It does this in several ways, most notably in what’s called the “Director”. The director is a system that takes information and assesses how much stress players can take. If they are low on health and ammunition, they’ll face very few zombies. On the other hand, if they do have efficient amounts, then hordes will attack. This dynamic allows for players to have just the right amount of enemies to fight while still requiring teamwork.
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This information was available before E3. After playing it for an hour because I couldn’t stop, I can confirm that not only does the director work, the gameplay requires cooperation or bad things will happen and that it has the ability to be the game of the year. It’s also a ton of fun.
Generally, previews are supposed to give an unbiased view of the game based around pure information. It has this feature, provides these weapons, etc. No, Left 4 Dead deserves more. Much, much more.
The hour spent with Left 4 Dead was one of my best at E3 this year. Some other games were also very enjoyable, perhaps even more so, but nothing compared when playing with friends and strangers to defeat zombie after zombie after zombie. So what exactly is so great about Left 4 Dead?
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As a cooperative experience, there is nothing quite like Left 4 Dead, which demands and requires cooperation. Players are tossed around like dolls in the hands of some enemies, and without a teammate nearby, the attacked player is screwed. Enemies like Stalkers, Witches and others can easily defeat single players, but working together creates a whole different dynamic. And if you don’t work together, you don’t progress.
How cooperation works is also interesting. Players can carry two weapons, either one or two handguns and the choice of a shotgun, sub-machine gun, assault rifle, sniper rifle and a few others. The weapon each player has will affect how the team works, so if everyone has a shotgun, taking out large groups isn’t going to be fun. Keeping balance is fairly nice in this respect, but with other games it isn’t necessary. Anyone being an ass and not taking the proper weapon may have the whole team pay for that mistake.
The distribution of health is also essential. Each player can hold one health pack (which returns 50% of all health) and can use it on themselves or another teammate when standing still. However, there are a limited number of healthpacks available, so if one player uses his own and needs another one, the team has to contribute to make sure he doesn’t fail out. Which in turn makes someone give up their healthpack.
There are also temporary health regenerative items, such as pain pills. These give pseudo-health, which is health that slowly degrades. If a player has 20% health and uses pain pills, they’ll have 50% health but it will slowly decrease back to 20%, and each hit they take removes a portion of what the pain pills offer.
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When players are knocked down or lose too much health, they can be brought back once by another player without the use of a standard healthpack, but all they have is pseudo-health. In my testing, I was brought back and used pain pills, so I had 50% of my health, but none of it was real. Just before making it to the next safe zone, I dropped dead. Nobody else had a healthpack to spare.
I did respawn after everyone else made it to the safe zone, but we lost points for the team not being able to keep me alive or making it back in time. Rounds are between safe zones, from getting to each concurrent one, and scores are given based on performance, items used and zombies killed.
Left 4 Dead is set to release on the PC and Xbox 360 on November 4th in North America and November 7th in Europe. It’ll be available both on disc and through Steam.
