|
Left 4 Dead | 
 enlarge
| From: Electronic Arts
Category: Video Games
List Price: $59.99
Buy New: $44.99
You Save: $15.00 (25%)
New (18) Used (10) from $44.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  81 reviews
Sales Rank: 36
Platform: Xbox 360
ESRB: Mature
Media: Video Game
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Age: 17 - 20 years
Operating System: Xbox 360
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 0.1 x 0 x 0.1
MPN: 9856
UPC: 014633098563
EAN: 0014633098563
ASIN: B000QY9C90
Release Date: November 17, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Features:
| • | Co-operative gameplay in epic struggle between survivors and zombies | | • | Choose to play as survivor or 4 types of infected mutants | | • | Set across 4 massive campaigns | | • | Game creates a unique and dramatic experience based on players' actions | | • | Multiplayer games for 1-to-8 players |
|
| Accessories:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Product Description
Set in a modern day survival-horror universe, the co-operative gameplay of Left 4 Dead (L4D) casts four "Survivors" in an epic struggle against hordes of swarming zombies and terrifying "Boss Infected" mutants. Developed by Turtle Rock Studios and Valve, creators of the Counter-Strike and Half-Life games, the latest AI technology allows for multiplayer games of one to eight players.A new and highly virulent strain of the rabies virus emerges and spreads through the human population with frightening speed. The pandemic's victims become grotesquely disfigured widely violent psychopaths, attacking the uninfected on sight. As one of the "lucky" few apparently immune to the sickness, you, unfortunately, are also trapped in a city crawling with thousands of the bloodthirsty Infected. Alone, you're dead. But together with a handful of fellow survivors, you might just fight your way to safety.Players can play as a Survivor or as one of four types of Boss Infected, each of whom possess a unique mutant ability, such as a 50-foot tongue lasso or a giant belly full of explosive methane gas. The gameplay of L4D is set across four massive campaigns. The zombie population of each mission is choreographed by an AI Director that monitors the human players' actions and creates a unique and dramatic experience for them on the fly.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 76 more reviews...
 Who thought playing with zombies could be so much fun? November 18, 2008
49 out of 57 found this review helpful
Plain and simple, this is the best zombie game to date!
The AI "Director" as it's called creates a different play experience each and every time. Doesn't matter if it's the same level, they'll throw different amounts of the "infected" (zombies) at you, from different directions, at different times, which completely changes the games replay value. And it not only controls the zombies, it also controls music, weapon placement (so certain weapons aren't in the same place each and every time you play), and so on.
And you never know how deformable the terrain is until the Director throws a Tank at you (a really HUGE musclebound zombie that will rip you to shreds). For example I had a Tank come bombing at me, rip a whole in a subway car and just destroy everything around me, including myself...
Now one of the main reasons you should buy the game, the split screen and system link play. You can play split screen with a friend, then hookup online with another friend. Then to take it to a whole-nother-level, 8 player versus mode. Up to four players take control of the Survivors and up to four players take control of the unique zombies (such as Tanks and Smokers) along side of the AI controlled zombies.
The other unique feature the game has are voice commands between the survivors, some are even automatic like when you are reloading, so that the other survivors don't reload at the same time just in case zombies start coming at you. A nice feature that really prevents everyone from reloading at once and getting swarmed.
I would consider this the "must have game of the season" bar none!
Pros:
A completely different gaming experience every time you play.
Play with friends on the same system via split screen, online, or both!
Very tense and suspenseful music and spooky sounds give you the creeps.
TONS of replay value.
Amazing zombie death animations (physics based).
AI survivors will actually heal themselves, heal eachother, heal you, and exchange items!
Never knowing when something really bad is about to come down on you.
Cons:
AI survivors sometimes just stand in the way or don't help you when you are in trouble.
The Offline Co-Op We've Been Waiting For!! November 20, 2008
26 out of 33 found this review helpful
One of my largest criticisms of the video game industry is the real lack of offline co-op and multiplayer games in the next-generation consoles. Pure would've been a great party game had there been an offline multiplayer. Concurrently Battlefield: Bad Company and Far Cry 2, which were awesome single-player games, would have been even better if the game allowed a second player to join in on co-op. There is online co-op with a few games but nothing serious.
Offline co-op is not as popular as it was with the XBox since every video game developer thinks because World of Warcraft has over 10 million subscribers that the vast majority of gamers play online. This couldn't be any further from the truth as the many developers are learning that casual gamers have become the dominating class, which has led to Nintendo's domination in video game sales for the past two years. Most gamers just do not wish to play some random kid in Europe or some 13-year-old kid from Wyoming dropping f-bombs like the Allies in WWII.
