was a government experiement that got out of the laboratory and infected the masses, or perhaps some microbial organisms latched on to a satellite reentering the atmosphere and spread havoc upon an unsuspecting populace. It doesn't really matter since it always plays out the same way. Humans are transformed (either from the dead as in Night of the Living dead, or live ones are infected by a biological mutagen, as in 28 Days Later) and begin stalking those who haven't been infected or are still alive. Really, when you're talking about zombie outbreaks, that's all you really have to know. The game follows 4 "immune" survivors; Bill (retired Vietnam veteran), Francis (a biker/hoodlum), Francis (a former IT computer tech), and Zoey, a college student and horror movie fan. These are some of your archetypal figures you'll find in zombie movies. The four travel together in search of a way to get to safe havens of human habitation but have to pass through some pretty grisly zombie-infested locations to get from point A to B.

Before we go any further it is absolutely necessary to say that Left 4 Dead is *not* a plot-driven FPS like Half Life so much as it is a team-oriented, multi-player zombie "experience", set in a sort of quasi-cinematic fashion. There are 4 "episodes" in Left 4 Dead and each takes the group through standard zombie infested settings one has probably seen in a zombie movie. I do not know if these episodes are meant to be linked together into one continguous narrative or if each is meant only to be played as a single experience, but the settings are quite nice and really make you feel like you're in a zombie afflicted locale. It's all there; the abandoned city, the farm house battle, the journey to make it to a boat that gets the players off of the mainland. Your goal is always to travel from point A to B and get to your means of escape, be it a helicopter, Air Force transport plane, or a lumbering APC coming to your rescue. Along the way players will hit checkpoints of a sort called Safe Houses. These safe havens are places to heal, restock ammo and first aid kits, and upgrade or change weapons too. There are four safe houses per episode and on the harder settings you'll feel like curling up there and just riding out the zombie apocalypse as long as you can. In some of these, scrawled on the walls, are messages from previous inhabitants which make a sort of low tech bulletin board system, some providing info on where to go, others leaving messages for loved ones they had to leave behind, and others (quite comically) flaming each other for having the wrong details on zombies in general. Each episode has a title card like a movie, with titles such as "Blood Harvest" and "No Mercy", and each episode ends with closing credits like a movie, with character stats in lieu of Director, Best Boy, and Actor credits, as well as a "X number of Zombies were killed in this film" statement. Nice touch!

The game uses the Source engine, which powered such awesomeness as Portal and Half-Life 2, and it is beautiful here. But the fact is that as solid as the Source engine is it's not the Unreal engine, the behemoth that powered the beautiful Bioshock 1 & 2. That said this seems to be an advanced version of the Source engine and is fine tuned to be as pretty as I've ever seen from Valve's programming office. The flames in particular are surprsingly well rendered, although much of the surface details are plauged by pixelation and some strange clipping issues. If they included the Havok physics engine as they did with Half Life 2 I'm not seeing it here. The only time zombies seem to fly backwards is when I hit one with the shotgun...I'd have liked it better if they flopped around a bit more, but I can forgive this...at least a little bit. I also came across a few graphics from Half Life 2 in the Blood Harvest campaign, which sort of surprised me when I saw them. I half expected to see Gordon Freeman's Lambda symbol spraypainted somewhere.

So far this sounds pretty good, right? Then why the 3 star rating? Well, for starters the game is simply not designed to be a single player game. But where Team Fortress 2 (from the same publisher even) makes for a quirky multi-player game this tends to be more of a run'n'gun experience, designed only to simulate a "zombie experience" by a group of players. Each of the characters in the game are identical in stats and each is limited to only a few weapons and supplies; a primary weapon (shotgun, M-16, hunting rifle, or Uzi), a secondary weapon with limitless ammo (a semi-automatic pistol which can be upgraded to two during the course of the game), a single grenade (Molotov cocktails or pipe bombs), a single first aid kit, and a bottle of pills, which temporarily gives the player health benefits without actually giving them health. Actually I found the pills to be next to worthless except when one is in a major pinch, but when times are hard and they're all you've got...well, you take them.

