Pixel Force: Left 4 Dead is a retro de-make of Valve’s hit zombie killing masterpiece. Lovingly recreated in a fashion that would have been acceptable in 1986 for the Nintendo Entertainment System, this de-make stands as the flagship title of the upcoming Pixel Force series from Eric Ruth Games. Go alone, or invite a friend for 2 player co-op against the zombie apocalypse in all 4 of the original game campaigns. 2 difficulties and all 4 of the survivors make a glorious 8-bit appearence, complete with first and second tier weapons scattered along your path to escape. So, grab your controller of choice and kick back with an award-winning retro take on the end of the world with Pixel Force: Left 4 Dead.

The creator Eric Ruth has finished the 8-Bit version of L4D, much in the fashion of an old NES game.

Some technical info:

I want to make it very clear that the design aspect of this de-make was to create the game “Left 4 Dead” in a way that I feel it would have been handled back in 1986. The idea was NOT to remake it exactly like the Valve original. Back in 1986, games were generally 2 player…not 4. Yes, the system could handle it, and yes, 4 player games existed, but they were extremely uncommon. If this game had been done back then, realistically speaking, it would have most likely been done as a 2 player title. On top of that, games didn’t generally use music to create “atmosphere” back in the 1980’s. Plenty of titles were laced with music that honestly felt like it had no place amongst the game’s soundtrack, but that’s sort of the way things were back then. The little things that made games imperfect were also part of the inherent retro charm. A lot of things didn’t make sense, and we just took it at face value, because, honestly, no Nintendo game ACTUALLY made any kind of sense and we liked it that way.

Get it here!

I’m downloading it right now as well.

[via Kotaku]

In 1987, the Midnight Riders were asked to participate in a children’s charity Christmas album with their rock peers. The Riders refused. In a 1993 Guitar God Magazine article, Dusty explained: “Givin’ kids charity just makes ‘em weak, man. Teach a kid to fish, he can eat fish his whole life. Teach a kid NOT to fish, he starves to death. Where I come from that’s murder, Homes.” A few years later, the Riders grudgingly agreed to participate in a 1998 Christmas album in exchange for not having to do 30,000 hours of community service. “All I Want For Christmas is to Kick Your Ass” was written, recorded and mailed in less than one hour.

Oh valve. Merry Christmas to you, too.

Merry Christmas everyone

Oh wait…

Apparently this is a different game. Sort of. But it’s still Left 4 Dead… kinda.

Well, let’s get this rolling anyway!

Created by Eric Ruth, this is an Left 4 Dead de-make for the NES(or mayhaps it’s only in the NES style, can’t really confirm it), with the objective of presenting the game we know and love(and has just turned one year old) into an new(old) prespective:

This game play footage gives you an idea of what the project looks like in action and how it plays. As you can see, it’s a standard top-down 4 directional action/shooter. Remade in the NES retro style, the resolution is at 256 x 240 and features 16 colors and a 4 sound channel soundtrack.

You can check out the youtube page for more information, but I’ll just post here the relevant details:

Q: Is this just an animation or an actual game?
A: An actual game. It will be available for free download on PC around January 4th, 2010.

Q: I only see one “special infected.” Will there be more?
A: Yes. All 5 special infected appear in this game regularly.

Q: How far along are you currently?
A: As of November 15th, I am completed with the first “mission: No Mercy” as well as most of the core game play mechanics.

Q: Does Valve know about this? And would they approve?
A: No, Valve doesn’t know about it yet, but I’m sure (with their love of community creations) that they will find this mildly amusing at worst, and hilarious at best.

Q: Will this version have all of the campaigns from the original game?
A: Yes. All 5 maps of all 4 campaigns will be present in the final product.

Q: Like your other games, did you make this one all by yourself?
A: With the exception of a few friends backing me up in the QA area, yes, the coding, debugging, sound effects, music and pixel art are all original work of Eric Ruth.

Q: Will there be more videos that show off more of the game?
A: Maybe 1 or 2, but that’s about it. If you want to see every campaign and fight every zombie, then you will have to download and play it.

[More information from someone who played the game, here]

[via Kotaku and RockPaperShotgun]

But one serious problem has become apparent to me. In fact, I saw it in the demo, and hoped it would be resolved… Alas, it has not. I’m talking about the survivor AI.

As I’m sure you’ll know, Left 4 Dead’s survivor AI was the butt of many jokes on the internet. I don’t think it was all that bad, and I certainly hoped that it would be improved for L4D2. Alas, I have been proven wrong.

