The crew at Rock, Paper, Shotgun recently had a chance to go hands-on with the latest build of Left 4 Dead.
They tackle both the Infected side and the Survivors in this preview.
They tackle both the Infected side and the Survivors in this preview.
Left 4 Dead is remarkably immediate and familiar, and yet distinctly unlike other games. There’s a whiff of Half-Life’s greatest mods to it, which I guess is hardly surprising when you see the people that Valve now employ. That whiff is a taste of the meme-pool of experienced PC gamers who are building the kinds of games that extrapolate from our FPS heritage. I know it works a blinder on Xbox too, but this feels and smells like a profoundly PC game.If you're looking forward to Left 4 Dead, be sure and check out the rest of the lengthy preview.
That said, I’m finding it tough to draw useful parallels with other game experiences. It is, of course, nothing like any other classic zombie game out there. It’s survival horror without being anything like other games that are so toe-tagged. And the replayed, randomised nature of the four hour-or-so maps mean that it’s also nothing like other FPS games.