I am not embarrassed by many things. For example, when I invite a delightful young woman over to my apartment for a romantic liaison, I know full well that one of the first things she is going to see is a gigantic vinyl Godzilla. It sits on a mantle over a television surrounded by seven videogame consoles. The fridge is empty save for countless individual packets of soy sauce, a pitcher of water, and a lonesome bottle of Miracle Whip that may or may not have been there when I moved in. There is a framed map of Zebes from Super Metroid hanging in my bedroom. These are not things that label me “a catch.” I am also not embarrassed to admit what a terrible cliché I am. Like countless other men of my generation, raised with a nigh on religious devotion to media, I too have a Zombie Plan. The plan details what I will do during the initial weeks of the zombie apocalypse, that is to say, when my urban home is overrun by the brain-hungry undead. The plan is multi-tiered and incredibly thorough. I have this plan because it is important to be prepared for zombies. I also have it because I enjoy daydreaming about the zombie apocalypse. I am not embarrassed by this, and apparently neither is Valve, makers of Half-Life, Portal, Team Fortress, and this fall’s Left4Dead.
Left4Dead, a four player co-operative FPS built on Valve’s Source engine, is like a training simulator for zombie plans. The game plays out over four “films”, each one broken into five chapters and the goal of each is to move across city streets, dilapidated buildings, and other locales infested with zombies – 28 Days Later-style speedy zombies, not Romero-esque shamblers – to reach safe rooms. You load up on ammunition and healing items and then you go back out and you always, always stick together. There is no surviving the zombie apocalypse alone. The game plays with the same speed and immediacy of all Valve’s games, foregoing a realistic feeling of character weight in favor of brisk play. It is awesome.
I got to play Left4Dead’s split-screen co-op today, which only allows for two players, though you can still invite an additional two to join you via Xbox Live. At first, I felt like the game was just Half-Life 2 with head-crabless zombies. That was before I went into the apartment building and a horde of almost twenty sprinting corpses flooded into a single room. Since I was using a shotgun, one of only a handful of weapons available in the game, I found myself having to bludgeon zombies away to give me enough time to load just a single shell and blast them away. This was all while still looking around to make sure my companions weren’t getting overrun or in my line of fire. It was an intense and unique moment, unlike anything else I’ve played. I was equally impressed with the unscripted nature of Left4Dead. While the rush in the apartment was triggered by walking through a door, I accidentally brought on an onslaught of zombies outdoors because I accidentally set off a car alarm. If I hadn’t gone to see if the environment was fully interactive (read: Can I break this car window?), our trip through the level would have been much easier.
Of the many, many exciting games coming out this fall, Left4Dead might be the most important. Yeah, it’s fun. But it’s also educational. After all, no zombie plan should go into effect without being tested first.
Related links:
The Ten Greatest Fire Levels in Gaming History, Part 2
Games to Movies: Why Is It So Gad-Danged Hard?
Unknowable Horrors and Spiraling Madness: H.P. Lovecraft and Videogames
Trailer Review: House of the Dead – Overkill
The 61FPS Review: Dead Space