I can understand some of the AI’s weaknesses compared to a human player, even though I don’t like them; things like chest paddles, ammo upgrades, explosives and carryable items are too situational to be used effectively by an AI. I can also understand the AI not being able to help carry fuel cans for the Dead Center finale. But the AI in Left 4 Dead 2 have several flaws which simply serve to irritate, and to make the game much harder than it needs to be,

For starters they seem generally slower to respond, and a bit stupider. They seem to take longer to rescue you from special infected, choosing to run up and melee or shoot and point blank range rather than shooting while they are further away. I can understand this with jockeys, but with chargers and smokers especially they should be shooting; the charger offers a huge target, and the smoker will often be far away from the player. if they have a clear line of sight, they should shoot from a distance. They can’t friendly fire anyway! Additionally, when I first got to the Dark Carnival finale, the AI went the wrong way. I got to the helicopter, turned and they were on the opposite side of the arena. I tried covering them, but they seemed to be making no efforts to get to me. Eventually they got incapped, and just as the helicopter started to leave a common infected came THROUGH THE BOTTOM of the helicopter and incapped me. Even as the leaving animation played, I was sent back to the saferoom.

There is a larger problem, though. The AI seem very stupid when it comes to picking up items; they are, in my experience, far too likely to all end up with the same gun, along with a host of other problems. As I said, I fully understand the fact that they can’t carry ammo upgrades or defibs. But the fact that they are in the game creates a new choice for me; do I carry a healthkit or one of those? This would be made easier if I could rely on the AI to carry healthkits for me, but the problem is I CAN’T. I don’t know how many times I’ve been standing in front of a healthkit, often spamming “look” at it, with three AI with empty inventory slots staring at me blankly. I’ve even had Rochelle standing ON TOP of a healthkit, somehow unable to see it or pick it up despite not having one.

When I’m leaving a saferoom with only one healthkit carried between the four of us, there should NOT be another healthkit left sitting on a table beside the door. There’s no reason that I can see for the AI to be leaving it there. When I walk past two healthkits within 5 minutes, and neither gets picked up, there’s a serious problem with the AI.

Unless, of course, you mean this to happen, perhaps as some kind of balancing.  But for goodness sake, that’s a really, really silly way of doing it. it just infuriates players who have to deal with incompetent AI. Balance by making the Charger harder to kill (he’s pathetically easy compared to, say, the jockey) or by altering the damage values. Not by making the AI stupid, which doesn’t even carry over into Multiplayer!

I understand that Left 4 Dead is a mainly multiplayer game. But if I choose to play single player for whatever reason, I should be able to play without these kinda issues with the AI. Not only that, but this rears its ugly head in multiplayer as well.

This letter will be posted on the the ubercharged.net forum, Boomercharged.net and the Steam forums, as well as being emailed to Valve.

Yours sincerely

Phoenix
Ubercharged/boomercharged editor
phoenix@ubercharged.net

A new trailer out for Left 4 Dead 2, kids!

“But wait,” you say “This just makes me want to play more, and the game isn’t out until the 16th! Curse you for exciting me again!”

Well, you can have your cake and shoot zombies in the face too, because the demo’s available to the public now! Get playing!

Just in case you haven’t been paying attention to all the info that’s been released, let’s go over the new things shown in the demo. Scavenger and Realism are sadly not available in the demo, and the same is true of Versus and Survival. Again, it’s the first two levels of one campaign, and I suspect that once again the second is cut off early.

First off, there’s three new infected this time around. The Spitter, the Charger, and the Jockey are all new to Left 4 Dead 2.

The Spitter spits acid at the survivors, and the acid stays on the ground, injuring anyone who stands in it. This does eventually go away. The survivors call this “goo”. The main role of the Spitter is to stop survivors camping in corners and such, because it can cause them to quickly scatter away from a safe position. Additionally, it can stop survivors protecting or reviving a downed player by spitting on them, as anyone who tries to rescue them will of course be injured by the goo laying around.

The Jockey has already sky-rocketed on my hate list as an infected, as it hops on to you and rides you around, taking control away from you and leading you in the direction it wants you to go. This is hugely annoying. It also does some damage to you, and when you’re incapped hops off to ride someone else. You can try to move to make it so you move less in the direction it’s leading you in, but it doesn’t make much difference. Obviously it can be very helpful in splitting up survivors, or leading them towards a car or witch.

Lastly, the Charger will be the last thing you see in plenty of expert runs. It can, like the name says, charge, smashing through your whole team and doing damage. It then pins and hurts one player, much like a hunter. On expert, it has a habit of coming out of nowhere and smashing through everyone, dooming you to failure.

