You'd have to have been living under a rock to not know what Left 4 Dead is so I'm not going to bother talking about it. If you really want to know, JFWI.

Left 4 Dead revolves around co-op, so lets talk about the Campaign mode first. You have four Campaigns that pose as "movies" from the start because of the totally awesome movie posters in the loading screen. I hear you can buy them now, which I will. The general idea is simple: you and your three other buddies get to the end without dieing. The process of doing so is not so simple. Each Campaign is five maps long, and can go for up to two hours (the longest it too me in any one Campaign was close to two hours). Everyone knows about the AI Director, which is what makes the game truly interesting. It spawns zombies and special Boss Infected at key intervals, or at complete random. Are you and your team standing around for too long? Here comes a zerg rush of zombies. Do you have full health and a med kit or two? It's safe to say some Boss Infected may find you. Is your team low on health and only one guy has pills? The horde ignores you...this time. It's very cool because no play through will go the same. I've played No Mercy a lot, since it's the easiest to get a team to, and a zombie horde is still very unpredictable. Tanks are almost as bad. While sometimes you know where they are at, the Director can totally turn heads and spawn it outside a safe area. While it can be frustrating, if you all die you just start again with the AI Director giving a little mercy because...well, you suck.

Four Campaigns at five maps each can seem pretty short. On Normal, I'm willing to beat each one takes under an hour. That's one problem: the difficulty is just too easy at Normal. I play most of my games on the Normal setting and Left 4 Dead pulled me out of my comfort zone, which isn't a bad thing. Advanced and Expert are amazing experiences. Back when I played the demo and did a writeup on it, I said I was playing it on Expert all the time. When I first started Left 4 Dead and played No Mercy on Expert, we had to bring it down. The full games Expert difficulty is insane! I realized that Advanced was more in line with the demo's Expert. After beating everything in Advanced, Expert was a true blast. Passing of pills and medkits on the fly, defending teammates as they pulled up a fallen friend, and finales are all amazing on Expert and take hard coordination by your team.

Versus is the second mode, and a very different affair. Versus is one of my favorite experiences, because it was the first time I felt physically tired by a video game. My first time on Versus was playing with my clan-mates and we were all on Teamspeak. It was nothing but two and half hours of "Guys, keep running, don't stop or else they'll- HOLY FUCKING SHIT GET HIM OFF GOD DAMN IT!". Since Boss Infected are randomly assigned, but kept down to two Hunters, one Smoker, and one Boomer, I mostly played a Hunter. Playing as Infected is harder than playing ad the Survivors. Survivors simply need to keep moving. Infected need to properly set up attacks, else the entire team gets throw off. Early on in No Mercy, me and my team kept jumping in individually trying to take out the Survivor closest to the rear and it never worked. We really had to coordinate our efforts to being Survivors down. Once someone spawns as a Tank, if you don't focus the Survivors that are still standing, the Tank is going to drop fast and you probably won't have another opportunity like that. Playing as a Survivor is fun and you have to play at a faster pace then Campaign. Knowing the Boss Infected are player controlled and know where you're at all the time just means you have to keep moving and rush the safe room as fast as possible. What is comes down to is a players skill. If a team of infected are better players the the Survivors, the Survivors won't make it. Visa versa.

The lack of maps in Versus is disappointing. You can only play No Mercy and Blood Harvest in Versus. I can only hope Death Toll and Dead Air will be put in at some point because I really want to play as an Infected on those levels, especially Dead Air.

The worst thing about Left 4 Dead is how you find servers. Instead of a traditional server browser, you use a matchmaking service more akin to the way multiplayer works on consoles. When you start a game it will search for a dedicated server that fits your game criteria. I haven't had a huge problem with this. I'm just uncomfortable with the lack of a proper server browser, which can be solved with an easy console command thankfully.

I love Left 4 Dead. The people who I've played with enjoy it a lot, and I've been happy with the fact that I haven't run into a lot of game ruining asshats. Versus is one of the most exciting things I've found in a game this year. As whole, Left 4 Dead is going to keep me busy for a long time. I hold my breath in great anticipation to see what Valve will put out for Left 4 Dead in the future. My only regret is that Xbox player will have to pay for it. *jab*

6/6