Left 4 Dead is absolutely awesome. That’s really all that needs to be said but I suppose I should elaborate.

Left 4 Dead - Coop Zombie Survival Horror. nuff said.

They only had the 360 version setup so I wasn’t very good at it but I got the hang of it. The controls worked pretty similar to just about any other 360 FPS I’ve player with the addition of the left shoulder button making you do a quick 180 degree turn. The thing I really noticed was the team dynamics. This definitely isn’t a game where you can run off like a commando and kill everything without your team. At one point I attempted to rush into a room only to find myself overwhelmed with zombies. The neat thing is you can keep track of your teammates easily. Their outline lights up on your screen when they’re in a different room or behind object. White means they’re ok, and red means they’re under attack. Reading the previews I thought that might be a weird and hard to get use to it but in reality it’s just really useful.

Instead of just dying you fall to the ground and pull out your pistol. You can still shoot zombies but can no longer move. Assuming you and your team manage to kill off all the zombies, another player can come over and help you up. They can also optionally heal you if they’ve picked up a first aid kit and are feeling generous. Of course, if you don’t manage to kill the zombies, they’ll swarm you and rip you to shreds. That effect was pretty cool aside from the being dead part. Respawning works differently too. Once you die you go into a spectator view similar to how it works in CS. As your team moves forward they’ll eventually see your aura appear ahead of them. To get back in the game your team needs to find the room you’re in and rescue you. This basically boils down to getting one of your teammates to open the door and let you out.

I only remember 3 different types of enemies: zombies, an exploding fat zombie and a big muscle-y thing that showed up right before I got ripped into a million pieces by about 20 zombies. The random spawning system Valve created keeps things tense. Sometime you won’t see anything for a minute then you’ll run into a group of 4 or 5, or out of nowhere 20 zombies are swarming all around you and it’s all you can do to beat them off. One particular creepy instance came while rescuing one of the previously killed players. While my team was letting him out of the closet, I turned around to see a single zombie running towards. I started shooting at it but it jumped to the side and clung to the side of an information booth. Of course then the four of us blew it to bits. I don’t recall any of the Zombies randomly spawning behind us like they did in System Shock 2 which is nice in a I can catch my breath way. Another really neat thing I witnesses as a group of guy who were on a street, at first there was a group of like 4 or 5 zombies ahead of them. Then one of players somehow to set off a car alarm which caused a shit ton of zombies to come running in from all directions.

I think I can safely say this is will be the best co-op zombie game ever. In just 20 minutes of play time I had 2 or 3 “oh shit moments” and while watching other people play it was apparent they were having the same experience. My only concern is Valve’s recent announcement that the free updates for TF2 on the PC are going to be Pay DLC for the 360 version. I know both my laptop and PC aren’t capable of running L4D is a playable manner but I’m hesitant to get the 360 version only to miss out on extra content later on down the line. I may end up having to finally upgrade my PC to play this game.

2007 was a big year. I graduated college, got a crappy job, got an awesome job and had a few ups and downs. It was also the year I returned to gaming. In 2006, aside from the occasional round of CS:Source, or Mario 3 Battlemode, I didn’t do hardly any gaming. I’m not even sure if I bought any games that year. This year; however, I got 3 video game systems (Wii, DS and 360) and more games than the past five years combined (30+). All that and there’s still a rather beefy list of games I didn’t get around to checking out. Here’s my top 5 games played in 2007:

1. The Orange Box (PC)
   Portal and Team Fortress 2. Enough Said. I’ve already talked about TF2 and gave a brief mention to Portal. Combined together in one box this package is almost unbeatable. Portal was short but the most inventive game I’ve played in a long time. TF2 has already replaced CS: Source as my go to game on the PC. A great value and a great time!
2. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
   This is easily the best game released for the Wii to date. The controls are great and use just the right amount of motion without feeling tacked on. The gameplay is fun and I constantly find myself saying “just one more star”. There’s also tons of variety in levels, I haven’t found a level yet where I thought the game was overly difficult or broken. Although Two player co-op is somewhat disappointing.
3. Rock Band (360)
   Despite only owning the game for six days last year it’s easily one of the best. Guitar/Bass is a bit easier that GH3. The drums are wicked fun to play (despite my lack of coordination). Singing is fun when you have someone who can sing. The track list is better than GH3 despite having less songs. There’s just something undeniably awesome about getting a bunch of people together and rocking. The downside, It is a huge pain in the ass to carry around all that crap; My original guitar was defective and I’m waiting on a replacement; and I can’t use the same characters for different instruments.
4. Guitar Hero 3 (Wii)
   Before Rock Band there was Guitar Hero 3. I bought this game twice, just to get a second guitar for multiplayer. Even after Rock Band it’s still a blast. (It’s also much more portable) Despite the Wii version getting screwed over with mono sound, no DLC (until later this year), and crappy online multiplayer, I’m still happy I got the Wii version. It’s waay more portable and GH3 (and Rock Band) are meant to be played with people in the same room.
5. Paper Mario (Wii- VC)
   Initially I was going to put Super Paper Mario here. The dialogue was great, I had fun playing it and have no regrets buying it but realistically it’s not top five material. It was waaay to easy. Less like a game and more like a story with a lot of walking and jumping. It did get me interested in it’s great granddaddy, Paper Mario. So Paper Mario came out six years ago, I never bought an n64 so it’s new to me. Anyway back to the game, It was a lot of fun but I’m still disappointed I got a fish instead of getting to ride Yoshi around.

