Left 4 Dead Demo Impressions

This probably would have been more insightful had I posted it when I intended to – before the full game got released – but whatcha gonna do? It’s almost appropriate, actually, since Valve’s first game, Half-Life, turns 10 years old today.

I’m still in more or less the same mindset about Left 4 Dead, which is…

… I’m not convinced yet.

I’m not sold on the game, which is actually a little upsetting to me, because Valve Software  is yet to do wrong by me. I remember basically draining my savings account to pick up the original Half-Life the weekend it came out, and have snapped up every other game Valve has released just as quickly. I was planning on doing the same with Left 4 Dead, but I started getting a little hesitant the more I read about it. I initially had 3 main concerns: 

1)      Graphics

2)      Variability

3)      Single-player

Graphics: … but not in the way you might think. Yes, the Source engine is starting to age, but as far as I am concerned, it’s aging very well. It seems to me that with each new use, (Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode 1, Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Team Fortress 2, Portal and now Left 4 Dead) Valve has found pretty significant ways to squeeze some new life out it. I’m sure it helps that it was developed in-house, since it allows them to tweak and re-tweak it as they build on it. My fear with Left 4 Dead was that they would abandon it and require a dual-core system, as they are starting to become more commonplace – at least in system requirements, if not in home PCs. My PC most definitely does not have one, so I was enthused to see that not only was I not automatically disqualified by my system, but I was pretty well supported. Even though I was basically running it in 800 x 600, I still got a very respectable framerate, and I was very content with the overall look. 

One thing I’ve always thought the Source engine and the guys at Valve do particularly well is texturing. They have a way of making everything look real – not photoreal, but legit and honest – without draining system resources. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure I want my game to look photoreal. What they’ve done in the Half-Life series is still very convincing and makes sense, but still maintains a certain level of fantasy that sort of reminds the player that it’s just a game. I like that. I also appreciate the stylized choice they made with Team Fortress 2. In that case, it immediately erases any nags of “reality” that might drag the game down, and makes it much more welcoming for certain ideas that have become integral to the game – rocket jumping, a double-jumping scout, invisibility – stuff that would have been out of place had they clung to something more grounded and real. 

In the graphics department, Left 4 Dead fits pretty nicely in the Half-Life style. It’s close enough to be convincing, but so close that it’s disturbing or unnatural. It looks good, I can run it and enjoy it on my current system (though nowhere close to maximum settings), and it presents a certain style that is notable artistically and that absolutely fits with the zombie B-movie aesthetic they’re aiming for. 

Variability: I’m honestly a little torn over this one. On the one hand, there’s something to be said for putting everyone on a very level playing field – everyone can do the same stuff, the only difference to be had is based on a decision you make about what weapon to carry. It’s almost a nice change from something like Team Fortress 2, where there is (or should be) a ton of strategy involved in choosing a class.  On the other hand, I can only assume that in a zombie apocalypse that certain people would survive for certain reasons, and that not all of those reasons would be the same. So to have the four characters pretty much identical beyond the model, voice and attitude (none of which are controllable by the player) seems a little short-sighted to me. That being said, I don’t really know how to rectify the situation without getting into the class balancing issues – something Valve has started addressing with the class updates in TF2. The class element brings a degree of uniqueness to each session – you can choose your class based on how you feel like playing the game that particular day. Now, because I’ve only played the demo, I can’t speak to the Versus mode, which sounds like it has a little more variation thanks to the boss zombies. That may very well take care of my reservations, but I haven’t seen it. I can certainly see both sides of the fence on this one, but I think I fall on the side of customization, which isn’t where Valve was going for this one. 

