Review 1: Left 4 Dead

First thoughts:
Left 4 Dead is one heck of a game, it's so fun to have hundreds of zombies rush at you at once and mowing them down. Punching and shooting your way out of a sticky situation. It's not as scary as they probably intended it to be though... well not scary at all actually. I really enjoyed it, the achievements are fun to try and get. Like "Hunter Punter" I laughed when I got that achievement. The graphics are pretty nice, some of the best graphics I have seen from Valve. Although I really do like TF2's graphics style. All in all for first impressions it has some good graphics, great gameplay and is overall a good game.


Gameplay:
The gameplay is very fun and action packed. When you are being attacked by a horde of infected it is intense, if they get too close you either have to shoot rapidly (big problem for people with the ordinary shotgun) or knock them away and shoot them, which is slower. When there is no infected around. You are fearing for another onslaught, or for a hidden hunter/boomer/smoker/tank that will attack you unsuspectingly. Two playthroughs are never the same, because the amount of infected that are spawned is dependant on how well you are playing. If you aren't playing too well there will be fewer infected to get you back on your feet and give you a rest, if you are doing excellently they try to tire you out by spawning more infected, so the game tries to keep a neutral difficulty based on the difficulty you chose. For the gameplay I give a 90/100.

Graphics:
The Graphics are of a bleak and dark style. Everything is darker than it should be. Light sources are from strange places such as car lights and lamp posts. Giving a feeling as though nothing is as it should be. The infected are detailed in both expression and general detail such as the way they are animated and shaded. They have such diversity in clothing that everyone is an individual. It's rare to see two infected that look alike. But even then you don't notice because you're busy killing them before they kill you. The cars are also unique. There is about 7 different car types each with different colours, like all of the colours that are possible to get on the computer screen at the moment. The environments are well detailed too. The different models and textures for the environment are diverse for each map/location. For the graphics I give it a score of 78/100.

Atmosphere:
The Atmosphere is really helped by the occasional draught of infected and the random soundtrack. Th soundtrack is made almost entirely of 1 scale so it all fits. Although there is the odd atonal note to give the sense of confusion. The soundtrack isn't based around what you and the others around you (in online play) are experiencing. But what you and only you are experiencing, if you are ahead of the others and there is a draught of infected you are constantly expecting some to come out or a big group to rush you. So you get personal music accordingly. The atmosphere is really good and is a big reason why this game is so fun to play. I give it a 100/100

Online:
Online is the biggest part of this game, it's just not the same with bots as it is with 3 other friends, although every now and then the servers shut down, and there is a lot of stop lag. Which can get annoying when the other survivors are running off without you. Online is great but some major issues, I give a 60/100.

Extra's:
There isn't much extra on to this game, there is only the Developer commentary and the achievements but they give a lot of replay value to the game. Not much but is still pretty good I give a 30/100

Overall:
It's a great game, and I definitely recommend it to people looking for a fun game with Lot's of replay value. I give the game a 72/100.