The Tank, Smoker, Hunter, Boomer and Witch all return, and all work mostly the same, except for the Witch, who now walks around instead of sitting in one place. They also look slightly different, although it’s not very pronounced for the Tank or Hunter.

Uncommon common infected also show up, although the only one present is the one wearing riot gear, who is immune to attacks from the front and must be shot in the back. This is very, very annoying.

Along with the uncommon infected comes a new damage system, wherein you can injure common infected. Blowing an arm off is no longer fatal, and they can still attack you. You can also cut them up, blow holes in them, blow off legs, blow off heads, etc.

Also, when you kill an infected with a melee weapon, blood splatters on your screen, which can make it very hard to see.

There are also more guns in L4D2, such as the AK-47 and military sniper rifle, combat shotgun, chrome shotgun, and Silenced SMG. Some of these guns are so much better than normal guns (such as the military sniper rifle and the Desert rifle) that it seems like there might be a third tier of weapons. However, weapons are a bit more random than in L4D, so they aren’t as clearly laid out in tiers.

It also will tell you that a gun has full ammo and recommend you switch if you’re on low ammo.

More interestingly, there’s ammo and gun upgrades, and a grenade launcher.

Even more interesting, however, is the addition of melee weapons. These replace the pistols, and the ones available in the demo are a police baton, a frying pan, a machete, and a guitar. These one-shot normal infected and do serious damage to others, but obviously are very short range. Another pistol replacement available is the magnum, which has only 8 shots but does much more damage, although I never found it without using cheats, so either it’s not supposed to be in the demo (like the grenade launcher, which has been patched out) or is simply very rare.

There are also some other additions, such as boomer bile (which lets you attract a hoard to whatever you throw it on, and takes up the grenade slot), adrenaline (which speeds you up for a short time, and takes up the pills slot), and defibrillator (which brings a dead teammate back to life and takes up the health pack spot).

Now that the information side of this post is done (although check the comments, as I am SURE that I have missed something which will be leapt upon by the good folks there), we can go on to other contributors sharing some of their experience.

Secret Agent Clank:

- Main thing, I REALLY wish there was a versus demo. The game seems more geared towards that, and it would be nice to get a look. Apart from that, the demo is too short. Wish there was more meat for the pre-order demo.

- While a bunch of weapons don’t differ drastically, the different designs and minor changes makes for good variety, something lacking in the original. Detection seems much better than L4D1, plus the Kalashnikov and SPAS12 are just badass.
Defibs are useful no matter who’s carrying them.

- Special Infected don’t seem too smart (on expert) like in L4D1, although this is hard to judge from only this. ALSO, they don’t stay on for more than a second before being shot off, so either that’s a problem or I/we’re just that good

- Expert seems easier than in L4D1, but again, hard to judge.

- The blues slide guitar tunes are fookin awesome (already transcribing and extracting). Also, the guitar makes an awesome twang when you hit something with it.

- Do they really need to play that ad after finishing the demo? I mean we already pre-ordered by virtue of… well, we have it.

Drexer

I have to note that I specially loved the new musical scores. While keeping to the tone they give off a whole similar vibe that is extremely well adapted to the game environment. They keep adding that perfect sense of urgency/panic at the exact moments.

The jukebox was a very nice touch, although now after some experimenting it seems that it only has 3 songs(at least on this map), and they loop always in the same order(RE:Your Brains is the second by the way).

There was a moment which I do not know if Zorg noted, where the Jockey grabbed Coach or Ellis and it almost succeeded in driving them against the witch, it was really a moment where the AI Director shined through and I fortunately managed to hit it with some lucky shots.

The adrenaline shots were life savers, Zorg having used one to reach the alarm. I was downed at the time and I just saw him rush past me like some kind of zombie apocalypse Flash.

Like Zorg said I managed to hit a tank with the bile bomb, and seeing that at the moment I was out of ammo I attacked it with the machete. Quite suicidal, but also quite fun. There seems to be a huge increase in the quantity of weapons spread around, but the existence of ammo stashes seems extremely reduced.

Phoenix

There seems to be less ammo carried, more weapons lying around. The ammo stashes in the saferooms are more important, simply because you’re FAR more likely to be carrying a gun that isn’t there (and you might want to keep it)

Tactics tip: if you pick up a melee weapon, then you drop whatever pistol(s) you had (if you weren’t carrying another melee weapon)

hence, at the start, if one person takes the melee weapon then another can have dual pistols.

I tested out the defib; it’s one use, you need to get to helping-up range and it takes some time to use.

