Left 4 Dead? Nope, Still Alive

Valve has been one of those companies that has never really been on my radar, since I switched back from PC's to consoles years ago. I missed the Half-Life hullabaloo, and competetitve games were never my forte, so I never really took notice of Team Fortress.

Now, naturally I love a good deal, so when The Orange Box came out, I certainly took notice, but still wasn't sold on a virtually unknown (to me) IP. When Music World went under, and I swarmed with the rest of the vultures to pick at its rotting corpse, I finally took the opportunity to pick it up (for something like, 30% off). It took some time before I finally opened it, but when I did, I was pleasantly surprised. Half-Life 2 and the subsequent episode 1 didn't really grab me, but I did play through them. I can see what the appeal is to people, I just don't get the hype, but I missed the hype on "teh haloz" too, so maybe its just me.

Portal was definitely a cool game, and for a week or two, it continually broke my brain. I never finished it, so I didn't find out about the song until much later, I think when I downloaded it from Rock Band. Subsequently, I've listened to it dozens, if not hundreds of times on youtube and love it. Almost enough to get me to go back and play it.

Almost.

But this post is about Left 4 Dead, and all of its Zombie-ey (what?) goodness. Left 4 Dead was something I was peripherally aware of for some time, and passively excited about for a while as well. It certainly sounded good in principle, 4 player, zombie survival co-op that was different every time you played through. What's not to get into? But I've been to that dance before (falling for publisher hype), so I was cynical. Then the demo came out, and I saw the potential for great times, BUT, I knew L4D was a game that had to be played a certain way to enjoy it. It would have to be with 4 people, preferably friends, with good communication and a high tolerance for zombiefication..


To be continued.