The game is extremely repetitive, to the point where you can see the patterns in zombie spawning before they actually spawn. And spawn they will, from impossible locations usually, like the small closet which has only one door that you *just* cleared, but will vomit out 20+ zombies in a 10 seconds. And these zombies are more "I Am Legend" variety, moving fast and rigormortis-free, rather than straight Romero, shuffle and moan type. These zombies are fairly typical throughout the game and are pretty easily dispatched...however you will come across a few mutated varieties as well, such as the Hunter, which can leap amazing distances and land on a party member almost without warning. The Smoker typically stands around in hard to reach areas and uses its tongue in a freaky fashion, able to lash it like a whip and drag survivors away from the battle so it can begin to feed on them in privacy. The Boomer is a bloated fatbody that tends to spew some sort of zombie-attracting substance on you, usually at inopportune moments, and explodes like a bomb when you kill it. And the Tank is, as its name implies, a super-powerful gorilla like zombie that takes concentrated firepower to take down and can dish out a lot of melee damage. The last is the Witch. Now the Witch I find a bit puzzling...you can usually hear her from a good distance away, whining and moaning about being a zombified Witch I suppose, and can prepare accordingly. Shining your flashlight on her will get her riled up and make her attack (and she's a vicious one, my friends). The game seems to insinuate that you can bypass the Witch if need be but in only one case was I able to bypass her. In this regard I think the game is full of it...just shoot her, it'll save hearing that whiny, creepy sobbing she makes.

The place where the ball was seriously dropped though is one of the things that Left 4 Dead purportedly has going for it...lack of a single player storyline mode. This lack of player driven story really soured the experience for me. I don't have an X-Box Gold account, so there's no way I can play this online, and after reading several other reviews I'm not sure I want to. A hyper 14 year old is going to bushwhack this not-so-agile 37 year old without much effort and I've read that you can experience that *only* if you're lucky enough to be allowed to stay in an online game in the first place. From what I've read there's supposed to be a split-screen capability, but my wife won't touch this game with a 12 foot pole and my younger brother, who might enjoy a game like this, comes over to visit only sporadically, which leaves me and 3 CPU controlled players. The computer players will shoot accurately enough but they never use grenades, which drives me up the wall at times, and come across as being there only to keep you alive when a Boomer unexpected rumbles out from behind an 18-wheeler. The computer players are there...they shoot at zombies and can be relied on to keep your back clear, and that's about it. From a single-player standpoint this game is mostly a failure for that very reason. I can see where a group of 4 friends would probably have a blast here, but without a single player story mode this game remains a mediocre game experience to me. And the tragedy here is that Left 4 Dead would be ideal for that type of play. The zombies themselves come out in single file, so someone with an M-16, for instance, can just take a bead on the lead zombie and with a few rounds take out the zombies right behind them. In several episodes you're given access to a military rotary cannon, but the cannon always has a poor field of fire, usually pointed at a location where few zombies will come at you, leaving you with an uber zombie killing machine that is essentially worthless. After a while Left 4 Dead just becomes a "shoot anything that moves" experience, rather than the visceral, scare-your-pants-off game it might have been. That's how Wolfenstein 3D worked...I never thought I'd see that mechanic in an FPS again, but here it is, "reanimated" for a whole new generation. One has limited use of tactics, such as holding an open window against an oncoming zombie horde, or blazing away at doorways that are about to be pounded down from zombies. Again, I can see where this game would probably be a real hoot for a group of players, but I don't have that capability, unfortunately, and have to rate it as I see it and experience it.

Pros

- Pretty, although slightly dated graphics
- Decent weapons selection, with limited ammo capacity means you'll have to learn how to conserve ammo
- Having scant supplies makes you yearn for those safe houses like you otherwise wouldn't
- Nice flame effects
- Thoroughly appropriate settings...custom made for the zombie apocalypse experience
- Zombies are nicely rendered and often specific to their setting. At the airport you'll see pilot and flightline worker zombies. In the hospital, dead patients and doctor zombies, etc.
- Fast, frenetic pace
- Hey, it's a zombie game!

Cons

- The game is predictable
- It's also extremely repetitive
- Zombies conveniently line up for you to shoot them
- The game focuses on multi-player to the detriment of the single-player experience
- It could have had more storyline, although it's not required (as stated at the beginning)
- After a few days the game gets kind of uninteresting
- The rotary cannon is next to useless in most games


Left 4 Dead is a fairly mediocre game in my opinion, one that could have been much better had a little bit more elbow grease been put into it. It successfully captures the zombie theme but fails to fully implement it for player enjoyment, and is instead relegated to a fairly typical "Run n' Gun" shooter rather than a horror game. It could have been so much more...that's what makes me sad to give it only 3 stars.