• GAME OF THE YEAR
  UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves (Sony Computer Entertainment / Naughty Dog)
• STUDIO OF THE YEAR
  Rocksteady Studios
• BEST SHOOTER
  Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Activision Publishing / Infinity Ward)
• BEST RPG
  Dragon Age: Origins (Electronic Arts / BioWare)
• BEST FIGHTING GAME
  Street Fighter IV (Capcom / Capcom/Dimps)
• BEST INDIVIDUAL SPORTS GAME
  UFC 2009 Undisputed (THQ / Yuke’s Media Creations)
• BEST HANDHELD GAME
  Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (Rockstar Games / Rockstar Leeds)
• BEST GRAPHICS
  UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves (Sony Computer Entertainment / Naughty Dog)
• BEST MUSIC GAME
  The Beatles: Rock Band (MTV Games / Harmonix)
• BEST DRIVING GAME
  Forza Motorsport 3 (Microsoft Game Studios / Turn 10)
• BEST ACTION ADVENTURE GAME
  Assassin’s Creed II (Ubisoft / Ubisoft Montreal)
• BEST TEAM SPORTS GAME
  NHL 10 (Electronic Arts / EA Canada)
• BEST SOUNDTRACK
  DJ Hero (Activision Publishing / FreeStyleGames)
• BEST XBOX 360 GAME
  Left 4 Dead 2 (Valve)
• BEST Wii GAME
  New Super Mario Bros. Wii (Nintendo)
• BEST PS3 GAME
  UNCHARTED 2: Among Thieves (Sony Computer Entertainment / Naughty Dog)
• BEST PC GAME
  Dragon Age: Origins (Electronic Arts / BioWare)
• BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
  Halo 3: ODST (Microsoft Game Studios / Bungie)
• BEST MULTI-PLAYER GAME
  Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Activision Publishing / Infinity Ward)
• BEST GAME BASED ON A MOVIE OR TV SHOW
  South Park Let’s Go Tower Defense Play! (Microsoft / DoubleSix)
• BEST CAST
  X-Men Origins: Wolverine Uncaged Edition (Activision Publishing / Raven Software)
• BEST PERFORMANCE BY A HUMAN MALE
  Hugh Jackman as Wolverine in X-Men Origins: Wolverine Uncaged Edition (Activision Publishing)
• BEST PERFORMANCE BY A HUMAN FEMALE
  Megan Fox as Mikaela Banes (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen / Activision Publishing)
• BEST VOICE
  Jack Black as Eddie Riggs (Brutal Legend / Electronic Arts)
• BEST DOWNLOADABLE GAME
  Shadow Complex (Microsoft Game Studios / Chair Entertainment)
• BEST COMEDY GAME
  Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard (D3Publisher / Vicious Cycle)
• BEST DLC
  Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony (Rockstar Games / Rockstar North)
• BEST INDEPENDENT GAME FUELED BY DEW
  Flower (ThatGameCompany)
• MOST ANTICIPATED GAME
  God of War III (Sony Computer Entertainment / SCE Studios Santa Monica)

To me, the video game awards are starting to become more and more like the Oscars are for the film industry–where the awards rarely reflect actual fan preferences and work on a flawed voting system.  With the Oscars the problem is that too few people select the winners.   With the video game awards, it’s the opposite problem–too many.  The voting is done through internet website voting, which as many geek knows is far from impervious to manipulation and spam voting.   When something wins an internet vote, all that tells me is they had the most people spamming votes and/or hacking the website to get extra votes counted.

Some of the awards I agree with, while many others I was surprised won (ex. Left 4 Dead 2, a virtual expansion pack).   I kind of felt this was going to be an off year for the awards show ever since I saw the nominations.  I still can’t believe they didn’t have Halo 3:ODST nominated for the Best Cast or Nathan Fillion nominated for the Best Performance by a Human Male.

My personal preference for what games should have won would have been these:

• Game of the Year: Dragon Age: Origins – Not a ton of pre-release advertising for this game, but because it’s made by BioWare, I went out and bought it.  Wow, this game is awesome.
• Studio of the Year: Gearbox Software – Brought us Borderlands, probably the most innovative RPG-Shooter game ever.  Not only that, but in the short time this game has been out, they’ve released one DLC package and have announced a second one.  How many other game studios take care of their customers like that?
• Best Xbox 360 Game: Borderlands – Great blend of the shooter and role playing genres.  Witty dialogue coupled with fun shooting gameplay.
• Best Shooter: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 – Probably the most anticipated video game ever.  This will be where I’ll spend most of my multiplayer gaming time at.
• Best RPG: Dragon Age: Origins – see above
• Best Action/Adventure Game: Brütal Legend – Great adventure game that brings the heavy metal music to a new medium – video games.  It’s got Jack Black in it too.
• Best Cast – Halo 3: ODST – A game that has Nathan Fillion (Serenity/Firefly, Castle), Adam Baldwin (Serenity/Firefly, Chuck), Alan Tudyk (Serenity/Firefly, V) and Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica, Burn Notice)?  Yes please.

Congratulations to Marty O’Donnell for winning the Best Original Score for Halo 3: ODST.  That game had some awesome music.  I’d recommend the soundtrack to anyone, even non-video game players.

With this guide, you should be equipped to handle most matches you’ll find online.

Survivor Commandments

Commandment I: Stick Together

There is NOTHING more important to surviving any given level than sticking together. Nobody breaks off from the formation. Lone players are EASY pickings; not even the BEST player will be able to shoot off EVERY smoker, punt EVERY hunter, and most DEFINITELY won’t be able to solo every VS tank. Sticking close has many benefits: Hunters will be removed from pounces very quickly minimizing damage, Smokers won’t be able to separate you as easily, and boomers will have low effect as a close group will swat around normal infected reducing their attacks. The only situation where you break this rule is for Witch cr0wning. In this case,  everyone moves to cover the cr0wner in case they fail so that the witch won’t kill them, and to cover from opportunistic infected players.

Commandment II: Move Fast

Infected respawn on a timer. Usually this is about 30 seconds. If you stay in one location for more than that, you’ve effectively given them a pass on their previous death and a free attempt to kill you. Do not let this happen. You hunker down while you’re boomed to handle the normals that swarm you, then you get moving immediately. The fewer respawns you give your infected opponents, the more life you will retain at the end increasing your score. Fewer attacks also mean fewer chances for group splits, and even better: fewer team wipes. Keep moving.

Commandment III: Kill the Special Infected

When an ally has a hunter on them, KILL THEM. Don’t punch them off unless they’re about to be incapped. If the pounced person has plenty of health, take the extra second and kill the hunter. By punching him, you make him mobile and give yourself a more difficult shot to land so take advantage of the enemy being stationary. Likewise, unless a smoker is about to pull your ally off a ledge/cliff/out a window, kill the smoker. He has to reveal himself to attack, so he should be an easy target. Only exception: be careful where you kill the boomer as to avoid unnecessary bile-ings. The reason for making sure the enemy is dead is that they have 30 seconds before they can even SPAWN to plan to attack you again. If you let them live, you give them a free attack. In the case of smokers, their tongue takes 15 seconds to recharge: two free attacks. The Hunter can just pounce around and then nail a big 25 damage pounce if you let them escape. Boomers take about as long to recharge their vomit as they do to respawn, but they can position themselves far in advance, giving them an advantage you shouldn’t allow the enemy.

Commandment IV: Protect Weakend Players

Low health players move slower than players in the green. They won’t be able to keep up. So stick with them until you can get them healed. Incapped survivors can only use their pistols, and have a very large scatter pattern and slowed fire rate. They need protection more than anyone. When a survivor is healing themselves, healing an ally, or reviving a teammate, EVERYONE should fall in to protect them until the situation improves and the march can resume. Never leave a survivor alone that is currently incapable of defending themselves. The whole team must protect each other to make it to the goal with maximum score. If a player is covered in vomit, but the others are ok, surround him and deal with the infected. Do your best to not allow any damage through.

Commandment V: Communicate

Call out important things. You see a boomer? Say where he is. Hunter pounce you? Announce it. Not everyone will know about every event in a round of Left 4 Dead, and a hunter pounce that has gone unnoticed will result in an incap. Hunters do heavy damage so they need to be removed as fast as possible. Smokers can be a huge pain if not dealt with, dragging you down to an area you were at previously while doing light damage. If left alone, they are just as capable of killing you as anything else in the game. If you get incapped, call it out. Not everyone has their eyes on the whole screen. Make sure everyone knows what is going on, and you’ll have a much better chance at succeeding.

Commandment VI: Know the Map

If you don’t know where to go or where important items are likely to spawn, then you are going to be a major drag on your team. Make a couple of runs through a single player easy campaign: You’ll be familiar with the levels in no time. You might not memorize health/weapon/grenade locations, but you’ll have the necessary knowledge of the level’s layout to not be a hinderance to your team. This rolls into Commandment V: Communicate. Teammates can let you know where helpful items are likely to be.

Commandment VII: Skip Unneeded Healthkits

This might seem like it should go into the “Move Fast” commandment, but I felt it necessary to be its own commandment. In a given round of Left 4 Dead, you’re bound to run across several health kits at all parts of the level (Unless you’ve just been DOMINATING and the director feels to cut your opponents a lot of slack.) If everyone is above 80 health, skip the health-packs if everyone has them. Why? The Health bonus at the end is negligible if that health kit you just HAD to use ends with a team-wipe. If you can put pressure on the infected they will make mistakes. Stopping for unnecessary health kits can, and often does, result in much LESS health than when you stopped for it. If you don’t need it, don’t stop for it.

