Genre: First Person Shooter, Survival Horror
Year: 2009
Developed by: Valve
Published by: Valve
Platforms: PC, XBOX 360, Mac, Linux
#125
Feeling Like: A spectacular disaster
There are a few entries on the 500 where I sort of cheated and merged a few games into one. I don’t even remotely subscribe to the notion of “one entry per franchise!”, what a cop out. But does it really make sense to include Left 4 Dead AND Left 4 Dead 2, considering how close they’d be together? I don’t consider Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos and Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne to be separate games, even though Frozen Throne is far more than “just an expansion”. So, Frozen Throne gets the entry and I’ll just discuss both.
Whatever, it’s my list. I’m so far from literary and hypothetical scrutiny on this project, I don’t know why I have to justify anything.
To my surprise, I discovered I’d already written about Left 4 Dead 2 on Snackbar-Games. My Serotonin column covered a wide variety of favorites, focusing on the emotional impact of them. It was either a precursor to the 500, or the 500 was a stubborn continuation after the website folded. Either way, the majority of this entry was written 11 years ago.
Extraordinary scenarios in games require great level design. It’s not fun when you quit a four-hour long dungeon because you couldn’t tell hallway 14 apart from hallway 12. Left 4 Dead 2 had great level design, because it encouraged coordination among the four players. Individual players would often be at the mercy of crippling attacks, and the only way to survive was to rely on your friends to save you. Levels would switch between tight quarters, giving the enemies loads of opportunity to ambush you out of nowhere, and open ended, larger areas that would require precise cooperation to ensure the group survived a massive onslaught. The truck depot is one I will never forget. It was a spectacular disaster.
Like most levels, it takes place at night. Various warehouses, shipping trucks and cargo bays are as common as doors and ammunition boxes. After surviving hordes of undead attacking at a blinding pace, the final part of the level gives the players numerous options at staging an adequate defense; a large warehouse, with a smaller shack on the inside. Looking around, we could see many entry points for the enemies: windows everywhere, and no natural choke point. This was going to be tough.
One of the brilliant aspects of the Left 4 Dead series is the intelligence engine known as “Director.” Essentially, the game determines how well your group is doing. If you’re doing well, it will launch a difficult attack at you. If you’re having a hard time trudging through the level, it might take it easy. If you split up, chances are Director will take advantage. It also ensures that you won’t fight the exact same group of enemies at the exact same time when you replay the level.
Attempt one: We decided jumping on top of the shack in the warehouse is a good plan. We get up on the roof, check entry points and figure that the zombies will have to jump up to get at us, giving us a natural advantage for both aiming and positioning. Things were going fine, until we failed to realize that Director decided that the windows above the shack were fair game. As soon as they poured in from above, we had no chance. Failed.
Attempt two: After much deliberation, we decided that we needed to create a chokepoint. Our previous failure happened because we were swarmed by enemies from all directions. We tried to go inside the shed this time, figuring that with the chokepoint, we could handle the waves. We’d be on equal ground, but at least we would only have to worry about one direction. The shed was cramped, so there wasn’t anywhere to fall back to, but it worth was a shot. We thought. After barging down the doors, the front line of the zombies were met with a rousing volley of shotgun blasts. Hey, this might work! Why…wait, why am I taking damage? ..oh. It appears that the zombies have broken through the wall of the shack right beside us, putting a large damper on our plans. Failed.
Attempt three: Okay, screw the warehouse. Let’s…hey, can we hop on that truck? Can we? I’m sure we can. Can all four of us fit up here? Yeah, we can. Nowhere for the zombies to drop down into? Check. Height advantage? Check. Nowhere for the zombies to surprise us? Check.
Greg: Hang on a minute guys, I’ve got an idea.
Greg is pretty smart and has a long history of playing video games. I’m certain whatever tactic he’s about to suggest will only increase our odds of survival.
Greg: We’re going to take all these canisters of gasoline and put them on top of the truck with us. That way, we’ll be able to pick them up and throw them into the zombies whenever we want. It’ll be great!
Silence.
Neil: I’m predicting a better than 50% chance of this ending in total destruction.
Greg: No no, it’ll work!
Dave: I feel like we might hit those with our guns. Especially Henry.
Henry: That’s probably true.
On cue, the roof of the truck explodes and is immediately engulfed in flames. I started laughing so hard I was in tears. Greg’s wails of failure made us laugh even harder. All I could see were zombies grabbing at our feet and three of my friends’ avatars jumping up and down, trying to avoid the flames.
Yet somehow we ended up winning the fight and completing the level in grand fashion. It took much longer than it needed it to, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
I would encourage you to go big. Try that impossible level. You’ll end up creating something. If you have a terrible time, at the very least it’ll be a great story one day. The quote “dare to fail” comes to mind, but I prefer Mike Tyson’s take:
“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.”
Couldn’t have said it better myself!
The 500 