Aside from that, mostly what’s been said.

Hopefully, that gives you a nice taste of what’s in-store for the demo, so enjoy your Halloween and look forward to when the public demo comes out!

Well, Germany, enjoy your weapons, I guess. But for those who pre-ordered, there’s something else to enjoy.

By the way, don’t be fooled- GameStop isn’t the only one offering this perk. All pre-orders from any source will earn you this weapon.

Yeah, yeah, three video posts in a row, I know.

They’ve had to make a few tweaks to gameplay for it to be acceptable for consumption here.

This is what we’re expecting the game to look like.

The bad news is, that for you in Australia, you’ll be getting the censored version. Yes, it’s true, the appeal has been rejected.

According to the Classification Review Board, the game has been once again refused classification due to violence.

In the Review Board’s opinion, Left 4 Dead 2 could not be accommodated within the MA 15+ classification. The computer game contains a level of violence which is high in impact, prolonged, repeated frequently and realistic within the context of the game.

In addition, it was the Review Board’s opinion that there was insufficient delineation between the depiction of general zombie figures and the human figures, as opposed to the clearly fictional ‘infected’ characters. This was a major consideration of the Review Board in determining the
impact of this game on minors.

Computer games classified RC cannot be sold, hired, advertised or demonstrated in Australia.

The Classification Review Board convened today in response to an application from the distributor of the computer game, Electronic Arts, to review the decision made by the Classification Board on 15 September 2009 to classify Left 4 Dead 2 RC.

Sorry guys. Hopefully the changes won’t be too bad. On the plus side, a new trailer has been leaked for Left 4 Dead 2, and it looks awesome.

Okay, maybe not THAT much. But, in the interest of keeping a flow of new content, we’ll be shifting mostly to Left 4 Dead 2. Sorry to those who want it, but we won’t be staying a die hard L4D1 site. However, no doubt some of our writers will not buy L4D2, and even those who do will play L4D in future, so there still might be article on it- they’ll just be in the minority.

So on October 27th, expect some new articles, fresh with the joy of a new game with new tricks.

Anyway, I’d just happened upon a Boomer frag vid, of all things, from this guy you may have heard of called Visceral, or, more accurately, - √isçeral -. It applies the dive boom technique of jumping from high spots, but with a twist.

He calls it the “Rocket Boomer” technique; basically, you use the pre-spawn speed to run, and jump + spawn before reaching the edge of the building, i.e. before you enter the Survivor’s field of vision. Which gives you considerable speed for surprise attacks; something the Boomer normally lacks.

Not cake, really, since it requires precise timing and gauging of distance, but an interesting trick for a class that’s not-Hunter.

Have fun practicing!

Writing strategy is a tricky thing. While we at boomercharged are frequent Left 4 Dead players and not terrible Left 4 Dead players, we also are not Left 4 Dead masters. As such, we don’t know all the best strategies, and as such sometimes might refer to something as difficult and get laughed out of the room for it, or suggest something that you’ve all heard before. But not everyone who reads the site is a versus-owning professional player, so some of these tips should still be helpful.

That said, the strategy of picking a location has ten main points:

1. Ammo

Some guns are more ammo consumptive than others. Use the hunting rifle means you probably won’t run low on ammo unless you’re doing very well, but with the assault rifle and the automatic shotgun, if you’re using them on normal infected you’ll start going dry quickly. If you’re near or next to ammo, you can unload your primary weapons on the normal infected, but if you’re far away you’re best off using the pistols. If you are using the pistols, smokers can be harder to deal with, and large hordes are sometimes a significant threat if you’re not great with the pistols or you’ve lost a player.

2. Health

In the early rounds of Survival, there’s a break right before the tank where there’s not much in the way of infected. Later on the other three survivors can cover you, and there will occasionally be lulls in the action where the hordes will slow down. Either way, ten seconds can be a long time, but it’s not forever, and the health pack is very useful to keep you going. Starting somewhere near a crop of health packs can help out a lot, especially if you’re only going for a Bronze.

3. Pills

Pain pills are the friend of the Survival player because unlike Medkits you don’t have to wait ten seconds for the health. Sure, it may be borrowed time, but for the Survival player ALL time is borrowed. Locations with lots of pain pills are rare, but can be very helpful, especially against the looming spectre of a tank when your team is all sitting in the red.

4. Miniguns

The benefits of a minigun are obvious- mowing down normal infected without using ammo, no reloading, and a solid spray will take down a tank quickly and easily. However, since they can’t be moved and have a terrible habit of getting placed in a rather open and not particularly good location, miniguns are not usually in locations that are very good. However, in some maps like Helm’s Deep, a minigun can make a location go from decent to amazing.

