Left 4 Dead Hands-On Preview, Continued

After working our way through the streets of a deserted, zombie-infested city, we came to a safehouse, which are marked by red doors and serve checkpoints in the game. The safehouses are pretty much the only places in the game where you won't be under attack or threatened by zombies. If one of your teammates is killed during action, he or she will return after reaching a safehouse checkpoint. You can also restock your ammo, obtain health kits and change weapons. Additional weapons include second-tier guns such as an M-16 automatic rifle and a Benelli M4 semi-automatic shotgun, as well as pipe bombs, which set off a beeping noise when thrown that attracts nearby zombies.

The development team also created several large scale battle sequences that are triggered by players opening a door or flipping a switch with a red exclamation point above it. For example, our team reached a dead end street with a gas station and was forced to use a mechanical lift to get on the roof of an adjacent warehouse. Once all four players were one the lift and turned it on, scores of zombies suddenly converged on us, climbing up to the roof. The gas station exploded in a ball of flames below us, and zombies began climbing up the walls and swarming us on the roof. It was a terrific, exhilarating action sequence with a great survival horror atmosphere.

Later, the scenario moved inside warehouses and then took us underground into dark subway tunnels. Another excellent element of Left 4 Dead is the game's meticulous level design, which creates plenty of frights and panic. Several times, our team became separated on a map because, whether we were inside a building or in a subway tunnel, there were so many doors, rooms and corridors branching off from the main path. And of course, it's a players' natural instinct to check out a room, hallway or tunnel nearest them.

When a player gets too far away from the rest of the group, his or her teammates will be illuminated with green silhouettes that can be viewed through walls and other structures. But even with that handy feature, I discovered it was extremely difficult to keep track of my three teammates. Again, communicating with the rest of the squad became extremely important. If a teammate lagged too far behind or went left when the rest of the group went right, a Hunter would suddenly leap out of the shadows and attack them. Staying together as a group became even harder as the demo went on because players began taking more damage, and when the survivors are wounded they begin to limp and move much slower.

If you take heavy damage and are near death, the screen will begin to darken to a black and white view. And if you are on the verge of dying, you'll fall to the ground or get knocked down by a zombie. In this state, players can fire their pistols for defense but can't survive unless a teammate comes to their aid and helps them up. Rescuing a fallen teammate during a zombie onslaught is quite difficult and it certainly provided some heart-pounding suspense during the demo. Players can earn points for healing and rescuing near-death teammates.

After our first run through the hospital demo, Valve allowed us to reload the demo and play through the same chapter again so that we could see the game's unpredictable and impressive artificial intelligence in action. Sure enough, the experience the second time around was completely different. Instead of a cluster of zombies in a room during the first time around, we found the room empty. But that only gave us a false sense of security, some another horde of zombies was hiding somewhere else on the map the second time through the chapter.

The enemy AI "director," as Valve calls it, made sure that the zombies didn't attacked from the same area in the same way twice, generating random spawn points for the undead and creating new combinations of enemy undead. This made Left 4 Dead just as scary - if not scarier - the second time through the chapter. My lasting thought as the demo came to a conclusion was if only every game had AI as good as this title's.

Left 4 Dead doesn't have to be played with four players. Valve explained that bots will take over the other three survivor roles if you want to play the game alone. But it's clear the game is much more fun to play with friends. The co-op action is fantastic, and part of the excitement is hearing your teammates shout for help or scream in surprise as Smokers latches on to them. And though we didn't get to play the demo as infected zombies, that feature should add a whole new dimension to the title. Left 4 Dead should be a great addition to Steam when it arrives this fall.

The game's graphics are powered by Valve's Source engine, of course. The visuals are a little more cartoon-like than some of the more advanced, photo-realistic graphics that we've seen in current games, but the design worked quite well, giving the zombies and gore plenty of color and vivid texture. The lighting was crucial, too; it felt like Valve had the shadows and darkness set just right for gameplay - not too dark to obstruct players' views but dark enough to enhance the fear and hide undead ambushes.

It looks like Valve has hit another home run. Left 4 Dead was certainly one of the best and most talked-about titles at this year's E3. The game is scheduled to arrive on the PC and Xbox 360 on Nov. 4. Stay tuned for more on Left 4 Dead on Tom's Games.

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