Left 4 Dead

Left 4 Dead (abbreviated L4D) is a multiplayer co-operative survival horror FPS game developed by Valve Corporation. The game was built using Source engine and is available on PC and Xbox 360. During early development, its working title was "Terror Strike."

The game puts four human playable or AI-controlled Survivors of an apocalyptic pandemic against hordes of the Infected. Regular Infected are controlled by the game AI, while human players can control up to four mutated Boss Infected with special abilities in versus mode. The goal of Left 4 Dead for the Survivors is to help each other make it through a level to safety. Infected players must cooperate to stop them.

Left 4 Dead was released on November 18, 2008 in the United States and November 21st in Europe. The game was first revealed in the Christmas 2006 publication of PC Gamer UK with a six-page article describing a playthrough at Valve's headquarters. A teaser was released with The Orange Box. The game was first playable at the Showdown 2007 LAN in San Jose and at QuakeCon 2007. A demo, initially to be released on November 6, 2008 to people who pre-ordered the game, was publicly released on November 11, 2008.

As of December 07, 2008, Left 4 Dead earned an 88 out of 100 from Metacritic. To see the info about the updates, go to Update info.

The basic gameplay never changes from map to map, so players will learn their way around fairly quickly. The Director keeps things from getting monotonous, however, by throwing in different challenges in every level. No two playthroughs are exactly alike.

The Cover
Valve says the cover represents the title of the game, due to the hand being the "left" hand while only having "4" fingers while also being "dead," making up the title (Left 4 Dead). Also others have speculated that the hand has some sort of significance to what transpired during the first 2 weeks, as another image of this hand being x-rayed can be seen in The Hospital level in No Mercy.

The Survivors
There are four playable human characters in the game. Every Survivor has his or her own unique appearance, personality, and background, though all Survivors are equal in speed, strength, rate of fire and health etc. There is no strongest Survivor, so character choice is purely player preference.

The Infected
In addition to the common Infected, there are 5 different types of Special Infected in the game. Only 4 are usable by players in Versus Mode. Each Infected has its own unique attacks and method of use, but all attempt to work in tandem to defeat the Survivors before they complete the level.

System requirements
Minimum:

Supported OS: Microsoft Windows XP / Vista / Vista64 / Windows 7 Beta

Processor: Pentium 4 3.0GHz

Memory: 1 GB

Graphics: 128 MB, Shader model 2.0, ATI 9600, NVidia 6600 or better

Hard Drive: At least 7.5 GB of free space

Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card

Recommended:

Supported OS: Microsoft Windows XP / Vista / Vista64

Processor: Intel core 2 duo 2.4GHz

Memory: 1 GB

Graphics: Shader model 3.0, NVidia 7600, ATI X1600 or better

Notice:

The game has been tested on a laptop running on Windows Vista Home Premium (SP1) with 1GB of RAM on GeForce Go 6150. The game would work smoothly given that video settings would be set to minimal. On the other hand, when tested using a GeForce FX 5500 video card (accompanied by 1GB of RAM), graphics were distorted and the game was deemed unplayable.

Engine
See: Source Engine (Wikipedia)

Left 4 Dead uses the latest version of Valve's Source engine, with improvements such as multi-core processor support and physics-based animation to more realistically portray hair and clothing.

Many kinds of post processing cinematic visual effects have been added to the game, each intended to elicit responses from players and guide them through the game. These include situational color correction, contrast and sharpening, film grain and vignetting.

Dry surfaces and fog are used to create mood.

Other games that use the Source Engine include:
 * Counter-Strike: Source
 * Garry's Mod
 * The Orange Box (Team Fortress 2, Portal and Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One and Half-Life 2: Episode Two)
 * Mabinogi Heroes
 * Postal III
 * Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines