Left 4 Dead (Xbox 360)

In Left 4 Dead, four humans, Francis, Zoey, Bill, and Louis, had the bad luck to land in the middle of a zombie invested zone, are now trying to get to the evacuation point, and survive the apocalyptic pandemic. The game contains several scenarios which are all divided into several chapters with the goal to reach the save room and hundreds of zombies in-between.

The doors to the save rooms can’t be opened by the infected once closed and they contain weapons (shotguns, sub-machine guns, etc.), medipacks, and ammo for the survivors to restock before the next part of the journey.

The door of the save room can also be never opened again by the survivors once it’s closed so the team needs to stay together or otherwise they will have to decide whether they leave a friend behind or fight a hopeless battle at the save room door.

If a survivor is too badly damaged, the character goes down but is neither dead immediately nor defenseless.

The character still can shoot with a pistol at incoming zombies to make it easier for teammates to help the character up. This is especially important when one of the special zombies such as the Hunter, who can jump great distances and immediately downs his target, has a survivor in his grasp.

If the zombie isn’t killed in time, the teammate will be dead.

Other special zombies include the Tank, which is a huge mutated zombie that can take a few hundred bullets before it goes down and does a serious punch as well as the boomer which vomits on a survivor and immediately attracts dozens of new zombies. This also happens if a car burglar alarm goes of or something similar disturbs the night.

While the campaigns can be played either with AI controlled teammates or with other human players in co-op, the multiplayer also features an additional game mode called “Versus”. The basic premise remains the same with four players needing to get safely to the save room but at the same time four other players are randomly assigned the roles of one of the special zombies with the obvious goal to help the normal, AI-controlled infected to get rid of the survivors. The zombie players have the advantage that they can spawn almost anywhere on the map if it’s out of sight the survivors and see them through walls if they make a noise but are otherwise, except for the tank, easy to take down if noticed early.