This one falls into the "almost but not quite" category, similar to a discovered planet that is perfect for human life other than one particle in the air that instantly kills people. This game almost hit it out of the park, it is right there on the edge of all-time greatness, but it misses by an agonizingly small margin. Before I give the two reasons why, lets get to the good.
Playing with three friends against randomly assigned hordes of zombies. Beautiful. Buh-yoo-tee-ful. It's a fucking blast. Some barely care you are there, others run at you like they're on fire and you're the only water faucet on the face of the fucking planet, a handful of special zombies that each have their own little niche. It's a great, great idea. There is no fucking storyline whatsoever other than "you're here, get to there". That's it. Really. Zombie games don't need storylines, they're too awesome.
Versus mode has a ton of potential too despite it harboring both the major problems of the game I'll get to shortly. Four vs four, survivors vs zombies (zombies play as the special ones, each with unique abilities like blinding survivors with vomit, dragging them across the ground and molesting them, etc), five stages, teams take turns on each stage playing as both sides. You get rewarded as a survivor for either making it to the safe room or on a point system counting how close you made it. Zombies get points for killing the survivors before they make it, or at least sexually assaulting them several times and making the journey not very enjoyable. Again. Fucking beautiful.
Sadly, only four campaigns are in the game. Each are split into five stages, with each having a fifth "hold this spot for ten minutes while a whole shitload of stuff comes at you until the rescue vehicle shows up" final stage. Each campaign takes about an hour if you make it through on your first run. It isn't as short as it sounds, the "director AI" mixes it up every time you play. Sometimes a tank (big, big zombie who enjoys throwing large chunks of concrete at you and smashing your face in) will block your way, the next time he won't be there. Hell, nothing might be at that same spot in the map, but later a mob of zombies that weren't there last time will drop down on you. It keeps things interesting and unique each time. Also, Expert mode will give even the most seasoned player one hell of a fucking challenge.
Back to Versus, alas. This mode is legitimately close to being the perfect online gaming experience, but no dice. For starters, online gaming = tons of kids, Left 4 Dead = teamwork required. Note a conflict of interest here. Kids are stupid. A lot of times Douchebag X will run off ahead of you like a moron and get slaughtered as a survivor, or Douchebag Y will run straight at people like a retard as a zombie. A good team is a great time, a bad team is a nightmare. We're still not at the two major problems, though.
Problem A: Zombies can push some shit in the way of things that survivors can't move. Whoopsie, game developers. Shoulda seen that one coming. People online are assholes, and a lot of them are kids. Kids take games seriously, they HAVE to win. If they have to put something in your way you literally can't move to accomplish this, they will. Stupid idea. About half the time, expect some faggot kid on the opposing team to do this to you, because he's butthurt about you kicking his ass so badly.
Problem B: Versus mode again. There are a few obvious rape spots for the zombie team that survivors have no choice but to go through, such as a ladder leading to a roof in the first campaign. They have to go up that ladder, period. Therefore, there is no reason whatsoever for the zombie team to not just wait on top of the ladder and beat the ever living shit out of them once they pop their heads out. These are survivable with a team not completely retarded, one survivor goes up and draws one of them to him, the others shoot up and kill the zombie. Still, it's a pain in the ass. A Diablo-esque random map generator could fix this, but whatever. A smarter playerbase would balance this out.
Despite those two flaws, the first one being a massive fuckup by Valve, I can't reccomend this game enough for somebody who plays online. Single player, it sucks, don't bother. But, if you like playing with other people, it is a must have. Valve cares about computer players more than XBox, as evidenced by Problem A being fixed over a month ago on computers and still ignored on XBox, so keep that in mind when purchasing. Playstation 3? Hah, fuck you, it's not even on that joke of a console. Anyway. Grab three friends and four copies of this game and answer the question we both know you've had, "what would I do if the zombie apocalypse happened?"
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