5. Grenades

A pipe bomb can give you a few moments to heal, rescue someone from a smoker, or just get the heat off for long enough to finish off a tank. A molotov can wound the tank heavily and make a wall of fire that stops smokers and the infected from attacking you while you heal. Either one buys you time, and in survival time is definitely something worth buying. A location with lots of explosives usually ensures at least a small amount of time for even the least skilled player.

6. Directions the infected come from

This is possibly the most important thing for a survival location. If the infected are coming from all angles, you’ll get surrounded quick, cutting down your mobility and laying tons of damage on you. Small little hits add up. But if they come from one angle, you can always face in one direction and it makes it much harder to get surrounded. It might not seem like a big deal, but it is often the deciding factor in picking a location. It also makes it much easier to spot smokers before they can pull you, which matters. Hunters have to run into your guns to pounce at you. Keeping up a wall of bullets in one direction is easier than doing it in four directions.

7. Time between enemy coming into firing range and being able to hit you

This one is pretty self explanatory- with the exception of the tank’s rock throw and the smoker, infected have to be in melee range to hit you, while you can hit them from a greater range. The longer time they spend in the zone where you can hit them and they can’t hit you, the more damage you can do before they can hurt you. This is especially important with tanks, as a tank turning a blind corner into you is very, very bad.

8. Space to escape a tank

Speaking of tanks, you know the problem with a long corridor with only one entrance? There’s nowhere to run from the tank when he shows up. If you can’t get away without going past him, then he’ll run right into you and crush you. So enough room to get around him or another entrance to take is vital to any location.

9. How hard is it get back after being pulled

Locations that are high up and open are criticised, talking about the survivors being “smoker bait.” One reason for this is because the smoker can come from any angle, meaning it’s hard to see them ahead of time. But the second reason is that if a survivor IS pulled, they’ll be pulled down. And with the hordes down there, it’ll be hard to get back up, and that can cost the survivor their life. Try to make it so you can get back to the others easily.

10. Effectiveness of molotovs

Last but not least, the effectiveness of molotovs and gas cans. Certain areas there’s less use for them- the infected don’t come from a small enough opening. But others, if there’s a small entrance, a molotov can shut down the hordes completely for a short time.

That wraps up the ten tips. Hopefully, next time you pick a location, you’ll keep these simple ideas in mind and it’ll help you get a better time.

Crash-proof
Survive the Crash Course Campaign.

Quick Power
Restart the generator within 30 seconds of it shutting off in the Crash Course campaign.

Smash Hit
Win a Versus campaign of Crash Course.

The even more observant of you may have noticed that every single of one them can only be unlocked IN Crash Course. This makes sense for those three, sure, but how about these?

The explanation I’ve heard is that Microsoft’s strict policies on DLC are behind this odd choice, although there’s no confirmation that I’ve found anywhere. It’s possible that it’s just a way of getting people to play the campaign, although it seems a tad unneeded.

Speaking of Microsoft, this update isn’t free on the 360. Valve is quick to say that this is all Microsoft’s fault. Going back to achievements, there’s no achievements tied to the Survival maps in Crash Course unless you get your first bronze, silver, or gold medal there. Old achievements (like Distinguished Survivor) haven’t been updated to fit these new maps, and there’s no new ones. This is likely tied to Microsoft’s rule that you can’t have more than 10 achievements in one DLC pack.

For those of you that haven’t played, Crash Course was apparently designed for a quicker (30 minutes) versus experience, so it’s a bit shorter than usual- only two maps in the campaign. However, these maps are a bit longer than normal, so don’t think that it’s an instant run on Campaign. Possibly drawing from that new idea in Left 4 Dead 2 of making the player move around while the hoards attack to stop them, in the finale the generator you turn on will cut out half way through, forcing you to run over and spend a short time restarting it. It’s an interesting trick that changes the strategy of where to stay for the finale, but it won’t really make that radical an impact. In Versus though I’ve seen at least one round where there was no Tank for the entire match, which is a little annoying, but it’s a great map to play Boomer in, with enough corners, roofs, and cover to ensure that you won’t be stuck out in the open waddling towards the survivors.

All in all, Crash Course is definitely worth playing, and if you’re on the 360, pick it up.

As for that in-depth location strategy article someone will no doubt call me out for not writing yet, it’s coming within the next week.

Humanity’s time is almost up.

