{"id":1505,"date":"2008-11-18T06:26:29","date_gmt":"2008-11-18T12:26:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamingwithchildren.com\/?p=1505"},"modified":"2008-11-18T06:26:29","modified_gmt":"2008-11-18T12:26:29","slug":"left4dead-pc-360","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2008\/11\/18\/left4dead-pc-360\/","title":{"rendered":"Left4Dead – PC, 360"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\"\"<\/a>Valve makes great games – only, they don’t make them often enough. After loving Half-Life, Half-Life 2 and then the embarrassment of riches that was the Team Fortress 2 and Portal in the Orange Box (all but one of those are rated M). Today Left4Dead was released and it’s, frankly, an amazing step forward in terms of multiplayer, co-op, and politeness. Valve once again has knocked the industry down a peg and created a game that will lead, hopefully, to a lot of copy-cats.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Co-op is what this game is all about and this is the first time I’ve played a multiplayer game and wanted to use voice chat. You have to work with your team. You have to stay together, work together, and the game reinforces this brilliantly by giving you lots of hitpoints (either that or this disease makes people rabid but weak as kittens) and having them overwhelm you, knock you down, incapacitate you and then kill you\u00a0unless one of those punk kids you hate helps you up or heals you… and they will!\u00a0 Well, so far they will. These punks I’ve been playing with have to be teens (why aren’t they in school?) but they always helped me up, they always worked together, and I have SEVERAL fond combat memories with them. Like the time Bill got nabbed by a Smokers tongue and I shot him down at the last minute. Or when I got cut off in the sewer and somehow I surived just long enough for the guys to come save me. This is thrilling stuff and I haven’t even looked at this DIRECTOR concept. I hear it lets a human play “DM” and spawn the monsters to make things more scary. Sounds like fun.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>What’s amazing about Left4Dead is how much cash Valve is going to make by adding things. New characters, levels, routes, monsters, game modes, and story are all probable and welcome. This is like being in a horror movie folks, like being in 28 Days Later. Only it’s not real. It’s exhilerating as hell and the stories you’ll tell afterward make this a must for any action fan. Even those who hate zombies.<\/p>\n

KID FACTOR<\/p>\n

Lots of blood, corpses, monsters, and gun shooting. Its an extremely violent game but you’re only killing monsters, the characters all automatically cry out when weapons or health are found, thank each other for healing, and give a heads up. “Behind you!” one cried. I turned and, just in time, blew off a zombies face. “Thanks” my character muttered, automatically. Politeness in a multiplayer game? I guess when the zombie apocalypse finally happens we’ll find that maybe we can all just get along.<\/p>\n

The game is rated M-Mature and rightfully so but… maybe because it’s zombies but I’d probably let a teenager play it. That’s not a recommendation, it’s just my belief that fantasy and horror aren’t the same thing as torture-violence, war, and realistic killing or lawlessness. Killing zombies is exactly the right thing to do in all situations and teens should be taught that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Valve makes great games – only, they don’t make them often enough. After loving Half-Life, Half-Life 2 and then the embarrassment of riches that was the Team Fortress 2 and Portal in the Orange Box (all but one of those are rated M). Today Left4Dead was released and it’s, frankly, an amazing step forward in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1505\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}