So I pre-purchased Left 4 Dead on Steam last night, which gives you early access to the demo that will be fully released in a few more days.

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably heard about this game. But just in case you don't know what its about here's the vital info:

FPS Zombie Survival Horror Game
Created by Valve (Half Life, Team Fortress)
Primarily designed to be a 4 player cooperative experience.
This is Valve's blockbuster title for 2008.

So far, I think this game is pretty damn good. And the demo only gives you the first 2 levels. You can play it solo and have 3 computer controlled AI teammates or play alongside other Humans online. In the full release there will be a mode where you can play as a zombie also, but this isn't included in the demo, so I don't know what that is like.

Here's my first impressions: These aren't your slow, shuffling George Romero Zombies. Although often they mill about and act very brain-dead, once they get excited shit will hit the fan. They can run, they love to charge straight for you and your teammates and they are extremely aggressive. If you get swarmed it can be hard to see what the fuck is going on, since you will have a massive gruesome vomiting undead completely obscuring your vision.

The atmosphere is very creepy; dark with pools of light, just like any good Zombie scenario should have. You have a flashlight attached to your weapon which helps to spot the undead, but I think it may also attract them unnecessarily. The graphics have a film-like quality to them, which  is the feel that I think Valve was going for. It creates an atmosphere where you feel like you are the main character in a Zombie movie.

I played through the two levels a couple of times with AI partners just to get comfortable with the controls. The weapons feel very very nice and weighty. One thing that I am critical about when I first play any FPS is the overall control 'feel'.... That intangible sense of presence that is a combination of many factors.... This game 'felt' really good, right away. Its hard to describe, but in a Left 4 Dead the weapons feel nice and hefty, your bullets have a big splashy impact and the movement of your character really transports you into the game world. Shooting Zombies has never felt this good, believe me.

I won't get into too much detail about what the gameplay is like, I recommend you play it to see for yourself, but suffice it to say, Valve has definitely spent some time creating a formula that works. You will be forced to make some tough decisions as to how to play through different situations and all of this is amplified when you jump online to battle through the infested streets with some buddies. There are moments when you have to decide whether to go Rambo, or try and be more tactile, and other times when everything gets so intense you may decide to try and just run away. You always have to expect the unexpected and can never feel safe; You WILL get attacked unexpectedly: from behind, through walls, doors, rooftops - the zombies are FRIGGIN EVERYWHERE!
The action is intense, but thankfully there are plenty of opportunities for decision making, this is by no means a mindless 'on-rails' shooter.

I had a blast playing with online with some strangers. We were all using voice communication, which was cool, but even if you don't have a microphone, your character in-game will communicate through automatic voice cues that are really useful. After playing for about an hour with these random online dudes, I felt like we had a real camaraderie, the game is REALLY good at forcing teamwork, and creating some incredible moments. Even though we played the same 2 levels about 5 or 6 times it didn't get boring at all. The game has a way of creating a different experience each time by tuning the elements to your situation - its difficult to explain, but its almost like the game has a way of pacing itself. Sometimes you'll be given some health and ammo, but the next time you play the exact same level it might not be there. You can't rely on the level to play the same way again.

I can't wait for this game to be fully released. I'm very excited to play it through with some other guys online. If anyone here is interested in forming a possy and giving it a go, let me know, and we'll send some of these zombie bastards back to rot in hell where they belong.

Sweet impressions. $0I've heard about the game and was trying to find the demo yesterday, but alas, like you mentioned its only out for those who pre-order. Hopefully they eventually release it to everyone, it sounds sweett$0

AH HA.
That's what's fucking up everything I type. I'll make sure I use Firefox in the future, thanks.
I like it otherwise though, I've heard alot of people don't....
On Topic - does anyone know when the public demo is coming out?

So I just got done playing the demo on both single player and online co-op. It's pretty awesome, if you love shooting hordes of zombies and monsters it amazing. The team members on single player really help, and co-op is really sweet. It was kinda hard though on co-op, but that could just be cause we all just started playing, anyway, download the demo on steam it's sweet!

the demo on the 360 is really good.. i was surprised how well the controller works with it.

There's a quick 180 degree spin button too which is needed in such a fast paced game.

