Left 4 Dead

A suprise hit that's cut quite a reputation in the shooter market lately !
This game is up there with the most played shooters / games on Xbox Live at the moment just ranking under Call of Duty 5 ,Gears of War 2, Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4, in number of players online daily.

This shooter focuses heavily on teamwork and you'll need it if you want to survive , you just can't go rambo solo on this game and expect to be a one man army, because it ain't going to happen without your friends to bail you out.

You could play single player with computer AIs as your allies but it just isn't as fun.

This game has to be played online to be truly appreciated . None of the shooters mentioned above, come close to the appreciation of looking out for team mates as this game emphasises.

Online it's a 4 vs 4 team battle , although that description in itself doesn't clearly describe it.
Basically it's humans/ survivors vs Zombies / Infected.

It's guns and caution vs stealth and cunning really.

Humans have weapons ( including firearms and explosives ) , health kits , lots of health and can revive/heal each other ( If given the chance and the right equipment.

Zombies have low health , respawning , special abilities which incapacitate a human victim ( Which then he/she NEEDS the help of a team mate to escape from them ) and an army of support zombies which deal light damage to the humans , although can't truly be controlled.

The humans goal is to travel from point A to point B. ( Represented by Zombie Proof Safe Rooms )
The zombies goal is to kill all of them before they reach the target destination.

The main play style of the humans is to cover each others backs especially at crucial moments like when you ally has been caught by a zombie special move that makes them unable to fight back or when they want to heal themselves.
Looking out for each other is key to your survival .... being selfish and a glory hog will get you killed. The zombie players will most likely single out the one who tries to lone wolf and who is far away from the rest of the team. So humans stick together if you want to make it.

As for the undead, your game plan is more about stealth, cunning and mounting co-ordinated strikes to disable multiple targets to maximise your damage inflicted towards the human party.
The zombie team on the whole has very fragile health ( But has unlimited respawning to compensate ). If you do not make an effort to sneak up on an opponent or hide until the time is right, you won't last a second in the sights of human gunfire.
You can not take on the humans in a frontal assault and as zombies most have no long range methods of inflicting damage ... so patience and timing is key.
There are 4 kinds of zombie you can play as.
The 3 main ones are the hunter whose specialty is a long range pouncing attack that can incapacitate and damage a target human heavily , the smoker whose long range tongue attack can disable and drag a human in for the kill and the Boomer whose mid range vomit attack attracts hordes of computer controlled ally zombies to attack the unfortunate drenched victim.

Both teams are fun to play. As a human you will feel heroic pride when you save an ally from certain death or bask in evil glee when your stalker tactics have paid off with a successful kill as a zombie.

But for both sides team work is vital ! And this unbreakable element is what makes this game great and stand out among the rest of the 360 shooters !

This game has tons of replay value also !
One thing that makes this game really special is the random spawning of enemies. So no two playthroughs of a campaign are the same. There are can be like a hundred zombies on the screen with no slowdown. The Computer intelligence for enemies can be quite cunning / catch you by surprise too if you're playing on your own.

The controls of the game are fast, simple and responsive. A pitfall many games developers just make mistakes in nowadays still.

Technically this game has no real story besides the opening cinematic and character dialogue. But there are no FMVs, cinematics or cut scenes that make you stop the gameplay for a minute. This game is all gameplay just like the good old days.
At first I was very disappointed that there was no story sequences , but now I see it was a very good decision because now I'm just having zombie blasting fun instead.

The guns in this game could have been more varied but don't really need to be , since most weapons will kill the majority of enemies in an instant. There is more difference in the variety of explosives and flammables than there is the guns to be honest.

So in summary if you like a good single campaign with an immersive story this probably isn't the game for you. ( There are 4 short campaigns separated into 5 chapters each. Each Campaign will probably take you around an hour to get through )
If you'd like to play a decent multi player team battle with a difference you might want to give this a try. But playing as humans vs Zombies means it's not the same rules for both sides. So you'll have to learn to keep an open mind in order to enjoy what it has to offer.
If you like online co-op ..... get this game ! This is one one of the best co-op games in a long time.

All in all this is full on zombie blasting fun with excellent online co-op, which is probably the freshest multi player in a shooter in a long time. No story, full gameplay.
If shooters are your thing , you should give this one a try. It can hold it's own with the best of them and you'll be pleasantly surprised.

I doubt I can elaborate very much on what the other reviewers have said so I just want to say that this might possibly be the best game I have ever played! The graphics and control system are of a very good standard but nothing out of the ordinary for a 360 game, the sound is particularly atmospheric. Where this game stands out for me is the gameplay, me and three friends have had the time of our lives trying to hold out against the hordes of the undead for 15 minutes while they broke in through the windows, dragged us out of our safe-house with their tongues or just plain tore off the side of the building and came in through the hole! You just can't get the kind of adrenaline-pumping 'last-stand' feel of this game anywhere else! The four campaigns that are provided with it are all very distinctive and make for very different stories as you play them and there is some kind of AI director that makes every game play out slightly differently which stops it from getting too samey. My favourite game-type though is the 'versus mode' where you alternate between playing the survivors making a run for it or the gribblies hunting them down - the two sides are surprisingly evenly matched and it's great fun trying to get further through the level than your opposing team and then taking your turn trying to tear them a new one as they start their own journey.

My only complaint if there is any is that you can only play two of the campaigns in versus mode - I would have liked to play them all :(

So I stumbled across Left 4 Dead by accident. Having been let down by Epic's disappointing and frustrating Gears of War 2 effort, I finally sold it and with the money burning a hole in my pocket I plumped for L4D knowing nothing about the game other than it had a thumb missing on the cover.

This game is seriously good. Its difficult to actually put a finger on 'why' it's so good. Its such a simple game - 4 players, kill lots of zombies end of story, and with only 4 levels (5 maps per level) you would think it would have a relatively short shelflife, but it's so much more than a sum of its individual parts.

Few games have this affect - the 'just one more go' feeling that keeps you up until 3am, bleary eyed, realising you still have to get up for work the next day, but 'just gotta survive one more wave of zombies' is far more important...

This is what good games are all about - getting the gameplay 'just right', getting the physics 'just right' and overall hitting the sweetspot of 'fun' vs 'difficulty'..... Why spend a huge amount of time developing plotlines, character building etc. the point of games is to play them - not spend half your time watching cut scenes trying to piece together scraps of gameplay.

Part of the fun of being on XBLive is the community, and this game actually 'promotes' team spirit. You find very quickly that if the players joining your games don't have a mic, or don't speak they get booted quickly. I've added more friends to my friends list in the last month of playing this game than in the previous year - and people who it's fun to play with and chat to. You simply cannot play this game unless all 4 players co-operate - and I know of no other game on the market that has this. Yes you need to play together as a team to win games in COD or Gears, but you don't 'have' to.... in L4D you have to play as a unit or you all fail.

Matchmaking is instantaneous, and allows you to play whatever type of game you want. No ranks,but you'll be too busy trying to stay alive to care.

So the graphics may not be up to GOW2 level, the scale of the game may not be huge, but somewhere along the way, Valve really worked out how to nail great gameplay, and I'd gladly trade all the nice graphics and storyline in the world for that.

Well done. This game rocks.