Close but not quite:

• Metroid Prime 3 (Wii)
  I like the game so far especially the controls but haven’t had a chance to play much of it yet.
• Halo 3 (360)
  It’s pretty looking and I hear the multiplayer is good but this is another game I haven’t had much time to play with. I plan on using this game to learn how to play console FPSs.
• Bioshock (360)
  Supposedly one of the best games this year, I want it and I want it bad but I don’t have to time for another game right now.

The Team Fortress Classic was my first love affair with online gaming. I remember meeting up with friends in the Half-Life Spanish Chat room on WON. Coordinating our efforts to find a server we could all play in while hoping noone in my family would try to make a phone call and disconnect me. My first clan (*HWF*) played TFC and we talked about how we’d all switch over to TF2 once it came out. It was a long wait. TF2 was originally announced in 1998 as a realistic, team-based, war game and shown off at E3 in 1999, then delayed in 2000 so it could be ported to the Source engine and eventually just not talked about. In 2004 Valve stated that TF2 was still in development and in 2006 it was mentioned again. Last month roughly 8 years after being announced it was finally released as part of the Orange Box.

…and boy is it fun. It is well balanced, runs pretty darn good on my not so top of the line system. The game looks like a cartoon with a decent amount of blood and gore thrown in. Each of the classes has their own style, voice, and personality. The games oozes style and that style works really well. it actually reminds me a bit of No One Lives for Ever, minus the 60’s. Much of the game has been simplified from TFC. Grenades are gone, as are many guns, the flashlight, ammo backpacks, armor, etc. It actually took me sometime to notice that a lot of that stuff was missing. One of my favorite additions to the games is the stats and achievements. I love being able to keep track of my stats for each class and overall.

As for the classes it’d take me all day to cover them all. My favorite class so far is the scout, who isn’t too different from TFC. He gained a double jump which replaces the concussion jump in TFC. He lost the nail gun which I really miss when trying to take out a sentry gun but his scattergun is more powerful (at short ranges) so he take out other players easier. Medic’s healing gun is awesome but his syringe launcher is lacking. It’s pretty good close range but for long range you’d have a better chance of hitting someone with your bone saw. I do miss is the ability to to infect people. When a medic teams up with a heavy and gets an uber charge that combination can cause some serious havoc. Engineers are still awesome. Supposedly spies are good but for some reason I haven’t had much luck with them. Snipers, Soldiers, Heavy Weapons Guys, Pyros, and Demomen aren’t terribly different from TFC but I haven’t played them much.

Like CS: Source when it came out TF2 has a noticeable lack of maps. Right now there are only 6 maps: ctf_2fort, cp_well, cp_dustbowl, cp_gravelpit, cp_granary and tc_hydro. I am hoping for a few more (Avanti, casbah, crossover, cz2, epicenter, rock2 and my all time favorites maps the hunted). Presumably some of them will be added eventually but I fear I may never get to experience the hunted in TF2. The majority of the maps are control point now as opposed to capture the flag I knew and loved in TFC. Even Well has been converted to the control points which is somewhat disapointing because I think it was a much better CTF map. Maps like dustbowl and hydro aee broken up into sections where you fight for control between two points rather than multiple. This adds some variation to the game by making one map feel like several.

I graduated both high school AND college while waiting for TF2. If anyone from *HWF* happens to read this I’m still around and I have a feeling I’ll be playing TF2 for quite awhile. In fact I’ve delayed posting this about 3 weeks because I was too busy playing to bother with writing about it. Since noone bothers to read any of this, I think it worked out ok.

As for the rest of the Orange Box. I couldn’t beat Half-Life 2 because it made me feel sick so I didn’t bother with Episode One and won’t bother with Episode Two until I get around to buying some dramamine and beat HL2 and Ep1. Portal is quite simply the most fun I’ve had playing single player FPS in a long time and is a complete triumph. It is bit short but full of humor and just plain inventiveness that it’s a huge success. I can only hope there’s a sequel on its way.