So the Left 4 Dead demo is now available over the Steam network for normal humans like me who didn’t pre-order the game. With Valve’s highly anticipated online cooperative zombie shooter shambling into retail in a week, the demo servers are already packed with smack-talking, team-fragging, headset-wearing eleven year olds eager to describe in appalling detail what they did with your mother last night.
The demo is short – I played through three times in 20 minutes – but does highlight Left 4 Dead’s many admirable qualities. Foremost among them is the need to work as a team. Your little band of four depend on each other for everything, and when the swarms get bad you’ll both witness and participate in some heroic and breathtaking saves, enthusiastically altruistic self sacrifices, and totally honking sweet back-watching gun battles. This is not a scary game, being more Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead than George Romero’s, but it is a good cardiopulmonary workout, thanks entirely to Valve’s exquisite design that essentially forces cooperation.
Two things could bring Left 4 Dead down. The first is replayability. The game ships with a handful – four or five I think – of “campaigns,” each maybe an hour or two long and supportive of drop-in play. Unlike Counterstrike or Team Fortress 2, though, the strength of Left 4 Dead lies in the fear of the unknown lurking around every corner. Once people have these maps memorized, which will happen in about six hours, a lot of the novelty and thrill will wear off. I tend to think that unless Valve is relentless in pushing out free additional campaigns on a regular basis, or unless the mod community gets together and produces some real classics, Left 4 Dead might turn into a Defcon situation, which is to say that everyone plays frantically for a week and then never plays again.
The other thing that could torpedo the game is the fact that you play it with people, and people are assholes. While it’s true that there’s little room for griefing or jackasstic behavior in this game, this won’t stop humans from being the fundamentally worthless and better off extinct species that they unfortunately are. People armed with headset microphones can ruin many a good play experience, and Left 4 Dead is no exception.
An interesting sociological note: of the four characters in the game, one is an attractive female. Obviously this character, whose name is Zoey, can be played by anyone (there’s no difference between them and they’re randomly assigned at game start), but I witnessed – and, I shamefacedly admit, participated in – a surprising display of male idiocy during my time with the demo. Based on my observations, when Zoey was in danger, her male teammates spent more time and effort, and put themselves at far greater risk, to rescue her than they ever did to aid their Y-chromosomed partners. The fact that Zoey could and probably was being played by a dude at the time had no bearing in this. Given Valve’s love of tracking all things relevant and ir-, I betcha we’ll see a release of stats that shows number of saves by character in a few months, and I betcha that Zoey will top the list. This has no bearing on the game, but it does underline the common female assessment of males as duncish Cro Mags with one track minds. Ladies, let Left 4 Dead be your proof: speaking for my people, we really are like that. 
I hate people.
Games like this are really only good if you are playing with people you know and trust. I think I may know 3 such people.
Actually, it may only be 2.5. I will need to find another half of person.
I suggest getting a group of friends together to play the game. I hate playing online games with other people too. They even have an option to see which of your Steam friends are playing so you can join in with them. Also, from what I have read, people are already starting to crack the files open for the demo and making their own mini-mods. I do hope this translates into a strong modding community for this game, as I too fear for its replayability. Though that didn’t stop me from pre-ordering the game.
very fun demo.
This game could really be sweet with a strong modding community. That’d be a huge bonus for replayability.
Good news.
So, I take back my original post. I don’t hate people. I want them to make cool mods for me and my friends to make and then leave us to it.
Thank you, people.
This probably would be a lot of fun with friends and if I had time to play anything. I need at least 2 lives, no question.
Lots of people are assholes. Lots of assholes play multiplayer video games. Sometimes I think that is part of the point of games…unleashing your inner asshole. 12 year old over privileged boys are esp. insufferable esp. when they can pretend they are not ineffectual nobodies.
On the other side of the coin there are amazing people to be met in team play. As has been pointed out repeatedly in the above posts, you gotta pick your team carefully. Maybe someone could make money starting an exclusive gaming club where you have to be rigorously vetted before joining.
No, no, and no. People DO suck, but I’ve played countless numbers of wonderful, public Team Fortress 2 games. There’s some great people out there, and they will have to do when my friends either can’t or won’t play (Steerpike is the latter, even though he will indignantly deny it in his upcoming response).
Of course, Left 4 Dead doesn’t feature 12 or 16 teammates; it contains 4 for a much more “intimate” experience. One jacktard on a team of 16 can be ignored, but one moronaplex is harder to ignore on a small team constantly forced to revive one another.
Still, I have had generally positive experiences with random people in L4D, save for the occasional idiot that has apparently never played a team-based shooter before. I hope it’s not my mom because I said horrible, horrible things to him.
Actually I think the most telling part of your statement is that you used “mom” and “him” to refer to the same person.
Left 4 Dead has a lot going for it – I played the demo a couple more times the other day (ALONE, because none of my friends called and said “Hey, we’re playing some Left 4 Dead, sign on”), and was more favorably inclined toward it than I first was.
I still have a hard time seeing this as a $50 game, however, at least until a fair amount of additional content is added. If L4D had been included in an Orange Box type of arrangement, or if it were $20, I’d be all over it. At full-game-price, well, four brief scenarios and access to a whole internet of obnoxious, foulmouthed ten year olds smacks of greed on Valve’s part.
Of course, I said the same thing about the Orange Box, so take my words salted.
Remember: When they say “five maps,” they mean five maps with several sub-maps within. Ergo, they’re not TF2 maps; their large, sprawling maps with varied enemy encounters and mostly varied equipment locations.
I played the demo over the weekend with my brother.
It was a ton of fun. Exactly what you’d want from a zombie game. As a bit of zombie traditionalist, I wasn’t sure about all the supernatural elements to the game (i.e., all the various different species of zombies), but it works well. It’s good to have varied opponents.
I like the flashlight in the darkness effects. It’s scary. I loved blowing off zombie parts with the hunting rifle. (I once heard of a man who killed something like 185 zombies with a high powered rifle and scope. His name? Baldee McNasty.)
I can’t wait to get up and running with this game with full 4 player action.
I can see the reluctance on the $50 purchase if the game is limited. Certainly worth a rental.
Steerpike, I’m interested in this single-player with the bots. worth while? Also, do you have to be hooked into Steam while playing? Not good. Thanks…
O.R.
Hey Rooster,
The demo does include single player, with surprisingly intelligent bots. Whether or not the game is entirely worthwhile as single player only, though… that’s debatable. It’s certainly going to be a short experience, as I doubt most playing single would feel the urge to replay the campaigns multiple times.
As to Steam, I’m not sure, but I’m guessing that Steam must be running for the game to work. Whenever I launch the demo it automatically connects my Steam account, though this may be simply a requirement of the demo. I doubt it, however.