Just try to stay alive

CEBU, Philippines – In all Left 4 Dead is a good shooter, but it can get better. I’m sure players everywhere would want the game’s story fleshed out; how the pathogenic infection spread, how the human survivors struggled and ultimately won back their normal world.

Leaving films like 28 Days Later (2002), Dawn of the Dead (2004), Land of the Dead (2005), and Planet Terror (2007), people usually wonder: Do I have what it takes to survive a zombie apocalypse?

What will you do when you see a horde of zombies rushing at you? Do you close your eyes, suck your thumb and try to wish it all away? Do you scream a girly scream and run for it? Or do you prep your rifle, stand your ground and dare the revolting wave of walking corpses to try to wash you away?

Ah well, since the zombie apocalypse is unlikely, playing Left 4 Dead might give you the idea of how you cope with everyone around you trying to get you —for real this time.

This multiplayer-oriented game plays out four separate scenarios —rather than one linear story— where four survivors immune to a pathogenic virus that has infected most of humans fight to escape the ravenous horde.

If you choose to play singe-player the PC will randomly assign you to any of the four characters of the game. There’s Francis the tattooed biker dude, Bill the Vietnam veteran, Louis the ordinary IT guy and Zoey, a college student.

The settings vary from abandoned cities, to forests and small towns, all enhanced with mood lighting and fog and weather effects…the works.

The enemies you will fight in this game vary from the plain infected to “tanks”. While the plain infected are very weak individually they may pose problems when attacking in groups of more than 10 —which happens very often. Tanks are huge, lumbering creatures that can heave large things at you and kill you with a few well-placed hits.

Other than this there’s the Witch, an infected type that can deal great damage when startled; the Smoker, another type that can grab and drag you across long distances with its tongue; the Hunter which can pounce on you from long distances and keep you down while it’s tearing and you and the Boomer, a huge bloated thing that vomits a green pus all over you that marks you as a target for other infected.

And take note, zombies don’t shuffle at you like in those old B-grade zombie movies, they run at you pell-mell and jump at you if you are in an elevated position. It’s as if the viral infection has somehow enhanced their speed and agility.

Left 4 Dead can be a tough game, checkpoints are far between and you don’t get a steady supply of medical kits and ammo like in most shooters.

Each character can only carry one medkit at a time, although you can come across painkillers that somewhat shore up your hitpoints for a while if you are injured. In addition each character can carry a finite amount of ammo for his/her main weapon, although caches of weapons and ammo can be found at odd points in the game.

This dearth of medkits and bullets actually creates more tension in the game, forcing you to make every shot count and taking care not to get hurt too much. What should you do when you have a medkit and see one of your companions slowly dying? Do you save the medkit for yourself and hope he/she makes it to the next safehouse with you? Or do you use the medkit to heal him/her so your chances of getting out of there alive are raised somewhat?

The finales to each scenario are the best and most often toughest part, allowing you time to organize a defense as best as you can before the full fury of the infected forces are thrown at you. How you organize your defense/offense style will determine how satisfying —or disappointing— the outcome will be.

In all Left 4 Dead is a good shooter, but it can get better. I’m sure players everywhere would want the game’s story fleshed out; how the pathogenic infection spread, how the human survivors struggled and ultimately won back their normal world.

With that said horror movies fans-cum-gamers might want to give this a try, if not for the satisfaction of blasting away at zombies then for the tense gameplay a zombified world scenario can give.

After all, an actual zombie apocalypse is highly unlikely.

…Right?