After a long, hard week of work (and blogging), my girlfriend Gina and I spend the weekend together, doing the usual boyfriend/girlfriend type of things. Ultimately, this ends up in a nonstop barrage of, "I dunno, what do you wanna do?" While we can hardly every agree on what to do, there's always a certain question that ends up with the same answer no matter how many times it's asked.
"Hey, you wanna play Left 4 Dead?"
I remember buying Left 4 Dead in December of 2008, a month after it had come out; it was also the first game that accompanied Gina's Xbox 360. Although we had not followed Left 4 Dead up to its launch, we were interested in the game after having just seen the "zombie" film Quarantine. We both found the game intriguing, so I suggested that we give it a shot. Well, a couple of giftcards later, we purchased Left 4 Dead.
That was the best purchase made that holiday season.
Since then, we've been hooked. Every night for the next month consisted of playing through the game's various campaigns at nauseam, and thanks to the "A.I. Director" there was something new to see every time we played. During that Winter break, nights were never dull.
We also found joy in killing Louis.
No words can explain our reaction to Left 4 Dead; we were just in awe over the entire experience. More than just zombie killing, Left 4 Dead created and inserted you into an atmosphere--most notably, a B-movie horror flick. Each campaign harkened back to an old Romero-esque film, cheesy punchline and all. Take "No Mercy's," for example: "Curing the infection...one bullet at a time." There was nothing else out that was quite like Left 4 Dead, and the same holds true even to this day. Other zombie shooters have hit the market since Left 4 Dead, but all have fell short in our eyes.
We dabbled with other co-operative shooters throughout the years, ranging from Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles, Call of Duty: World at War's "Nazi Zombies" mode, Halo: Reach, and even Borderlands. Still, a magnetic force keeps pulling us back to the streets of "No Mercy*".
The ironic part about the entire scenario is that, when compared to the other games mentioned, Left 4 Dead is really simplistic. You have a gun, run through an area, kill zombies, get rescued. There's no other meat or potatoes to speak of. I won't go into the gist of the other games, but I will say that Left 4 Dead certainly does not have a Wunderwaffe. But, you know what? That's ok.
Left 4 Dead is a game that doesn't take itself too seriously; there isn't a government conspiracy taking place, shady characters or branching plots. Heck, the only backstory to it is the opening cinematic which leads straight to the No Mercy campaign. You're basically thrown into the mix of fighting for survival!
Could it be this simplistic nature that keeps my significant other and I fighting through infested sewers even to this day? That quite possibly could be the case, and time has proven that simplicity can be the key to greatness--I'm looking at you, Mario. Nothing brings two people together quite like a stellar co-operative based game, and nothing brings a couple together quite like un-barricading a door and fighting through a horde of brainless zombies. Try it on your significant other one day.
After writing this, I believe I already have this Saturday night booked.
*Don't fret, we play the other levels too. No Mercy is just our favorite.
