Left 4 Dead - Your Opinions!

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History:
Development on Left 4 Dead started in mid-2005. Valve aimed to create a horror film-inspired game that merges single player games' character-driven narrative structure with multiplayer games' social interaction and high replayability. The game was first revealed in the Christmas 2006 publication of PC Gamer UK with a six-page article describing a playthrough at Valve's headquarters. A teaser was released with The Orange Box. The game was first playable at the Showdown 2007 LAN in San Jose and at QuakeCon 2007. Turtle Rock Studios announced Left 4 Dead on November 20, 2006, and was acquired by Valve Corporation on January 10, 2008 because of the game and long-standing relationship between the companies. Certain Affinity announced in February 2008 that they are assisting with the Xbox 360 version of the game. The game opened up to pre-purchasing on Valve's Steam system on October 15, 2008.​

When asked a short while after the release of the game about the planned availability of a SDK (Software Development Kit) for Left 4 Dead, Chet Faliszek from Valve replied that it was planned shortly. He also confirmed that Valve planned to deliver new content for the game in the future.
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Gameplay:
Played in first person, players take control of the four main characters of the game, known as the Survivors. If four human players are not available to play, the remaining Survivors can be AI-controlled bots. They play through the levels fighting off the Infected, which are living humans (not traditional undead zombies, although they are referred to as such by the characters), who have been infected with a mutated rabies virus.​

The game is focused on cooperation and team play; coloured outlines of teammates are visible through walls to help players stick together and coordinate their movement, and Survivors can be knocked down by the Infected and only helped up by another player. If a teammate is knocked down after being helped up twice, without tending to his wounds in between, the player will experience distorted black-and-white vision, and the next takeout will kill the player, forcing them to wait until the survivors find a safe room or a closet before respawning. There are respawn areas scattered around the map that can be opened to find respawned survivors.​

"Boss Infected" also command special attacks, such as a Hunter's pounce, Boomer's vomit, the Smoker's tongue-choke, and the Tank's throw (usually throws cars or boulders), and Witches who can incapacitate or kill a survivor with one hit depending on difficulty. All of these require assistance from a teammate to get out of or to get back up after being knocked down. Survivors can also share first-aid kits and help each other heal. Left 4 Dead has full friendly fire during the Normal, Advanced and Expert modes, increasing the need for caution around other Survivors. It is disabled in Easy mode.​

The Survivors communicate by voice commands that are accessed by quick menus, and some will also sound off automatically when doing such things as reloading or spotting Infected. Over 1000 unique lines have been recorded for each Survivor. Additional communication of player actions is conveyed through character lights. Also, weapon-mounted flashlights and muzzle flashes help the players in determining whether their companions are shooting, performing melee attacks, reloading or moving. Due to control issues and to the fact that players will probably be using a LIVE headset, the Xbox 360 version of Left 4 Dead will omit the quick phrases feature.​

The game is experienced through four scenarios that take place in various urban and rural locales, such as a hospital, an airport and a murky countryside. Each scenario is divided into several shorter sections marked by safehouse checkpoints, where players can heal, re-arm, and revive players who were killed. The game takes place in Pennsylvania, October 2009, the four phases of the campaign mode are: No Mercy (Philadelphia), Death Toll (Riverside), Dead Air (Philadelphia), and Blood Harvest (Allegheny National Forest). The levels are essentially linear, with distinct beginnings and ends, but there are a number of alternate routes to follow with more supplies and alternate objectives, as well as create a sense of non-linearity. At the end of each scenario, the players must defend a position from an onslaught of Infected until rescue arrives. Each scenario lasts between 45 and 75 minutes.
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The "Infected"
The Infected are the Survivors' foes in Left 4 Dead, and they appear to be partly inspired by the infected from several modern films, including Dawn of the Dead, I Am Legend, and 28 Days Later. The 'Common Infected', as opposed to the slow, shuffling zombies associated with George A. Romero's Dead series and the Resident Evil series, are fast and agile, creating quite a formidable foe. They can be dealt with easily on their own, but in great numbers are difficult to defeat. In addition, there are five mutated Infected who have their own special mutant abilities and are more powerful than the regular Infected. These special Infected make distinctive sounds to announce their presence, sometimes followed with a survivor shouting out, e.g. "Hunter!" Four of the six Infected characters are playable in Versus mode.​

