- Joined
- Mar 25, 2004
- Messages
- 4,880
Left4Dead is currently my favorite game. I love it more than WarCraft III, and I've been playing it for only a week! Why do I love this game so much? Many reasons. But in simple categories: the graphics, overall gameplay, campaigns/level designs, and just about everything else in it is awesome. Never thought blasting away hundreds and thousands of zombies away to hell would be so much fun! But it's not entirely so much the fact that you're killing thousands of zombies and are able to blow off their limbs, light them on fire, and beat them to death with your weapon. Nope. It's also most definitely how teamwork is required to succeed in the official campaigns of Left4Dead. Especially in Versus mode where it's the four survivor players (whom are supposed to survive throughout the map) versus the four Special Infected (Hunter, Smoker, Boomer, and the Tank which are all supposed to strive to annihilate the entire Survivors team before they reach the safe house) no matter how good you are, no one can simple Leeroy or Rambo through the map and win. If you do, you must be the untouchable Jesus or a hacker... or Chuck Norris. :rolls eyes:
The game requires a lot of fluent communication back and forth, planning how to survive or how to defeat the enemy. Staying together is key and if you don't, you usually get owned either by the hordes of zombies or the few - but powerful - special infected. (Otherwise known as the Zombie Bosses)
The boomer of the infected team is probably the easiest class to play. Although all special infected and zombies make loud noises, whether they're being active or not, if spawned in a good place at the right time, it's pretty simple to run in between the survivors and puke all over them. If that fails, at least when they kill you, you explode and have a chance of splatting all over them anyway and you recieve assistance points for it! It's a win-win situation! However, a lot of people miraculously suck as the boomer. If you are one of these people, I strongly recommend you ask your doctor if you have a brain tumor or have any forms of retardation in your brain.
The hunter isn't so easy, but they get the job done very well if used correctly at the right time. Hunters are hooded zombies that can pounce great distances and onto survivors. The best time to pounce on a survivor is usually when they're alone or if they're blinded by boomer bile. Other good times to take advantage of are when there's very few left (One or two survivors alive) or if another Hunter pounces someone and you pounce on another right at that time. Two hunters taking down a man of their own is a very good strategy, but it's more difficult to pull off than you'd think. When pounced on someone, survivors can bunt you off (Whack you with the end of their weapon) and most likely kill you since when zombies and infected bosses are bunted, they get stunned (except for the tank)
The smoker is a very handy special infected. Not exactly the best to start an instance where the survivors become confused on what to do and all that, but are very good at stalling the survivors. The hunters are also good at this. Smokers can grapple targeted survivors from a close or far distance and pull them. Usually the smoker pulls the victim into a crowd of starving and pissed off zombies that eventually try to maul the entangled victim. In times like this, the survivors are usually starting to be attacked by the other special infected who are intelligently taking advantage of the situation or the survivors cannot immediately decide whether it's best to kill the smoker or horde of enraged zombies scratching, punching, kicking, and stomping the poor survivor.
And last but certainly not least, the Tank! The strongest special infected. An over-muscled, jawless, enraged zombie boss. The tank is arguably the best/easiest special infected in the game (Boomer is too) for a few good reasons. For one, the tank has the most HP and can survive through a ton of bullets (However the tank dies after 30-45 seconds when set on fire) and has enough strength to not only toss cars out of his way, but to tear concrete out from the ground and launch it towards his target(s). The tank can easily slaughter the survivors team single-handed and his attacks are strong enough to knock down and toss the survivors themselves! It's very difficult to defeat the tank alone, but with some good coordinated teammates, it can be as easy as lighting him on fire and running around him.
The campaigns in Left4Dead are awesome. Not just because they're well made and laid out, but also because of how the campaign plays out. Each campaign has four maps and these maps are played in order. After surviving the first episode of the first campaign, you move onto the second, then third, and so forth. Left4Dead is a very simple game but is also difficult. It all depends really. I like to compare Left4Dead to climbing a rope. Oh sure, climbing a rope is simple! But it's not easy. Guess it all depends on the length of the rope. Left4Dead is like that. The game is as simple as killing zombies and surviving through the campaigns, but there's more too it than meets the eye and it isn't easy.
Left4Dead has four difficulties. Easy, Normal, Advanced, and Expert. Easy and Normal are - to me - pretty easy, but Advanced is what I casually play and Expert is very difficult and something I'm working on getting to master. The game truly is awesome though, even for those of you who thought old zombie movies sucked.
