Take a look at the current multiplayer landscape of gaming. A long, slow, depressing look. What you’ll see is a plethora of online multiplayer competitive e-sports wannabe games, with the sole focus of brutally killing each other. This is fine. It’s fine. I’m just sad that when looking at multiplayer games, it’s rare to find a good, solid coop experience. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t any. There are some absolute top tier PvE coop oriented games out there.
But even if they’re scarce, there’s one game that stands on top, outshining the rest of them as a beacon of good game design.
Left 4 Dead 2.
If you’ve never played Left 4 Dead, well.. then something is probably wrong with you, but it’s alright. The game is simple. You battle through “campaigns” (a series of levels) with the goal to reach the end and survive an onslaught of zombies. You’ll encounter normal, boring zombies in hordes, as well as “special infected”. Zombies with unique traits that are; 1, scary as heck, and 2, annoying as heck. They’ll grab you, twist you, pin you – anything to make sure that your life gets worse.
There’s a good variety of weapons and tools at your disposal, as well as a balanced amount of interactivity with the levels themselves. Things like jerrycans, alarms, chokepoints, etc. It’s not overwhelming, but also not too little to become boring. Everything is well crafted and balanced, everything has its purpose.
The loop of running through the well crafted levels, hoarding supplies and working together with your team (or not..) is some of the most cathartic gaming moments I’ve experienced. Everything is so well polished, and best of all? There’s no meta progression. No leveling up, no account bound items, nothing. You just boot up the game, start a level and play. It’s easy to get into, and hard to quit.
There’s not really any story, and the game doesn’t focus on the “artful” aspects of the media, such as beautiful vistas or music. It’s raw. All the fat is cut away, and what’s left is a pure and memorable zombie survival experience.
Playing through some of the campaigns on the higher difficulties will break friendships, because you’ll soon realize how incompetent your friends would be in a real life zombie apocalypse.
On top of the classic campaign mode, you’re also able to play “Versus”. A game mode which allows others to play as the aforementioned special infected in a match to see who can make it furthest through the levels, while others try to stop you. There’s also great mod support on PC, allowing you to play campaigns set in Resident Evil, or Silent Hill. Maybe you want all the zombies to look like Teletubbies? You can. You shouldn’t, but you can.
I remember spending hours with my brothers when we were younger, trying to break levels and glitch stuff so we could hunt for achievements. It’s a game that let’s you play however you want, and doesn’t hold your hand with in game pop up tutorials, or unnecessary restrictions.
Playing Left 4 Dead is almost a rite of passage. It’s a classic, and has defined the zombie genre. It’s a game that never really leaves you, and it has been no less than deserving of the praise it’s gotten. 10/10!
Pingback: Left 4 Dead