* The Horde is a large swarm of rushing Infected who are brawlers more than biters, at once similar to 28 Days Later, using their sheer number to attempt to overcome the Survivors. Hordes can be triggered due to a Survivor being splattered by a Boomer, setting off a car alarm, at seemingly random moments, and staying at an area for too long. Horde events are also more probable if the Survivor team plays efficiently. The Horde is prefaced by a musical horn cue in the soundtrack. ​

* The Boomer is a distended and bloated Infected that can spew projectile vomit at the Survivors, blinding them temporarily and triggering a swarm of Infected. Boomers blow up when they die, spraying nearby Survivors with bile that also attracts the Infected. Boomers also have the ability to hurl themselves off buildings and detonate on impact with the ground but it is not clear if this is intentional. ​

* The Hunter is an agile Infected who can climb walls and jump over rooftops, similar to I Am Legend Infected and Half-Life 2's Fast Zombie. Crouching for some time gives the Hunter access to a powerful pounce attack that pins a Survivor down and it then starts to slash at the Survivor. It continues to slash at the pinned Survivor until the Hunter is knocked off or the Survivor is killed. The Hunter can be identified by its distinctive scream and growls. ​

* The Smoker has a long, grasping tongue which can stretch up to 15 meters (50 feet). It can capture Survivors as it drags them away from their team mates, or dangle them a foot off the ground if pulled from a rooftop, similar to Half-Life's Barnacle and Resident Evil's Licker. When the Smoker is destroyed, it leaves a haze of thick smoke that distorts the players' vision in the game and causes the character to start coughing, preventing them from using voice commands. The Smoker can be identified by its coughing and strained breathing, along with the cloud of smoke that comes off of it. ​

* The Tank, a huge, muscular, and noisy Infected, bears some resemblance to The Hulk or The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen's Mr. Hyde and is capable of throwing large items such as cars or blocks of concrete. The Tank can take the most amount of damage before dying and can deal a lot of damage. On the "expert" difficulty, it is not uncommon for a single tank to kill all four survivors. In Versus mode, the tank has a "Frustration Meter" which means that control will be taken away from a human player if the Tank does not engage the survivors for a certain time when playing as the Tank. The Tank's presence is foreshadowed by a musical cue and the area quaking. ​

* The Witch is the only mutant Infected that cannot be played by human players. Witches can easily be detected by their loud, distinctive crying and by the eerie choir music that swells up as the player draws near. Witches are not aggressive and can be avoided by careful players, but flashlight beams, physical contact, prolonged staring, and loud sounds such as gunfire or car alarms in their vicinity rouse them, causing them to attack whichever player startled them. When a Witch takes sufficient damage or kills the player who startled her, she retreats, covering her face and screaming horrifically. The lethality of a Witch is dependent on the difficulty of the game. On all difficulty levels the Witch can incapacitate a survivor in one hit but on the "expert" difficulty her attack is fatal at first strike.​

The "Survivors"
There are four playable human characters in the game (hence the "4" in the title). Early plans were for players to be randomly assigned to characters, though in the final release players can choose any character they would like so long as another player has not selected it first.
* Francis is a tattoo-covered biker.
* Zoey is a college student and horror movie enthusiast.
* Louis is a Junior Systems Analyst in his company's IT department.
* Bill is a former Green Beret and a Vietnam veteran.​

 

So, no reason to hate me, its obvious it came from Wikipedia. Im just trying to make it convenient enough so that people can read what the game is about here instead of going onto another website. No harm done.

What, don't YOU have better things to do with your life instead of being a jerk?

Good thing there's the search function because i have found out that you have also copied and pasted from wikipedia in this thread about Left 4 Dead too. Take That!
Busted!

Evidence right there! I guess you've just made yourself look like an idiot...

 

lol, damn it! You got me, but the point here is that he is flaming me for something that HE did himself!

I understand what you said though, but i didn't think of using the search until he got me mad, I meant to do something else and I stumbled upon his Left 4 Dead thread.

There is a lot of Left 4 Dead threads here though.

 

Whats wrong with my thread, Every one of those threads you've posted talked about something different. They wasn't all the same.