More about the gameplay, the experience is always different. How? VALVe created a unique A.I. for the game which they call the "Director". This Director chooses where zombies spawn, when they spawn, how much they spawn, and it also does the same with placing weapons, ammo, and explosives. This means that while one time you're playing a match of No Mercy the sewers is flooded with zombies, another time it could be mildly populated or not at all. The experience is always changing in Left4Dead and it's one of the many things that makes the game so great!
I strongly encourage everyone who has a computer good enough to play Left4Dead and other Source games to buy it immediately and start playing! You won't regret it.
~Craka_J
The game requires a lot of fluent communication back and forth, planning how to survive or how to defeat the enemy. Staying together is key and if you don't, you usually get owned either by the hordes of zombies or the few - but powerful - special infected. (Otherwise known as the Zombie Bosses)
The boomer of the infected team is probably the easiest class to play. Although all special infected and zombies make loud noises, whether they're being active or not, if spawned in a good place at the right time, it's pretty simple to run in between the survivors and puke all over them. If that fails, at least when they kill you, you explode and have a chance of splatting all over them anyway and you recieve assistance points for it! It's a win-win situation! However, a lot of people miraculously suck as the boomer. If you are one of these people, I strongly recommend you ask your doctor if you have a brain tumor or have any forms of retardation in your brain.
The hunter isn't so easy, but they get the job done very well if used correctly at the right time. Hunters are hooded zombies that can pounce great distances and onto survivors. The best time to pounce on a survivor is usually when they're alone or if they're blinded by boomer bile. Other good times to take advantage of are when there's very few left (One or two survivors alive) or if another Hunter pounces someone and you pounce on another right at that time. Two hunters taking down a man of their own is a very good strategy, but it's more difficult to pull off than you'd think. When pounced on someone, survivors can bunt you off (Whack you with the end of their weapon) and most likely kill you since when zombies and infected bosses are bunted, they get stunned (except for the tank)
The smoker is a very handy special infected. Not exactly the best to start an instance where the survivors become confused on what to do and all that, but are very good at stalling the survivors. The hunters are also good at this. Smokers can grapple targeted survivors from a close or far distance and pull them. Usually the smoker pulls the victim into a crowd of starving and pissed off zombies that eventually try to maul the entangled victim. In times like this, the survivors are usually starting to be attacked by the other special infected who are intelligently taking advantage of the situation or the survivors cannot immediately decide whether it's best to kill the smoker or horde of enraged zombies scratching, punching, kicking, and stomping the poor survivor.
And last but certainly not least, the Tank! The strongest special infected. An over-muscled, jawless, enraged zombie boss. The tank is arguably the best/easiest special infected in the game (Boomer is too) for a few good reasons. For one, the tank has the most HP and can survive through a ton of bullets (However the tank dies after 30-45 seconds when set on fire) and has enough strength to not only toss cars out of his way, but to tear concrete out from the ground and launch it towards his target(s). The tank can easily slaughter the survivors team single-handed and his attacks are strong enough to knock down and toss the survivors themselves! It's very difficult to defeat the tank alone, but with some good coordinated teammates, it can be as easy as lighting him on fire and running around him.
The campaigns in Left4Dead are awesome. Not just because they're well made and laid out, but also because of how the campaign plays out. Each campaign has four maps and these maps are played in order. After surviving the first episode of the first campaign, you move onto the second, then third, and so forth. Left4Dead is a very simple game but is also difficult. It all depends really. I like to compare Left4Dead to climbing a rope. Oh sure, climbing a rope is simple! But it's not easy. Guess it all depends on the length of the rope. Left4Dead is like that. The game is as simple as killing zombies and surviving through the campaigns, but there's more too it than meets the eye and it isn't easy.
Left4Dead has four difficulties. Easy, Normal, Advanced, and Expert. Easy and Normal are - to me - pretty easy, but Advanced is what I casually play and Expert is very difficult and something I'm working on getting to master. The game truly is awesome though, even for those of you who thought old zombie movies sucked.
More about the gameplay, the experience is always different. How? VALVe created a unique A.I. for the game which they call the "Director". This Director chooses where zombies spawn, when they spawn, how much they spawn, and it also does the same with placing weapons, ammo, and explosives. This means that while one time you're playing a match of No Mercy the sewers is flooded with zombies, another time it could be mildly populated or not at all. The experience is always changing in Left4Dead and it's one of the many things that makes the game so great!
I strongly encourage everyone who has a computer good enough to play Left4Dead and other Source games to buy it immediately and start playing! You won't regret it.
~Craka_J
