 I've played Left 4 Dead in every conceivable form, and I'm totally convinced that it's one of the greatest multiplayer games ever made.
I realize that I just made a statement which is sure to come under fire. How could it be that a game that wasn't overhyped to no end be among THE GREATEST?
Let me back up a bit and introduce you to Left 4 Dead. L4D is one of those games that doesn't even try to bore you with a story. You are one of four survivors, grouped together and stranded in the middle of a place that has been overrun by a disease that you are immune to. Those who aren't immune to the disease have, of course, been turned into mindless killing machines with the lone driving force of the need to eat you. In order to survive, you and your teammates have to safely jump from one safe house to the next, with the ultimate goal of making it safely to rescue.That's it. No cutscenes, no boring text to read, nothing; there's just the one desperate aim of reaching the next safe house.
Bill, Louis, Francis, and Zoey are the names of the four survivors, and as the player, you get to pick which one you control. That's as much as you get, story-wise. The rest of the story is created by how you play the game. That description might sound a tad corny, but it couldn't be more accurate, since every person's experience with the game is going to be totally different. The number of zombies in a given area, the type of zombie that comes at you, and the location of the zombies is all decided by a little thing that the creators of L4D simply call the "AI Director."
The Director is, quite simply, pure evil. Depending on how much health you have, or how you've been playing, the Director may or may not decide to suddenly send a wave of 100 zombies running full speed straight at you. Oh yes, these aren't slow zombies. These are like Olympic runner zombies.
There are six different types of zombies in all. The most common are known simply as "the Infected". These guys will run full speed at you and your buddies the moment they see you, and upon reaching you will claw, bite, and gnash until they are either blown away by one of the 10 available weapons, or they successfully take you down. The "Smoker" is a fairly common type of "Boss" zombie, and can pull in his human victims using his ridiculous 50ft tongue. There are four other types of boss zombies, including "Hunters", which can jump incredible distances and pin down survivors, "Boomers", who can puke or explode on teammates, attracting a massive horde of the Infected to appear, and "Tanks", massive bullet sponges that can take out an entire team of survivors if all available firepower isn't concentrated on their massive hides. The sixth and final type of zombie is the "Witch." Witches are nearly as horrifying as a Tank to encounter, and have the most frightening physical appearance. Survivors are warned of a Witch's presence by a wailing sound emitted from the creature that becomes louder as they get closer. Until they are shot or otherwise disturbed, Witches simply sit on the floor and cry. When they are awakened, however, they pick one human target and mercilessly attack, pinning the survivor to the floor with no hope for survival unless teammates react quickly and hit the Witch with a massive amount of firepower. It's entirely possible to avoid Witches all-together, but this requires a lot of a teamwork and a bit of luck, depending on the situation.
With so many different totally unique types of enemies, a variety of strategies have to be formulated on the fly if players are to survive. Many a time you'll find yourself giving an open doorway the full blast of your assault rifle, taking down what seems like an endless stream of the creatures, when suddenly you realize that just as many are pouring into the room through a broken window behind you. It only takes making that mistake once before you'll develop a habit of memorizing all possible entry points to every room you enter. You'll hear the various growls, screams, and wails of a giant group of infected as they near your position, so you'll be given a few seconds to formulate a team strategy.
At one point, while playing with 3 friends, we got into a situation in which we had to defend ourselves for 10 minutes in a small, two-story building from an unending wave of zombies. All four of us dove inside an enclosed staircase with two men covering the door at the top and two covering the door at the bottom. One player on both ends of the staircase squatted down while firing, so that the person behind them had a clear shot. Any stray bullet that hits a teammate in this game DOES deplete their health, so we weren't taking any chances. Our team was fairing well for the first five minutes, fending off wave after wave of the infected with little problem. Unfortunately, our good luck didn't last, as the two guys covering the entrance to the top of the staircase reported with genuine terror that a Tank was thundering towards their position. The two abandoned their positions, sprinting downstairs and into the living room, where one was pinned by a waiting Hunter, and the other was mobbed by over a dozen infected. The guy that had been with me at the bottom of the staircase began attempting to blow away the attackers using a shotgun, in an effort to free his two friends.
In the meantime, I decided to run upstairs and get in a few shots on the approaching tank, in the hopes that once he infiltrated our makeshift stronghold, he wouldn't take many bullets to take down. Little did I know, I had underestimated the speed at which the Tank was moving, and he reached the entrance to the top of the staircase at the same time as I did. The Tank roared and batted me back down the staircase, where I smashed into a wall, unable to move for a few seconds. By the time I got back up, the Tank had bounded down the stairs and was looming over me again. He pounded me against the wall over and over, killing me before my teammates even knew what was happening.
At this point, the helicopter arrived with the promise of salvation to anyone who could reach it. My buddy, Tyler, the one who had been defending the others with a shotgun earlier, was the only survivor in a position to escape, since the tank had cornered another teammate, while the other was being ripped apart by a hunter. Tyler made a break for the helicopter, leaving the other two behind to be slaughtered. We all cheered him on, however, since as long as at least one person makes it to the rescue vessel at the end of a campaign, victory is achieved. As Tyler neared the copter, he was suddenly paralyzed by something around his waist. To everyone's horrified dismay, a Smoker had lassoed him with its long tongue and began roping him in. With no one to kill the Smoker, Tyler was slowly fed to a massive pack of infected, restarting all the survivors at an earlier checkpoint. If I hadn't run up the stairs to try to take out the Tank, none of that would have unfolded in the same way, and we might have made it out victorious.
 I've played through all four of the campaigns in L4D. I've played through it in single player, where the excellent AI controlled my three teammates. I've played through it in co-op with one friend. I've played through it over a LAN setup with three friends. I've played versus mode online with 7 other people, both as a survivor and as the boss infected. Every single time I popped in the game, I had an absolute blast. Each playthrough gave me an experience that was totally different from the one before: When I played through it splitscreen with a friend, for instance, L4D proved itself to be one of the most intense games ever created, leaving both me and my buddy with adrenaline pumping through our veins even 20 minutes after we had stopped playing. When I set up a LAN match and played four-player co-op, the game got even better. At least one of us four were constantly screaming something, whether to warn one another of an incoming tank, to beg for help whenever pinned down by a hunter, or to organize strategic placement of the team members whenever a particularly massive wave of zombies exploded into the area.
Left 4 Dead provides what seems like a nearly unlimited number of possible situations that players can run into. I honestly wish that the game had some sort of "Theater Mode" akin to the one in Halo 3, since too often something amazing happens that I want to see again from different perspectives. There are a small number of technical aspects of the game, such as some textures clipping into each other and the graphics not being the best on the system, that some might poo-poo. Those people are missing the point. This is a game that should be experienced, not evaluated based upon extremely minor graphical glitches. The co-op is amazing, the versus mode (where you yourself can play as the infected) is a blast, and the replay value is massive. The AI Director just WORKS, and the adrenaline rush you're sure to get when playing is thrilling. I encourage everyone that owns a 360 to at least try this game. After all, who doesn't like shooting zombies?
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