Why Left 4 Dead is unique
A question I had when I heard about left 4 deadwas simple. Why didn’t anybody think of this sooner? I mean come on, zombies are basically one of the most overused pop culture bad guys! In all the horror movies, its never a single person against hordes of zombies. No, its a group of four or five survivors. The group has various dynamics, 1 wounded, 1 badass, 1 helpless person who becomes a badass, one scared guy, etc, etc.
So why no co-op? There’s only been one co-op zombie game I know of, and that was Resident Evil Outbreak, a so-so game that used playstation 2′s online service. Hell, why are there only like 4~5 zombie games even worth playing(all the Capcom games)? Even recently, when there was a whole xbox live service available for Capcom they didn’t include multiplayer of any kind in Dead Rising.
Why does multiplayer hate zombies?
1: Because zombies are so darn weak. In any game, the developer must retain a semblance of fairness between the players. In single player zombie games, the player is usually much more powerful than the zombies, and he doesn’t really have to worry about dieing(unless they play foolishly). The ratio of zombies to humans in most games is usually very high, far too high for you to had more players and have to double it. You could make the zombies more powerful… but that will probably mess with the balance too much. Left 4 Dead was designed to have the zombies quite powerful.
2: Because of story. In all the resident evill games there’s loads of backstory. Sure you can skip the cut scene’s and ignore the documents, but its pretty deep if you want to look into it(they have 6 novels for the games). With Left 4 Dead It doesn’t seem like they’ll be telling you much of a story, as far s you can tell from the stories so far.
3: What Left 4 Dead may do very well is creating dramatic tension between players. If paced properly, then this game could be a hell of a scare. What they could do wrong is to make it an action packed shoot off. If it was anything like half life 2 with an occaisional puzzle, or even a trap or two, it would be, hands down, the best zombie game ever.
Well, that’s enough for today folks. Now to go hide in my cellar with a shotgun and some beer till the game comes out.
