Four Survivors, looking for the next safe zone and eventual escape. Between them: hordes and hordes zombies.
Left 4 Dead begins in Pennsylvania, following an outbreak of so-called "Green Flu", a highly contagious virus causing extreme aggression and loss of higher brain functions.
Two weeks after the infection of Patient Zero, four immune survivors of the outbreak (Francis, Zoey, Bill, and Louis) make their way through the city of Fairfield, only to discover that the virus is creating new, even more dangerous mutations. After narrowly avoiding these new infected, along with hordes of others, the survivors are alerted to the presence of an evacuation point at the nearby Mercy Hospital by a passing news helicopter. Fighting their way through the city's streets, subway and sewers, the survivors are rescued from the hospital's roof by the pilot, only to discover that he is succumbing to the infection. ("No Mercy") With Zoey forced to kill the pilot, the helicopter crash lands in an industrial district outside the city. Finding a delivery truck that has been armored by other survivors, the group decides to use it to make their way to the town of Riverside ("Crash Course"). Before arriving in the town however, they find the road blocked, and are forced to travel the rest of the way on foot. Following an encounter with an infected madman in the local church, they discover that the town is overrun, and decide to head to a nearby boathouse for possible rescue. Contacting a small fishing vessel, they manage to reach the city of Newburg on the other side of the river, only to find much of it in flames ("Death Toll").
Seeking cover in a large greenhouse, their rest is interrupted when a military C-130 Hercules passes overhead, leading the survivors to travel through the city's business district towards Metro International Airport. Upon arrival, the group is shocked to see that in an attempt to contain the infection, the military had bombed the airport; the runway however is largely intact, allowing the survivors to fuel up and escape in the waiting C-130 ("Dead Air"). Despite this apparent rescue, the survivors once again find themselves alone on the outskirts of Allegheny National Forest. Following a series of train tracks through the area, the group find themselves at a functioning, but abandoned, military outpost. After answering a radio transmission, the survivors make their final stand against hordes of infected, before a military APC arrives to transport them to Northeast Safe Zone, supposedly the only location in the area yet to be overrun ("Blood Harvest").
Now that the previous tidbit of information is out of the way, it's a perfect game for co-op or vs online with friends. You can go at it yourself, but you won't get full support of the AI since it doesn't use throwable items, or the usefulness of communication with others.
The infected can get pretty brutal when there's a horde running at you and it gets worse when special infected show their ugly mugs to reign down terror on your fellow survivors, especially with Hunters trying to pounce you and tear you apart, Smokers trying to entangle you to death, or even the malicious Tank that will crush anything in it's way.
To help you out along the way, you'll get weapons like Molitovs, fully automatic M16A3 assault rifles, and scoped Ruger Mini-14 hunting rifles. In addition, you can blow stuff up like propane tanks to give additional damage to the infected. Health packs and pain pills can go a long way to keep your team going.
Having five campaigns to go through, it can take a a short time or well over an hour to go through each one, depending on the difficulty and the effectiveness of your team. If you've ever joined a game with a shoddy team, it'll may take quite a while, and this is speaking from personal expierence. This game came out probably at (my guess) the start of the big zombie craze of this time and it became a hit.
For those who are looking for information that bridges Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2, there's the upcoming DLC The Sacrifice, but there's also the
free comic that can be found
here! Tomorrow they're releasing Part 3 of the comic and I can't wait. While I was writing up to this part, I took a look at L4D's site and saw that they just posted information about the
The Sacrifice
“The Sacrifice” is the prequel to "The Passing," and takes place from the Left 4 Dead Survivors' perspective as they make their way South. You may read the comic to find out the official version of events or this October 5th you may play the game to choose your own ending.
In "The Sacrifice" for Left 4 Dead, gamers receive the complete Sacrifice campaign with maps playable in Campaign, Versus, and Survival. There are 5 new achievements, a new style finale and plenty of places for devastating Hunter pounces.
For Left 4 Dead 2, gamers receive “The Sacrifice” campaign and L4D1’s “No Mercy” both playable with the L4D1 Survivors. This version also offers 5 new achievements. In the L4D2 version of “The Sacrifice” each campaign is playable in Campaign, Versus, Survival, and Scavenge modes, and both "The Sacrifice" and L4D2 version of No Mercy feature the Left 4 Dead 2 Special Infected, items, and weapons. Yes, Zoey with a chainsaw!
"The Sacrifice" will be available as two separate packages on Xbox Live for 560 Microsoft Points each and free to all PC gamers.
Now for those who may not understand why PC gamers are getting the DLC for free while X-Box 360 users have to pay for it, it's because the Microsoft corporation is a group of moneywhores, that's all. Hope you enjoyed reading this update~
