The concept stage meeting at Turtle Rock Studios (currently part of the Valve Corporation) had probably involved more than just a few pints of beer and a dozen re-runs of Shaun of the Dead . Left 4 Dead's premise is as follows: three dudes and a chick blast through endless hordes of zombies. That's it. That's the story. And surprise, surprise, it works.

   Left 4 Dead's opening cinematic shows the four armed-to-the-teeth Survivors make their way through the deserted streets. There's Bill, the bad-arse chain-smoking war vet. There's Francis, the hardcore tattooed biker, doubtlessly made so hardcore by the repeated blows to the head via the means of a Harley Davidson exhaust pipe from his gang-fighting days. Then there's Louis the IT Support Analyst. This man's wearing a shirt, a tie, and a smirk, and anyone who's ever worked in IT Support would know that hordes of crazed zombies are nothing compared to a double server outage on a Monday morning. And finally, there's the cute girl Zoey. Not sure what her job is, but being perhaps the last human female between Francis, Louis, and Colonel Fancypants left on planet Earth, I'm not sure I want to find out.

   A few seconds into the intro the Survivors are jumped by the zombies. They come sprinting from all sides in proper zombie fashion, the ones dropped by the Survivors' supressing fire soon to be replaced by yet more zombies, even angrier-looking ones. After a bit of a ruckus caused by a particularly nasty-looking steroid-OD'd deader, the humans finally make their escape via the roof. Cut to game menu.

   I, for one, was impressed.

You Gotta Shoot Em' in the Head

   Knowing full well that this is essentially a multiplayer game, I decided to first go through the campaign solo in the hopes that I don't let anyone down too much when I'm ready to play online. The game menu, apart from looking rather pretty on the animated background, proved to be fairly intuitive. I put on my headphones so as to not wake my wife and kid, selected the first out of the five missions featured in the first campaign (lovingly called No Mercy ) and got ready to kick some serious zombie arse.

   And kick arse I did. The game's mechanic is simple, yet very effective. The goal in all the missions is to get from point A to point B (called the Safehouse), laying waste to all undead in the process. Not unlike vomit and bad luck the zombies came in waves, and the gameplay reminded me of standing off against tons of baddies in Serious Sam or even the original Doom on Ulta-Violence. I later learned that the game uses a so-called "AI Director," a piece of code that randomizes the placing of items and zombies each time you play through a map based on how well (or badly) you did on your last attempt, making the levels either easier or harder, accordingly.

Breakfast of Champions

Z is for Zombies

   To a strapping young sapling like yourself, regular zombies of L4D will not pose much of a threat. That is left to the so-called Special Infected, the five types of "Zombie 2.0". Allow me to make the introductions.

   The first is the Hunter, a fast zombie that pounces on you and humps you until one of the other Survivors pushes him off, or until you merrily depart from the land of the living.

   Second is the Smoker, a zombie with a ten-metre long, umm, tongue, who can not find a better use for it but to shoot it out at the Survivors and drag them half-way across the map. Again, you'll need a Survivor's help to make him let go.

   Third is the Boomer, a fat boy deader whose special attack is to throw up all over you and attract hordes of zombies, blurring your vision at the same time. Same thing happens if you forget to push one away from yourself before you pump it full of lead.

   Then there is the Witch. She just sort of sits around doing nothing until startled and then she can take all your health in just a couple of blows. Who would've thought the old goth girl could get so badass post-mortem.

   And finally, there's the Tank. He's the baddest of the bad, the king of zombies, the undisputed lord of zombiedom. This bodybuilder nightmare is practically impossible to take down on your own, is fast as hell, and can kill you in just a few hits, and that's if he doesn't decide to hurl pieces of the surrounding buildings or cars at you first. Hail to the king, baby.

You've Had a Lot of Brains, I've Had a Lot of Time, but You Ain't Had Mine

   After making my way through the first campaign, I decided I'm leet enough to try an on-line mode called Versus. In Versus, you spawn either as one of the Survivors or as one of the Special Infected and try to take each other down. The Versus mode can be extremely fun once you get the hang of it, but sadly, it's available only for two out of four campaigns.

   You may be wondering how my first online experience went, and I am happy to report that immediately after joining the online game for the Infected team, I was thoroughly raped. The infected you spawn as is randomized between the Hunter, Boomer, and Smoker (you can apparently spawn as a Tank, too, but I've never gotten that lucky), and the game forces you to wait 15 seconds before re-spawning in a location of your preference after the Survivors blow you away. Having had my arse handed to me several times in a row, I decided to try the on-line Campaign mode for a change.

   In Campaign, just like in Versus, you can select which Survivor you want to play as, even though they're identical in everything but looks. Playing with real people as the other Survivors added a lot to the experience, and made saving teammates (or being saved by them) from the Special Infected have a much more personal feel to it. Unlike my single player experience, as soon as other real people's (virtual) lives were at stake, shooting zombies in the face simply refused to get old!

   Later on I took another go at the Versus mode. I was a zombie again, and like before, had the Survivors massacre me time and time again. I eventually figured out that the only way to beat the Survivors was to work as a team (who would have thought teamwork was such a big thing in zombie culture!), but even though I had the theory, I still sucked at being a zombie.

   The experience on the whole, however, had been a thoroughly satisfying one. Welcome to the 21st century: nothing gratifies quite like shooting a real-person-controlled-zombie in the head over the internet.

The Gabe Newell Connection

   Steam is very much a big part of Left 4 Dead. In fact, Yours Truly had the game just lying in the drawer for more than a week before finally getting temporary internet access to install the thing; you can't install the game offline.

   This, however, is an excuseable flaw for a game that is essentially multiplayer in nature. The charm of Left 4 Dead, the sensation of actually fighting off hordes of zombies as you struggle to survive, only comes through when playing with real people. Each campaign map supports four players, one per character, and the Versus mode supports eight, four on each side.

   Of course there's always the option of going through the campaigns in Single Player mode, but like mentioned above, that soon becomes as dubious a pleasure as singing the Swedish national anthem while trying to chew through a soda can. Give it a try sometime, just for kicks.

Eyes and Ears for Dessert

   As far as presentation's concerned, Left 4 Dead does not fail to deliver.

   The game runs on Valve's own Source engine, and even though the game only features 20 maps, each one both looks and plays fantastically well. There are many little details such as the hand-writing on the Safehouse's walls, which are a nice touch. Practically all the maps take place at night, and the lighting (especially the flashlight effects) is very well done. All the zombies look and move very zombie-like, and their death animations are extremely high quality, not to mention that their heads explode rather nicely, and you can shoot their arms off, too. What can I say - it's the little pleasures in life (and death!) that count.

   Left 4 Dead sound effects do not fall behind. The menacing music is always well timed, the zombies growl their proper zombie constipated growls, and the guns, even the last-resort pistol, all sound like they mean business.

   Notably, the map loading screens are styled as film posters, a different one for each campaign. The slogan on one of these posters is "HELL CAME TO EARTH. THESE FOUR ARE GONNA SEND IT BACK." Which brings me to the thought that it's high time I start up Steam again and contribute to the world-wide effort of sending hell the hell back to where it came from.

       ... Max Salnikov