Advanced Techniques and Tips

Section I: Blinded

When a boomer hits you with its puke attack (or gets killed in close proximity to you) you’ll be covered in bile and your ability to see will be greatly hindered temporarily. During this time, you’re especially vulnerable. There are some useful strategies for dealing with this predicament. First: If possible, back into a corner. This will alow your melees to push away the majority of infected coming your way. Also, when your allies need help (Hunter pounce, other infected) try to get close while continually meleeing. Infected can’t attack when they’re reeling from a survivor melee. If they have a hunter on them, trying to obey Commandment III: Kill the Special Infected can be rather difficult. You will see your ally’s name: Aim below it and start firing in between melees. This should at least remove the hunter from your ally and in the process stop the rapid damage they deal.

Section II: Smokers

Smokers can be a real pain in the ass. They attack from rooftops where it is difficult to get a good shot.  Obeying Commandment III can be difficult at times. If the smoker will have to do a lot of running to attack again, and will be forced to attack from a predictable area (The train tunnel in Blood Harvest is a good example) then you can get away with just freeing your ally and moving forward.

Section III: Witches

Witches are extremely dangerous if startled, otherwise they will not actively attack you. They are somewhat difficult to kill, but can be one-shotted by “cr0wning” her with a shotgun. You close to point blank and shoot her in her face, about where her head meets her neck. This should result in a one shot kill, removing the danger. The enemy is known for attempting to force you next to her, which wakes her up and sets her off, by either dragging you over with the Smoker, or attempting to blind you so that you stumble upon her. They sometimes sit behind her trying to force you to fire at them, which could accidentally hit the witch sending her into an auto-incap frenzy. In the event a witch downs someone, KILL HER IMMEDIATELY. She will let out a scream and immediately shred your downed teammate until they are dead, or she is. This is a very fast attack. If possible, the witch should be avoided. If she is very far off the beaten path, you can cruise right on by with almost no risk. First, make sure the enemy smoker has been killed in the past 10 seconds, then have everyone rush by. If she is in the way, then you’ll need to send your most reliable person ahead to try and cr0wn her. In the event nobody is particularly skilled at cr0wning, send the person with the least amount of health.

Remember: The enemy will really push their attack (if they’re smart) while there is a live witch just waiting to be alerted to you. Be very very wary of ALL infected around a witch while your person moves forward to cr0wn. Do your best to not fire upon the witch or get too close, as this can disrupt the crowning process. Use a range weapon (your pistol if lacking) to pick off common infected.

Alternately, if one of your team is equipped with a Hunting Rifle, landing a headshot on the with will stun her for a few seconds. Hit her from range, then have the entire team unload their weapons into her. This is effective in open areas where the witch is blocking the route and you can mitigate threat from infected players.

Section IV: Tanks

Tanks are very tough, and can easily incapacitate two survivors in the BEST scenario. Your best bet is to attempt to catch them on fire, which steadily depletes their health and makes killing them take much less time. Keep your distance and fill it with as much lead as possible. If it corners a survivor, put as much fire in his back as you can. Most likely he’ll pound the individual until that person is incapped, and then move on. When their health goes red, start backing away while keeping the fire going. You’re likely to suffer at least one casualty. Level 1 weapons (Shotgun and Uzi, single pistol) make it very very tough to take down a tank. Keeping a molotov handy will drain its health, but you need to overall keep together as a group to put the maximum hurt on the tank. If it is still alive, it will find and kill you. A tank is all it takes to end most survivor runs. Focus fire and kill it!

Section V: Random hints and tips

Subtitles: If you play with subtitles on, you will get cues that you might not normally catch. If you play with a high-quality sound system or headset, you can probably get away with not turning them on. They will alert you to a wide variety of events in game. When a special infected is around, explosions, special infected pain, witch/tank noise, and the like. Its a personal preference, but if you need to keep the sound way down, consider flipping this option on for the same ques the audio normally gives.

Playing the Infected: General Rules

The Infected don’t run by the same rigid rules the survivors do. They have infinite lives (at least until the survivors finish the level) so living through an attack is not as important as it is to a survivor. As such, general guidelines and specific tactics are outlined below.