Single-player: I love single-player games. For awhile growing up, I didn’t have an internet connection that could really support decent online multiplayer, and in college I couldn’t afford to pay for an Xbox Live subscription, so I really came to appreciate a well-executed single-player game. Valve has most certainly championed that, taking the shooter genre to levels it had not previously seen with the Half-Life universe. I’m sure a little bit of it has to do with the fact that in most multiplayer games… I get my ass handed to me. I’m not bad, I’m just nowhere near as good as the people who really know these games and dominate the servers. I’ve never snubbed multiplayer – Battle.net, Team Fortress Classic and now TF2 have constantly grabbed gaming hours – but in most cases I’ve never even considered multiplayer until I beat the crap out of the single-player campaign. For me, it’s like an extended training ground. And to that extent, Left 4 Dead works. Playing the bots offline definitely gets you comfortable and prepared for the online play. Heck, more than that – because switching to online co-op adds other thinking humans to your team, multiplayer becomes easier on paper. What is disappointing for me is that lack of difference. There’s nothing unique or more in-depth about the single-player campaign in this one. 

Admittedly, that’s by design. Valve made it very clear what they were making. It was designed as a co-op game, with single player as an option for those who want a break from other people. I get that. But I think there are ways they could have gone that could have made the game a little bit deeper, and filled in some of the gaps in the game’s background story (again, I realize it was designed to function as four different “movie” campaigns. I’m just tossing around some ideas). What about giving each character a personalized “origin story” of sorts? Show Louis fighting his way out of his overrun office building; we could find Francis with his back to the wall as his favorite dive bar is surrounded by the newly-infected; Zoey could have a whole campus to get through in order to connect with the others; Bill might have been at the local veteran’s hospital – or holed up in his basement gun room – when the disaster hit. They each find their way to a common point, thus begins the No Mercy campaign. There’s also, I think, a good opening for some sort of Sole Survivor mode. Expanding it beyond a time trial should be left to better minds than me, but if you look at something like Dead Rising, there’s certainly an appeal to being the only one left and surviving by any means necessary. 

I don’t think the demo really showcases everything Left 4 Dead has to offer, nor should it. It’s a demo. But there are certain sections that aren’t clear to me – I’m still a little fuzzy on the AI Director – outside of triggering the horde in different places at different times, I didn’t notice any real change in gameplay in my dozen online sessions. I think a taste of Versus mode would have been very helpful, at least for me, to see some of the variability I was looking for in play styles. Some sort of preview - maybe not necessarily playable, but something - of the other three campaigns would have been nice to see what you’re in for with the full version. But it’s not like they can shove everything into a single demonstration, because there’s no surprises left for the buyers. 

In the end, there’s no doubt that Left 4 Dead is a good, fun game. The first horde rush two minutes into the demo will tell you that. I just wonder about its longevity. I also wonder if its longevity as a whole would be vastly different than its longevity with me specifically. Maybe I went in looking for something too specific from the game, but the fact is I didn’t quite find what I was looking for, and if I’m going to drop $50 on a game, I really would like to know that I’m getting something with a little staying power. I pre-ordered Half-Life 2 and beat it in the first weekend. I still play through it once every couple months. I don’t see the depth in Left 4 Dead that excites me. And because of that, I’ll definitely be waiting for price cuts. 

Don’t get me wrong… Left 4 Dead will make a lot of people very happy. I just won’t be one of them. At least not yet. 

Hate in Post-Election America

There was going to be backlash. Whichever way the vote went last night, there was no possible outcome that was going to make everyone happy. Despite the electoral college landslide, President-Elect Obama will enter a country more ideologically divided than any other time in recent history. This election, these campaigns and these candidates brought out the absolute worst in people, both intentionally and not. Both campaigns have slung accusations at each other that have been misleading at best and outright lies at worst. A sample:

-         Barack Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961. Hawaii became a US state in 1959. As far as the law is concerned, via the 14^th Amendment of the Constitution, that makes him a natural-born citizen, and eligible to hold the office of the presidency, despite his father being a Kenyan citizen. Not often mentioned during this campaign was John McCain’s citizenship status, which could just as easily been the subject of partisan screaming. McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 when it was under US control. Why wasn’t this brought up? Because it does not affect his citizenship. A law passed in 1937 and legally applied to all prior births in the US-controlled area granted citizenship to anyone born there, not to mention the fact that both of McCain’s parents were citizens, granting him citizenship that way. Neither one is an issue.