And let's face it here! How many times did we wish Resident Evil games were co-op? Especially Resident Evil 4 or the Outbreak series? Zombies are fun to kill (again) and maim but doing it with a friend can be such a (non-gay) bonding moment for us guys.
Enter Left for Dead.
"LFD" was primarily advertised, and hyped at the latest E3 summit, as the great zombie co-op game not just online but offline as well. Based almost primarily on this (that and I love playing as Vietnam veterans), my little brother and I saved up for this one so we could finally kill mass hordes together rather than one at a time while the other sits there patiently twiddling his thumbs. We brought it to our home, put it in and were immediately taken in by the mass sound interacting with our Yamaha home theater. It was, for a lack of a better term, really loud.
We loved the introduction screen, which pretty much summed up the entire game: run, shoot a lot, help others, heal, run some more, shoot a lot more some at special bad guys, revive fallen team member, heal, run a short distance and get to "safe" point and prepare for round 2-4. Simplistic, yet incredibly entertaining. The levels are equally simplistic as the linear environments make the path to follow as easy as the aiming system, which is dead-on accurate. There were many times when zombies would spill through a doorway and were quickly stopped because I took the Microsoft approach of "point, click, and hold" and their advance halted as quickly as it started.
To me, this was a little disappointing as I was hoping for a more Resident Evil experience where you hoarde ammo and supplies in a true survival horror environment. Instead, generic piles of ammo will refill your entire stock as many times as you wish (at least in easy and normal difficulty). Medical kits are a little more sparse and healing requires you to spend about ten seconds without being interupted.
However, this is not to say I did not enjoy it. The gratuitous level of violence, which would make Terrintino retire since he cannot possibly achieve that level of awesomeness, was entertaining. It was also great to see who got the most head-shots and did the most damage to the special villains. The sounds and asthetics also stayed true to survival horror as you could hear the groaning of nearby zombies and the crying of special villains known as witches. Be weary of them as they are NASTY.
LFD's greatest plus is the promotion of team work over one-man-army super soldiers. More often than not, first-person shooters promote the one-man-army mentality by having one person go up against legions of bad guys and emerge victoriously without so much as a scratch. There have been very few (Brothers in Arms, Full-Spectrum Warrior, Conflict: Desert Storm, etc) that promote team work over solo runs but LFD makes, what I see, at the largest leap forward. There are monsters that will lunge one allies and another person must "save" them by fighting off the monsters either on top of them or dragging them off. Other times an ally is required to either revive or pull another ally from dangling over a ledge. Unless the player is unprecedently good, a player cannot survive without help from his/her allies.
The teamwork AI is balanced very well as allies will call enemies as they appear, provide fairly overlapping fields of fire, and assist you when possible. There are some glitches where they will not help you but the majority of the time they will. Co-Op wise, this really promotes teamwork and communication. While playing with my little brother, I would make sure our fields of fire would overlap and we'd cover each other as we'd move. He'd be on point with his shotgun on the left while I provided automatic fire one step behind on the right.
Now, this game does have one or two flaws.
1: The co-op was, initially, a pain to set up. Took us five minutes to set up but after that, no biggie.
2: There are some glitches pertaining to jumping. There were some times, when we were supposed to jump over obstacles but could not due to getting stuck in the environment. We have, so far, managed to get out of every one of them but when you're being swarmed by literally over three dozen zombies it becomes a matter of life and death.
3: There are some serious glitches pertaining to saving your allies. While fighting on the roof of the hospital my character was thrown by a "tank" character and left hanging over the ledge, awaiting for an ally to rescue me. HOWEVER, it was at the very beginning of the level where you are to jump off and not get back up so you could not retreat further into the level. Unfortunately for me, my friends had already jumped down leaving me stranded and waiting to die. Fortunately, a spwan point for survivors was nearby so they could instantly respawn me. This happened one more time to another ally. Such glitches should be avoided.
All in all, LFD is a great offline co-op. I always thought blowing up zombies would be a great way to promote family values such as friendship, loyalty, togetherness, and love of infinite ammo. :)
A solid 95%. 5% docked for glitches, lack of a backstory, lack of a Resident Evil experience, and lacking weapons. They needed way more weapons.
Great Game November 25, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Yeah, if you like zombie movies or zombie anything, this is what you're looking for. You won't be disappointed. Very nice job to the makers of this one. When is Left 4 Dead 2?
Pros:
-Literally like watching Dawn of the Dead except you are in the movie
-If you liked Dead Rising way back when you'll love this even more
-AI is superb, different every time you play
-Multiplayer is the BEST! You MUST work as a team or you die. That simple.
-Never felt my adrenaline flow like in this game.