The observant of you might have realised what I’m talking about. According to the world of Left 4 Dead, the end is nigh. Graffiti scrawled on the inside walls of the Riverside Church are a makeshift memorial to the dead of the Infection, and they’re all dated between the 2nd and 19th October 2009.

In the next few days, we can expect to hear reports of people being infected by an odd rabies-like virus that causes mindless violence in its victims. Within two weeks many cities will be completely overrun by zombies, who will have started to mutate into ever more gruesome forms. The last remnants of humanity will be heavily-armed refugees, brimming with sexual tension and a penchant for pain killers. Just as we start to dismiss Swine Flu as an overblown scare story, nature gives us a nasty plot twist.

Crumbling Cookies, and All That

Well, never mind, eh? We’ve had a good innings as a species.  Somewhere between the Pyramids and the Internet, we managed to achieve one or two things of lasting note. Many would say it is better to go out with a mindless cannibalistic bang than a global warming-induced whimper.

If you’ve ever fancied your chances in a horror movie, now is the time to prove your mettle. Grab a band of friends and you could be the stars of L4D, or failing that, Shaun of the Dead. You could even grab a camera and an electric guitar, pop into the nearest shopping mall and call yourself Frank West.

Of course, it could all be a false alarm. My faith in popular culture futurology took a blow last year when the Suicide Booth failed to materialise. Perhaps with the rapidly approaching release of L4D2, the canon will be retconned to postpone armageddon by a year, to let us gain some enjoyment from the sequel. Or perhaps to distract us from Valve’s inevitable announcement of Left 4 Dead 3 at E3 2010.

Only time will tell. Myself, I’m off to play some Crash Course and try to get those last pesky achievements. That said, I might just have a lie down. Does anyone else feel cold?

The release of the Authoring Tools for Left 4 Dead has started to bear fruits and people who know considerably more about code than I have been churning out their own maps for us, the Internet, to devour like braaaaains. I’ve played a few and whilst none of them are going to be as polished as the four official campaigns, they’re worth writing home about. Or, failing that, writing a blog post about.

Dam It, by Irate

Guess where it’s set? Give up? A dam!

Of the three reviewed here, this was the only one with a proper introduction – a rescue vehicle flies overhead, and one of your survivor buddies outlines the plan – others tend to plonk you at the start and expect you to silently go on your way to wherever it is you haven’t been told to go yet. The downsides of this, however, are soon made apparent: that rescue plane isn’t actually yours (though the broken tail of a plane floats ominously in the reservoir, a nice touch despite no sound of a crash), and the recycled dialogue from one of the original campaigns doesn’t fit. “We just need to follow the train tracks”, chirps Bill. There are no train tracks anywhere, Bill. You are wrong.

It’s also only one map as opposed to a campaign (which usually features five), but it’s just the right length – not over so quickly you feel short-changed (though it is free, so if you do than frankly you’ve got entitlement issues) but not so long you become fatigued halfway through. Ammo, pills and the like are scattered fairly liberally around , though I had to wait for the finale to actually get a Tier 2 weapon.

The dam itself is astonishingly well-realised – I would have liked to have gone all the way to the top, so impressed I was with the scale of the thing. It’s also filled with neat touches – a dead tank hangs from a  rope suspended by a crane over the side of the dam wall, a grim trophy of previous escapees.

In contrast to the massive playing space seen above, the guts of the dam are a series of claustrophobic corridors  interspersed with occasional larger rooms, an effective (if a little generic) setup, but suitably creepy to navigate – rain, thunder and lightning (unobserved in the original campaigns) heightens the atmosphere as well. A short but very. very sweet package.

They’ll be a Tank wanting to avenge its buddy, mind.

Dead City, by ilCannibal

Dead City isn’t actually finished – it’s missing a finale – but the preceding four stages are so incredibly huge, even without one it’s bigger than most other campaigns on the market.

Each part of Dead City is an expedition – a massive downtown area, winding alleyways, a crossroads with conveniently locked gates requiring the world’s longest detour to circumnavigate which leads to a huge drawbridge, and finally a sprint through a power plant. Put aside at least a couple of hours if you want to play all the way through.

So, it’s big. It’s very big, but it is this undeniable big-ness that leads to its downfall. Each stage takes so long to get through that as the next safe house nears you’ve pretty much stopped caring about it, it being merely another gateway to the next gauntlet of very irritated undead and confusing level design – there are plenty of side-rooms, corridors and even entire sections of buildings that can be explored but are ultimately superfluous, as valuable kit never seems to spawn there. This leads to the issue of the frequency of which ammo, health and bombs appear, which at the moment seems like ilCannibal was co-developing with Henry VII. This, combined with the outright broken timing of horde-spawning (several dozen zombies spawn, without the musical warning, within mere minutes of each other, regardless of the timing of those summoned by boomer bile or scripted crescendo events) means that you’ll run out of ammo and will have to fight at least one Tank with only your pea-shooter pistols. That’s another thing, longer maps mean more Tanks and more Witches – expect to find at least three in each level alone.