I might have to buy this thing twice. Steam version is purchased already....

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I had a lot of fun playing through the Live demo playing Co-op.  I increased the difficulty to Advanced and kept getting murdered which was great.  I thought the demo seemed pretty short, but then someone mentioned that's only about 20% of the first level (I think there are 6 or 7 levels total).

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I'm very sad the demo is gone, and am thinking about buying the game. Everyone says the major shortcoming is the length of the game, but I probably played the demo for 10 hours and had fun with it working with different people.
Between the different people I played with and the way the game changed depending on difficulty, and the active "director" it was still fun every time.
Advanced is probably the best to play on, it's hard enough that you can still get through, and it's still difficult. Expert is just insane and your whole team can die in seconds.

Ah...I did not know it was that short.  : D

So there's 4 Campaigns. I have now completed 2 of them cooperatively on "Advanced" difficulty and it took about 2 1/4 hours roughly for each. I also jumped into a session with some guys who were already at the final stage of the campaign and the stats at the end said it took them 3 1/2 hours.

So lets say a campaign takes about 2 1/2 hours to complete, this means that the game technically has about 9 hours of  'playthrough' time. But let me make this clear to anyone who is hesitant to give it a whirl: Each playthrough is completely different even though its the same level. There are different buildings you can choose to explore/not explore, slightly (though not vastly) different paths you can take, and the best part is the AI director, that keeps you guessing every time. The tension level rises and falls at the director's will, largely dependent on how well you are playing, what sort of strategy you are using (e.g. slow and methodical vs. run & gun), how accurate/how much health/ammo you have etc. etc.

Combine this with the fact that so much of the game is based on how your coop teammates decide to play and the game will really stay fresh. Don't think of it as a corridor shooter, or even a half-life 2 style 'larger' corridor shooter, this game is a zombie movie with a new cast every time you play and a new director every time you play. Thats the best way I can describe it.

So far some of my funnest games have actually been played with teammates who weren't good actually. Its interesting when you are on a team of 4 and one guy is always slowing the team down. Likewise I played a game with one guy who was a bit of a jerk over voice comms. I had low health and asked him to give me his medpack, to which he replied, "Haha no way, I found it, its mine." Typically you would think this would just piss you off, but in this game it actually is fun when you find yourself on a team that doesn't really function hapilly. Later on I noticed that the same guy was pinned down by a zombie, and though I probably could have helped him out, I decided to concentrate on protecting myself instead.

Another time, I was playing on a different team and about 1/3 of the way through a level we encountered a boss zombie known as a witch. The witch can be avoided but one player on my team really thought we should try and take it out. He tried to convince the other 3 of us to run back to the beginning of the stage with him so he could get a sniper rifle we left behind earlier (you can only carry one primary weapon). I thought this was a terrible idea and expressed my opinion on the matter, but before I could explain why he had already took off running back to get it. I figured we'd just leave him behind since he would likely die anyway, but one of the others thought we should all go back to protect him, so he went chasing after him. Our team ended up being split into groups of two, and needless to say the AI director threw us a curveball at just the right moment.... Despite all of this, we ended up completing the stage, reuniting as a foursome a bit further on.

There are also "finales" to each campaign that are extremely intense. Its really cool how they work, you basically are defending against repeated waves of zombies while waiting for rescue. You will usually have some time to prepare defenses and it makes for some interesting teammate to teammate interaction over voicecomm when two players have a different idea about how to set up defenses. Cooperation usually works best but you can also choose to protect your own neck if thats the kind of person you are.

Right now, I can't say enough good things about this game, I reccommend it fully, and would urge you not to worry about the "length" beacause it really isnt a factor in a game like this. Think of it as a movie and the levels are just "sets" for the action, characters and interraction  that will be different every time.

Kingston is right!


Just like Dan said above, the "time" it takes to beat this game doesn't matter, cause it's so bloody random.

The demo level ends after the big wave of shit hits the fan in that generator room, but in the real game, that point is @ the 70% mark... the maps is much longer.

Each movie is 5 chapters long, and there are 4 movies.

There is lots of options for more Maps (movies)... and the Mod community will be all over this thing once vALVE updates the SDK on steam with Left4Dead tools.

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