Left 4 Dead series

Brief

The Left 4 Dead series puts players in the roles of 4 characters trying to get to safety in a world where the majority of all people have been infected with a disease making them homicidal maniacs. Although similar to zombie movies as Dawn of the Dead or even more so infected movies such as 28 days later, it adds the concept of some infected being mutated to get various abilities. These mutants are simply referred to as special infected. Overall, the gameplay is similar to most first-person shooters but with heavy emphasis on co-operation and getting from one safe house to another.

The series currently consists of Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2.

See wikipedia entries for more detailed description of the games.

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Gameplay

Cooperation

Mutual Goals

The games rely heavily on Achievements to provide Replayability of the levels and campaigns. Some of the Achievements are simply gained by completing the campaigns, others one can gain more or else through Grinding since they are based upon achieving a certain event (e.g. killing zombies with machine guns or honking the noses of zombie clowns), and others through actions that require Timing or Game Mastery (e.g. throwing Molotov cocktails on a special type of zombie or killing witches in a single shot), and yet others which make gameplay more difficult for the other players. The last category consists both of voluntarily limiting oneself to using less effective weapons and of goals such as carrying garden gnomes extensive distances (in Left 4 Dead 2. Although some of the Achievements can be seen as Optional Goals, these and the goals of completing levels and campaigns might effectively become Incompatible Goals.

Survive

Limited Resources

Some of the gamers actions in the games are both Extended and Interruptable Actions, specifically those that help the other players. Helping other players while they are hanging from heights or healing them takes time and can be interrupted by zombie attacks (and is best done with yet other players having the Supporting Goals of protecting them). Besides providing Time Pressure these actions can also be seen as a form of Delayed Reciprocity since there is typically an unstated understanding that the helped players while in the future be helpees. Healing oneself with bandages is also an Extended and Interruptable Actions in the game, but since this also is best done when guarded by other players it also encourages team work.

Real-Time Games

Time Pressure

The series allow Betrayal in that players can opt to run to safe rooms or the escape vehicles while leaving the other players to their fate, choices that have persistent effects since only the survivors of a campaign get the Achievements associated with it.

Drop-In/Drop-Out

Cooperation

Left 4 Dead 2 adds some tangible Shared Rewards through cases with special ammo that can be handed out to all players.

The series shows that one can provide individual Game Pauses in Multiplayer Real-Time Games through letting computers take over the control of characters, although of course the overall gameplay continues.

Survival Mode

Added in an update of Left 4 Dead but present from the release of Left 4 Dead 2, this mode gives the gamers a Survive goal where specific medals are achieved by being alive beyond specific Time Limits (4, 7, and 10 minutes for bronze, silver, and gold medals respectively).

Realism Mode

Added in Left 4 Dead 2, this mode removes all the glowing outlines (i.e. the Non-Diegetic Elements) around the PCs, weapons, and health equipment. The ammo dumps are an exception to this. By doing so the game both makes Exploration to find items (i.e. fulfill Gain Ownership goals) more difficult and increases the risk of friendly fire (i.e. makes Cooperation more difficult).

Other Noteworthy Aspects

Developer

Valve Corporation (Windows version) Certain Affinity (Xbox 360 version)

Publisher

Valve Corporation