Cons:
-I'd like to see more maps.
-Could use a little more variety in infected. Only one tank.
Great Multiplayer Fun December 6, 2008
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
This is one of the few games that I have bought and since I had 1 game to pick for Christmas I decided to go with this one. My 1st thought is if I was not on XBOX live I probably would not have wanted this one just for single player. Even though I found I liked the single player its more getting from point a to b (like multiplayer) with no story and no side anything so its escaping from locations. Even though the single player is fun I just don't think I would have spent 60 bucks for just single player unless I can get a lot of hours out of it. I don't get to play on Live except usually weekends and a couple week nights but I think its great being on teams and everyone taking care of each other, usually anyways. I love co op so this game really appeals to me and split screen makes it even better.
The graphics are fantastic and crisp and gameplay is absolutely fun with zombies running at you it reminded me of Counter Strike with crazy zombies which I guess makes sense given the company that made it. The sound is great and I like the way the characters tell you when they are healing or reloading to let you know who to watch after. Just the sounds the creatures make are great and a good job has been done with this game. The single player A.I. bots are kind of annoying simply because I found they didn't act too much like a real player which is a minor unless you play single all the time.
This game is more a love or hate since I have not heard too many in betweens. Renting is actually what I recommend to do 1st for any game unless you know for a fact no matter what anyone else says you will like it.
This is probably one of the best multiplayer co op games I have ever played. Its just plain fun and usually unless you are in an annoying group, people play all the way through the campaigns and stick together. This is from what I have seen even though I am sure people do skip out when they die or something but this is what I have seen when I am on Live. I found it lots of fun to set up in a location like a house or building fighting off the horde and sometimes it can get hilarious with your companions. The infected fall into overuse in campaign mode and it can get tiresome fighting the same enemies over and over but the so called director usually keeps it fresh. The only bad thing is just same enemies all the time and the horde of zombies are overly simple to kill. I laugh a lot when someone disturbs the witch and she chases them down but thats just me. Another great mode is versus, though it can be annoying to where the infected can spawn to attack the people pretty much anywhere nearby its still great fun. I like to play serious when I play but I also have fun so the game modes thrilled me to play. I hope there will be downloadable levels and stuff later b/c I don't know how long this game will keep me in the current modes. Its fun but I don't know how long the same enemies and same levels and choice of weapons (which there aren't many) over and over will last.
I don't really use the mic so much on XBOX live but I enjoy listening to people talk and since I tend to have more a quiet nature. I do talk during this game since I found it is kind of essential to do so and it tends to be more fun that way. I also like to find people who play as a team so when I played with this one person who kept running ahead of the rest and dying I got pretty annoyed.
Me personally I will say don't miss this one but the hard thing about games is what I love you may hate.
Best played with friends with live and headset November 19, 2008
15 out of 22 found this review helpful
I got this game tonight and through a couple of my real friends and their friends we had a 4 on 4 versus mode and I can tell you it's very very fun. I could hear my friend scream like a little girl "Oh s#it they got me! help me! help me!" when he gets pounced on by a hunter. There's also so many jokes you can make, like for example I like being Louis and when I die first I'll say, damn why does the black guy always have to die first in the horror movie!
Usually Single Player is the first top choice in probably 99% of video games. It's number 3 here. Take a hint, single player wasn't in mind when creating this game. Campaign is the first and that is where you, a buddy, or even 2 or 3 other buddies play and try to survive against the zombies and 3 bosses - a hunter which will bounce on you, a smoker with a long tongue that will pull you in and a boomer which will vomit on you attracting even more zombies to you. There's also 2 uber bosses - a Tank and a witch throughout the levels. There's really no story line. Just survive.
Versus mode is fun in that you can play as the hunter, smoker, boomer or tank. You try to kill your friends who are playing as the survivors. It's random and when you die you respawn. What happens is that you pick a place to respawn (it won't let you pick a place close to the survivors). THe problem is that it's easy to die as an infected so there's some strategy involved. Usually you want to coordinate your attacks and try to sneak up from behind him when they are being rushed by AI zombies. You're scored as a team and then the roles are reversed. Very Fun! especially with you have 7 other friends to play with.
For $60 the game is definitely not worth it if you play by yourself most of the time and don't have live. In single player the game is pretty short. You can play by yourself with 3 computer friends but that's really no fun. You can't call for help or yell at the computer to follow you, go up the stairs, etc. You can play split scren co-op, but unfortunately you can not play 4 screen co-op. Thus you definitely need a Xbox Live Gold account to get the most out of this game.
