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Left 4 Crap or What’s Wrong With Left 4 Dead
Greetings and salutations. You’ll find this to be my first article on this site and I’m sure to alienate at least a few readers. That being said, before we start I want to make it explicitly known that I really, really like Left 4 Dead. Left 4 Dead has introduced me to some of my best game playing friends on XBL. These are people I still play games with and just enter parties to chat, when we’re playing other games. I’ve had a load of fun with the game and I still wish I had it so that I may have more fun. The issue is not with the game. I like the game.
But, I’m objective.
Ask me about sushi. I LOVE sushi. However, I also know what’s wrong with it. I love teriyaki sauce, but I see the downfalls. All part of being objective.
Let’s explore further after the jump.
• The Community Sucks (or rocks) -My first point against the masterpiece that is Left 4 Dead actually has some duplicity. I love the community. I also hate the community. Play with pubbies and you’re guaranteed to have at least one joker that runs around spouting nonsense from his microphone and shooting the rest of the team. This is a guarantee like taxes, not the lottery. On the other hand, you also can have incredible fun with a group that plays the game seriously, but enjoying the scenery. So what, you say. The fault comes from the fact that L4D leaves you incredibly bound to the other player in the game. You and crazy kid are playing the game and he runs away – you get a hunter. He ducks inside and leaves you alone – you get a smoker.
• The Game Feels Rushed – L4D feels like a Half-Life 2 mod. It looks like it as well. There’s nothing in this game that can convince me that during the development time they weren’t just hanging out playing skee ball. Add to that all of the blatant flaws and bugs in the game, and I’m just not convinced at all that this wasn’t a weekend project. The sound effects are recycled from HL2. It has the overall feeling of a game that was scrapped in its original form and remade in Source.
Please fix me!
• Back-story? – Now, with any good zombie movie, there’s basically no back-story. The zombies just appear. We don’t know why. We don’t know why in L4D. However, in zombie movies, there is at least a story that has a beginning, middle, and an end. Instead, we have four different campaigns that are not connected in any way. “All right! We got off this hospital in a helicopter!” “What the heck? Now we’re in a greenhouse?”
• Repetitive – Shoot, Shoot, Reload, Upgrade weapons, Shoot, Shoot, Rescue from closet, Shoot, Shoot, Tank, Rescue. Yawn.
Basically, I think everything boils down to one fact – L4D shouldn’t have been made for a console. This is a modder’s game. Valve gave the tools and we should have taken those tools and made the game what we wanted to make it. It’s a short game so it’s obvious the point is to have the modding community make their own levels. All of the pitfalls I’ve mentioned can be completely changed by the community. We can’t do that on the 360, so I think that’s why we’re feeling the pain.
L4D – a good game, but flawed.
Epic read, keep up the good work mate
Also the but about it feeling like a half life 2 mod…so true. Still an awesome game though!
what’s wrong with L4D???
*No story to the campaign!
*Annoying trash players who run off, or show off!
*Limited game contents!
But Multiplayer is good:)
I agree on some of your points, it definitely has a mod feel to it, especially sine Gears, COD WaW offer similar modes although not as fleshed out.
I think the community issue is not the fault of the game, the game never made people A$$ols. People are just people and when you do get a good crowd it’s a hoot.
Also your point on the modding community, granted PC owners get the benefit but there are other single player games on the console that last only 5-6 hours and then your done, so bearing that in mind that the replay value L4D does offer not to mention the upcoming free DLC I don’t think it’s such a bad deal.
Lastly for the story, I don’t see where they would have time to fit it in. Especially being so multiplayer centric, I bought RE for a story based zombie killer I bought L4D to get online with some people and kill zombies.
I think that the idea of L4D’s story is the whole, you and your friends tell the story of what happened when you were playing. Since the game is different every time due to the infinite improbability drive or what have you.
I agree with pretty much every point Tamizander made. The game sucked after a while. It just got stale and repetitive with no variety.
I think criticizing the game for having no backstory is grasping at straws. And as a matter of fact, the big zombie movies such as NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD or DAWN OF THE DEAD (original) have no back stories to them. Why do you need a backstory? I think it's a lot more interesting if it's left to interpretation. That's one of the aspects I actually LIKE about the game. But I guess that's asking way too much out of a video game.
The worst things about l4d are:
dead servers
ragequitting
uncooperative players or helpless noobs
griefers and the community in general (l4d is seriously one of the worst gaming communities I've seen. The nature of the gameplay practically begs for griefers because it's so team-oriented)
lack of variety in campaigns
repetitiveness
> helpless noobs
This is why I'm thinking about giving up on L4D. Maybe you're not talking about players like myself (just started playing two weeks ago–real life gets in the way of gaming), but the attitude towards new players is simply atrocious. This is exacerbated by the fact that there's no way to practice two-thirds of the game modes offline.
Back when I had more time to game, I could count the number of times I'd been berated by another player for my performance on one hand. I can't remember ever being kicked for not playing well enough.
L4D players, on the other hand, are rude, cowardly, and kick-happy. There's no room in that "community" for people who are new to the game.
About the story:
Like Half-Life 2, there are elements of the back story that can be discovered or implied through noticing the small details in the game. See, for example, this article on the nature of the infection at the Left4Dead wiki:
http://left4dead.wikia.com/wiki/The_Infection
Is the story deep? No. Are the details open to some level of interpretation? Yes. But the game is not completely devoid of plot devices.