 -         Barack Obama is not a Muslim. Nor does it matter if he is a Muslim. We all know when and why Muslim became a dirty word in this country, and it’s painfully unfair to all Muslim-Americans who want the exact same things that anyone else does. Like anything else – conservatives, liberals, Democrats, Republicans, members of every possible religious faith, Red Sox fans and Yankees fans – the craziest members are the ones that find the reason and means to shout louder than everyone else, and ruin it for the rest of us. This country has a long history rooted in religion, but not just one. The Pilgrims, the founders of this country we all take such great pride in? They left England because the Church of England had an interpretation of the Bible that they found far too lenient. From them Roger Williams, Anne Hutchinson and others all left Massachusetts for religious intolerance to form Rhode Island. Utah was founded when Mormon pioneers fled religious intolerance in the Midwest. All these groups have now reconciled and integrated back into the rest of the country. When are we going to allow Muslims to do the same? 

-         John McCain is not George W. Bush. He earned his maverick status through the early and mid-90s, breaking with his party and building a reputation for work across party lines. More recently in his career, he has moved into a more traditional conservative position, even boasting about 90% agreement with the Bush Administration. These two claims proved difficult if not impossible to reconcile. 

-         Barack Obama is not a socialist. Or a Marxist. Or a communist. The tax reform he’s proposing does something that has significant precedent in the US. Because of the massive economic struggle America now faces, the market is reacting by raising the prices on a lot of goods, causing the basic cost of living to rise. Average wages, however, have not risen at the same rate, creating a pretty clear discrepancy and issue. Obama’s plan does “spread the wealth” to a certain extent, but the increases to individuals making over $250,000 a year should not be anything that creates the sort of pinch those making significantly less than that are starting to feel. The basic premise behind the tax changes is that for those Americans who have been able to realize their American Dream and become profitable because of it, they will now be called to give something back to those who are still struggling to do so. Considering that many of the people in those upper echelons who will get a tax increase made their money providing goods and services to those who will get the decrease (meaning the lower group gave the wealth to the upper group), this doesn’t really seem like all that radical an idea. It’s also no designed to “level the playing field.” No single tax break, unless it was truly extreme, would ever be able to moderate the wealth of citizens across the board. That would be dangerous, outrageous and would never, ever get through any governing body. 

-         Barack Obama is as much a terrorist or terrorist sympathizer as John McCain. Bill Ayers, Rashid Khalidi, Jeremiah Wright, Charles Keating, John Hagee, Sarah Palin, Tony Rezko.. Everyone has skeletons. Some of them are not nearly as big a deal as anyone thinks, and neither candidate is as close to any of them as the other would have you believe. 

What has been most disturbing to me is that since the numbers started coming in, the outpouring of hate has been tremendous. I thought it reached a fever pitch somewhere in late September, when the crap being shouted at rallies for either side was stepping way over the line. The one rational thing it tells us is how painfully divided this country is. You need look no further than McCain’s own supporters booing him when he announced he had called to congratulate Obama; posts on forums all over the web are starting to bring out the crazies (Fox News wins the award for the first mainstream website to have a commenter suggest that the President-Elect ought to share something else in common with JFK… I’m sure you can figure out what). There is no doubt that Barack Obama has his work cut out for him starting January 21^st, but look at it this way. In 20 months, a little more than a year and a half, he won over half the country. He now has four years to win over the other half. 

Here’s hoping… good luck.

VOTE!

It doesn't matter who for. Just vote. When our country works, this is why. Every vote that lifts a candidate nearer to elected office really only means one thing: that candidate works for one more person. By casting your vote for John McCain, Barack Obama or any of the third party candidates, you claim your little piece of ownership in this government.

Our system, flawed though it is, is designed to allow us more control than any other country on earth. It gives us each a voice. Use yours.