With the AI Director no game is exactly the same, I've played the No Mercy map many times now (played the demo often on the hardest level for the best challenge). Zombies will come from behind, you don't know where ammo and health will be since they change every time. So even though the layout will be the same you still don't know what to expect. You really have to communicate and work together as a team. It doesn't work if someone doesn't have a headset and goes off on his or her own. They will just die.
I can see myself playing this game for a while. Hopefully my friends won't get bored, but I know that I can always find people to play with on Xbox live. I just hope they speak English and have a headset because I hate it when I play with someone who doesn't talk. This is a social game!
A negative is that the 4 people are exactly the same there's nothing special about them, one isn't faster running or has better guns or anything, everybody is the same so it doesn't matter who you pick. That's fine with me if they went this route but I would have liked to have more than just 4 choices. How hard would that be to have different characters or how awesome if I could play as a ninja. with a gun. shooting zombies.
|
The Nintendo Wii goes on sale on Sunday, November 19. Thanks to the inclusion of the simple--but infectiously fun--Wii Sports game, the Wii is the first console in recent memory that lets you have fun straight out of the box. Still, there are a few key Wii accessories you'll want to pick up to maximize your Wii experience--especially if you're buying it as a gift.
Extra controllers: Like all recent consoles, the Wii ships with just a single controller (well, one two-part controller: one Wiimote, plus one nunchuk). But the real fun of the system is playing the head-to-head Wii Sports games such as tennis and boxing. To do so, you'll need at least one extra set of controllers--and again, that's one Wiimote ($28.99) plus one nunchuk ($12.99). The Wii supports as many as four, but just the one extra controller set should suffice--at least for Christmas morning.
Rechargeable batteries: The Wiimote takes two standard AA batteries. They're included--with the Wii, and with the sold-separately version of the controller mentioned above--but avid players may find the juice draining pretty quickly, especially if they keep the nunchuk attached (it draws its power from the Wiimote). Instead of buying an endless stream of costly AAs, consider investing in a set of rechargeables. You can score a charger and four rechargeable nickel-metal-hydride batteries for less than $25.
GameCube controllers: The Wii is fully backwards compatible with the Nintendo GameCube, but there's a catch: to play the GameCube games, you'll need a GameCube controller ($15.99). You can even go wireless with the Nintendo WaveBird ($59.99). If you already have a GameCube, your existing controllers will work just fine--just plug them in to one of the four ports underneath the flip-up panel on the Wii's topside. GameCube controllers should also work with the Wii's "Virtual Console" games--which saves you the trouble of having to buy a Classic Controller.
GameCube memory cards: One other annoyance when playing GameCube games: your progress can only be saved to GameCube memory cards, not to the Wii's internal memory or to an SD card (we're hoping Nintendo fixes this with a future firmware update). Like the controllers, your old GC cards will work just fine--there are two slots right next to the GameCube controller ports. If you don't have any onhand (and you want to save your games on GC titles), you'll need to spring for a $26.90 (2GB) memory card.
Wii Points: One of the big attactions of the Wii is its Virtual Console, which lets you purchase classic games that originally came from the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), the Super NES, the Nintendo 64, the Sega Genesis, and the TurboGrafx16. By the end of 2006, at least 30 titles should be available, including Donkey Kong (NES), Super Mario 64 (N64), and Sonic the Hedgehog (Genesis). To purchase the downloadable titles, you'll need to use a Nintendo currency known as Wii Points (similar to the Microsoft Points on Xbox Live), which currently have an exchange rate of 100 points per U.S. dollar. You can buy Wii Points directly through the console's online store, or use prepaid cards (2000 Wii Points) available in various denominations.
SD card: If you're close to filling the Wii's built-in 512MB of storage with your Virtual Console games, you can always expand your available space with an SD card. Nintendo sells its own, but any run-of-the-mill card will do. Fairly spacious 1GB cards are available for less than $20--even less with mail-in rebates--and they'll work in plenty of other gadgets as well.
Wireless access point: In addition to the downloadable Virtual Console games, the Wii offers online "channels," including news, weather, and even an Opera Web browser (head-to-head online gaming is said to be coming sometime in 2007). You can get online for free via the Wii's built-in Wi-Fi. To do so, of course, you'll need a nearby wireless access point or router. Alternately, you can plug the Nintendo Wi-Fi USB Connector into any nearby PC on a wired network, and the Wii--plus your Nintendo DS--will be able to use it to get online instead.
Component video adapter: The Wii doesn't have the graphical horsepower to handle high-def graphics, but it can do DVD-level 480p video, which will look considerably better on large HDTVs. To see the Wii's games in 480p, you'll need Nintendo's proprietary component video adapter, which should run about $20. |
|
|
|
|
www.seeker-wii.com | |