On top of that, there are still a number of graphical issues. Horrible 2D tree decals line the level boundaries and what I think may be some kind of new, less convincing fog effect makes everything more than 150 feet away look dull and grey. Look hard enough and even entire chunks of scenery are missing.

You’ve got to admire any tree surgeon who can trim a forest to a flawless vertical line without falling into the void that surrounds it.

I see a lot of potential in Dead City (not that I know anything about mapmaking) – the bridge in particular is amazing, and fighting off the horde as it slowly descends would make a great panic event if it didn’t move so slowly that you actually end up standing around waiting for it to finish. In fact, that’s a criticism I’d point at all the panic events – the zombies come and go, but every damn gate and every bloody door takes so long to open that you could beat the horde, go and make your tea, eat it, digest it and pass it before there’s a big enough gap to squeeze through. Similarly, there’s a brilliant moment where you spot a tank blasting a hole in a wall before trundling through – you can even run up to it and use it as moving cover – right up until it smashes unspectacularly into a wall, the turret magically disappearing in the crash. It’s like watching a really funny puppet show as a kid, then realising you can see the strings.

Despite this horrendous slander, people looking for a challenge and are somehow deluded into thinking Expert mode isn’t difficult enough should check out Dead City – let’s not forget it’s still in Beta, so those graphical niggles still have time to be sorted out. Chuck in an appropriately epic finale, add some extra spawn points for supplies and it has the the potential to be something special. And big.

Death Aboard, by Diputs

This was the first add-on campaign I played, and in a way I sort of regret it – now, most of what I’ve seen since appears to pale in comparison.

The attention to detail in Death Aboard is almost Valve-quality – stacks of dead victims are dumped in shower blocks, a sinking ship groans under the strain, shaking the screen with the force of a Tank charge, pipes burst and spray when hit by a stray bullet – by avoiding the fatigue-inducing length of Dead City, this effort is considerably leaner and tighter.

The ship in particular – a deserted cargo ship moored to the docks near the prison where you begin – in but one instance of outstanding level design. ‘Afloat’ is probably not the best way to describe it , and so it’s permanently slanted slightly. Having to work your way through this grimy labyrinth might cause you to bend your neck a bit, but is the most atmospheric part of the entire (and, crucially, complete) campaign – even more so than the opening Prison section, a surprisingly open map that strongly resembles Half-Life 2’s Nova Prospekt. With zombies.

It’s not perfect. My bot comrades had a couple of issues following me to the safehouse, opting instead to stand sentry by a deserted corner we’d passed several hundred yards back. There are also a couple of instances where you must drop down to a lower level – this proved a but much for the AI, who either ended up dangling helplessly from the walkway they were meant to jump from or simply falling to their deaths – I don’t know who built a bottomless pit inside a prison, but I hope they were at least fired before the zombies got to him. (Speaking of dangling helplessly, one comical event happened when a Tank slapped me hallway across the deck of the ship, where I automatically grabbed hold of the nearest ledge. Despite my feet being mere inches from the ground I was unable to drop myself and no-one seemed interested in helping, so I fell the fifty-odd centimetres to my death. A similar thing happened to Bill, simultaneously.) Still, if you only play Left 4 Dead with bots, I’d say that you’re doing it wrong.

That car in the winched container actually begins a panic event - ascend the ladder too fast and it’ll roll out, not only setting the alarm off but also running your head over.

The finale is ace, if a little bizarre – your rescue vehicle is a hot-air balloon, piloted either by remote-control of the invisible spirit of the previous owner. Either way, the five minutes spent before boarding are great fun, as you’re given a massive area to play with as opposed to, say, the rooftop in No Mercy, with a number of different hole-up points. I chose to stay at the top of the hill (which sported a lighthouse) where most of the first aid kits and ammo were. The size does have its pitfalls – the first Tank seemed to get lost, and apparently died of boredom before it got to us – but my choice of hilltop fortress did mean we had to peg it down to the bottom to catch our balloon.

Brilliant. No, really. There wasn’t time to dash to the pick-up point between the second Tank and final, never-ending horde, so the journey was a mad but utterly thrilling downhill dash. Francis got surrounded and Hunter-pounced and so didn’t make it, but as the balloon sailed off I was having too much fun to care.

