I’ll be frank with you guys from the start - Before playing the demo for Left 4 Dead, I had a passing interest in the game at best. I knew killing zombies and co-op play would be a joyous experience, but I thought that other games and picking fluff out of my belly button was a far greater priority. Thankfully, I was proved wrong - I’ve now seen the skills of the survivors, and know that if you do not buy this game you literally are a zombie yourself. And I will blast your head off. Anyway, while I’ve seen great skill and teamwork that should be applauded throughout my time with the demo, I also think there’s a few other things that should help us all get through the zombie invasion with the minimum of fuss and swearing at each other. Some of this advice will even take the form of (I believe) the first ever rant on Boomercharged! Self hi-five! Go me! And so on. But enough of that - Let me share with you these golden nuggets of wisdom…
I am not attracted to you
Car alarms. Boomer vomit. Shooting a witch. All of these have something similar in common - They all can end up in a big, bloody firefight. Firefights themselves are nothing I have a vendetta against - After all, I am the sort of sick twisted maniac that gets a kick out of killing things - But they’re not so much fun when the whole team is nearly dead. On expert. You see, I’ve met far too many people who shoot those cars or poke those witches for apparent giggles, only to start being a bit rubbish and dying the second the storm actually approaches… They seem to think that there’s a possibility the end result may be good, for some odd reason, because I sure wouldn’t be laughing stupidly at a beeping car alarm and a deadly zombie horde heading straight for my face if this was happening in real life. Which it might.
Basically, what I’m asking is this - Don’t cause havoc when the team is already struggling through a difficult scenario. It can only ever be funny up until the point you all die in a great big pile. If you just want the killing, kindly do this sort of thing on a lower difficulty setting, or ask if everyone wants to be beaten to death first. Humanity will thank you for it, even if the zombies don’t.
Shut that door!
I’m amazed that more people don’t do this, even though to me it seemed fairly logical - Every time your team goes through a door, shut it behind you. It’s true that any good horde will bash it down in a couple of seconds anyway, but those couple of seconds may be all you need to get into position to protect a vomited-upon team member or save your own skin. Oh, and there’s also something distinctly appealing about blasting through a hole in a damaged door, trying to whittle down the numbers before the inevitable breakthrough. I know this sounds like something completely trivial and irrelevant, but wait until you try it yourself - Just once or twice you might see the effectiveness of having a hunter gettng intimate with a door rather than your injured self.
Oh, and closing doors also gives rise to that classic “Hiding in the closet” idea. Doing this is almost completely worthless, but it’s hilarious and I’m not going to stop.
“Run! They’re shutting the door and stopping us for 15 seconds!”
Duck, duck, and you’re not the goose.
Picture for a moment that I’m holding a shotgun. For future reference and to make sure I’m not arrested, I’d like to point out I’m not, but picture it anyway. Right, now picture yourself walking walking right in front of that shotgun at the moment I pull the trigger. You can’t picture that? That’s because it’s a ridiculously stupid idea. Still, that doesn’t seem to stop people from doing it in Left 4 Dead - I’ve had times where twinges of guilt have hit me because I’ve downed a team member with my bullets. I have no idea why, though, because they should of thought better than to stand in the firing line with one health left.
There is a way of preventing this nasty situation, though, as well as doubling the firepower and looking amazingly badass in the process - Ducking! Yes, if you had ducked when I had fired that (Pretend) shotgun, you’d still be in one piece, although you’d still be stupid for trusting me in such an event. Still, you get the point - Ducking at certain times, especially in those narrow corridors, can be immensely beneficial. So make sure you do it more often.
This is my team, so let’s have some fun.
Let me list the things I’ve done in the demo - Played Marco Polo in a dark room with a bunch of people up until the point a smoker dragged me to my death. Found a way to completely skip the apartment section via the whole team jumping off the roof onto the external fan. Co-ordinated a massive fire pit of death via a bunch of gas cans (Oh yeah, never underestimate those gas cans) and molatov cocktails. Ushered a whole team into a subway car to gain relative safely from a tank, and then mocking it until it actually found a way in and beat us all into a pulp. The point I’m getting at? Well, I sort of mentioned it in my first rant - Communication and a good team can make anything possible with the minimum of frustration, and your goal doesn’t always have to be completion of the game. I have no doubt that the true strength of the variety in Left 4 Dead won’t actually come from the director - It will come from us. So get out there and kill some more of the undead! But don’t shoot the car.