ROAR I AM HERE TO KILL SOME SURVIVORS oh they’re all already incapped that’s cool I guess

Without a good location, you’ll be quickly swarmed on all sides by the infected, and even with the lowish difficulty that survival is locked on to, that isn’t going to end well for you. Additionally, smokers will be able to hit you from miles away, and drag you away from your teammates through the surrounding hoards. Hunters will jump from on high and steal a quarter of your health! Tanks will hit cars into you! Boomers will… well, summon yet more infected.

Go back to versus where you’re devastating. Bill has no time for your shenanigans.

Obviously, some locations suffer from some of these difficulties and not others, but a bad location can cause all of those problems and more, such as a hunter’s knockback knocking three of you off the edge, helpless to save your pounced team mates, to choose a completely random example that didn’t happen to me at all. With that sort of disadvantage off the bat, no one is going to be a very good time, even a team of masters who can snap headshot a leaping hunter on the other side of the map with an autoshotgun while facing in the opposite direction.

A good location funnels the infected so you can kill them before they surround you, stops smokers being able to drag you too far away, lets you see tanks and hunters before they get to you, and keeps the tank far away from anything with that nasty red border that spells “All 4 Dead”.

This would be the situation you would like to avoid.

Easy mode is basically “Baby’s first campaign”. The infected are so ineffectual and the special infected so slow to kill you that even the newest of players can smash through, and is therefore mostly only used for achievement farming (such as Stand Tall, Unbreakable, Akimbo Assassin, etc).

Normal mode is a decent challenge, but most people will get through it without much problem. Basically what it says on the tin.

Advanced mode is where the challenge starts to set it. You’ll probably have to replay a few maps a few times over, especially the finale, and get used to limping towards a safehouse with your colours missing. But still, a decent team of players can get through in a reasonable time.

Then there’s expert.

Oh, expert.

It used to be back in the day that you could switch difficulties for versus. This was then standardized, presumably because someone noticed that playing versus on expert is akin to taking away a player’s gun and spawning in a tank.

Yep, that’s a totally fair fight.

Let me try to better articulate why expert is a sudden, painful leap in the difficulty curve of the other difficulties into sheer frustration.

You know common infected, those delightful little weaklings who charge into a shotgun and find themselves decorating the walls? On easy they do one measly damage to a survivor, and only half that if attacking from behind. On normal, that goes up to two and one. Still weak stuff. On advanced, they almost become a threat as they go up to five and two point five, but seriously? Five? You can take plenty of those hits. On expert? They do twenty. Damage. Per. Hit. That means that five infected you didn’t catch in time and you’re down on the ground.

Enough to incap you instantly. Thanks expert.

But you’re probably thinking, so what? It’s normal infected. They go down easy. Sure, they pack a punch down, but, hey, I’ll just be a bit trigger happy.

About that? Don’t.

Friendly fire is always on in Left 4 Dead, but it’s toned down. You only do 10% of the weapon’s normal damage on normal, 50% on advanced. On easy, it doesn’t even do real damage, just yells at you. On expert, this magic shield disappears and you do full damage. Just for reference, the shotgun incaps in one shot at medium range now.

This man is going to try and shoot a 20-damage-per-hit zombie away from you and incap you instantly.

There’s plenty more. The witch KILLS (yes, not incaps) you in a single hit. The Tank does 150 in one hit- that’s enough to incap you in one, then kill you very, very fast. Hunters do 40 damage per hit, and 15 per second when pouncing. And just for more fun, with a couple of location exceptions First Aid kits NEVER spawn anywhere except the safe room and before the finale.

Now, some of you are no doubt saying “Why, you foolish person, this is of course to make it a challenge, and I laugh at your weakness!”. While it’s true that expert SHOULD be hard, the immense gap between it and advanced is a low blow, and far, FAR greater than the gap between any of the other levels.

So here’s a tip, reader- expert actually does mean expert, for once.

You’ve probably heard of glitches like smashing down the door in No Mercy 3, launching yourself with the Gatling, or causing someone to drop through the elevator by throwing a pipebomb through them (all patched), but this is different in that it’s not so much a glitch as a clever use of principles.

First, they use the principle that meleeing a box breaks it, but throwing gas cans or propane tanks doesn’t, and nor does a pipe bomb. Then, they use the force of the pipe bomb to create the effect they want. It’s an ingenious find, and kudos to the first one to pick it up. It’s not the only one out there, either. So find your own clever way to bend physics to your advantage and congratulations- you may have a bright future as a scientist.