Rule 1: Never attack head on

This one is important. If a survivor sees you coming from a mile away, they’re going to alert their teammates and then that can lead to several fewer hits, and that much less damage. They might also be able to kill you before you even attack. This is USUALLY the case. This is why, as a boomer, its important to get them from around a corner as they run by, or to get them from above. If you attack, try to get in between several of them so that in their rush to kill you, your explosion covers several in bile. Vision impaired survivors have a much more difficult time fighting off common infected, and CAN’T see if an ally is being attacked by a hunter (No red outline) or dragged off by a smoker (no yellow outline.) Which leads us to the next rule:

Rule 2: Never attack alone

If you pounce one of 4 healthy survivors in a tight cluster by yourself, you’re going to die after only having dealt 5 paltry damage, and now you’re going to be waiting 25+ seconds to respawn. Attacking with at LEAST 2 people at once vastly improves the damage you’re going to put out. Always try to cut off survivors going to rescue a friend: It slows them down from doing so increasing the overall damage output of an attack. If you see a boomer ally attack, grab survivors WITHOUT the purple outline: Their allies will have a much tougher time noticing their friend has been dragged off by a smoker, or has a hunter on them. Not to mention the horde of common infected slowing them down twofold: Being in the way and actually slow-down from their hits. If your smoker friend drags off a survivor, pounce the ally returning for him. Cover the dragged survivor in bile. Team up on the survivors. You ARE on the infected “team.” If four special infected attack at about the same time, chances are 3 survivors are going to be unable to protect themselves/each other AND the several will be covered in Bile. This is a heavily damaging assault, and if you land an incap, your attack can be considered a success. Incaps SEVERELY slow down the survivor advance, meaning more chances to attack. And, at the very least, they’re going to need to heal. This still means they’re not moving. So 5 seconds to revive, 5 seconds to heal, or they plod off with low health and speed. Incap=opportunity.

Rule 3: Attack the weakest survivor

The sooner you incapacitate a survivor, the better your chance at killing ALL of them by means of “more spawns, more damage” as infected. Incapped survivors can’t move, and have VERY poor damage output with slow-firing, wildly inaccurate dual pistols. They have to be revived, which means only 2 survivors are capable of fighting unless the third drops their downed ally, which restarts the revive timer. So, do your best as a pack to try and down one survivor. The less progress survivors make, the longer it takes, the more spawns, and better chance at a wipeout attack. Also, hitting the downed survivor resets the revive timer, so “shanking” the downed survivor lands bonus points for style.

Rule 4: Abuse Tank/Witch

To abuse a witch, get a smoker and grab a passing survivor and drag them to her. She’ll wake up and provide you a free incap. Otherwise, boom the enemy and try to draw them to her. They’ll have a very tough time seeing her while blinded, so waking her up while trying to shoot you is a possibility. In odd situations, you can run up and smack her and the survivor if they’re trying to cr0wn, meaning the witch wakes up. Also, the boomer can melee the witch and “wake her up” meaning that the slightest provocation will set her off. Careful when you do this, as survivors that can see the witch can see you.
To abuse the tank, when you roll one, evaluate your situation: Are you outside in an open area, or inside close quarters where survivors cannot maneuver effectively? If you’re outside, keep your distance and throw as much concrete at them as you can. Wait for them to corner themselves and move in. Let your allies whittle them down while you can. If you’re inside, rush them. They’re bound to get caught on a corner while backing up, and you can incap them easily once they do. As a tank, AVOID CATCHING FIRE. This will drain your health rapidly, and kill you long before your time. If there is deep water (Death Toll Finale) jump in: It will douse the flames. Don’t be afraid to use concrete at a long distance. Just aim up like you would with a hunter pounce, and have at it. You might get lucky and knock one down and do heavy damage. Better opportunites for your allies!

Tactics

1. Sharking

What this entails is the dedicated assault of, at minimum, 3 of the 4 infected in attacking a single survivor with the objective of incapacitation. The term “Sharking” comes from the feeding frenzy that sharks are driven into upon smelling blood… well imagine seeing the red survivor outline meaning they’re weak as a magnet for your attacks. Follow the above rules, and attempt to do as much damage as possible to one survivor. Even if they’re not incapped, they’re going to slow the rest down quite a bit.

2. Frog Slash from the TOP ROPE

Smoker grabs victim. Hunter is in place well above the smoker and the victim. Hunter has an easy, immobile target to nail for a high-damage pounce. Max is 25. See if you can break 20! Not only that, but the smoker will be dealing damage while you are pretending to be a WWII bomber.

3. Boomerkazi

This one is simple. Get above the survivors as the boomer (Easiest to execute on NM1, in the alleyway, but there are other places this is possible.) Simply drop down and attack with your bile, and cover as many as you can. If you’re lucky, a survivor will panic and shoot you, causing you to explode and definitely cover several of them. You can also do this after vomiting on a survivor or two, then running past them and attacking them, trying to get them to kill you and further coat their allies.

4. The Tankstraction

Tanks are powerhouses. They can incap in 4 hits or so, and can take a ton of damage. However, this is not their only purpose. Good survivor teams will be huddled together to protect them from you. The tank can EASILY divide a pack of survivors making them easy pickings for your allies. Simply maneuver to try and separate them, and let your friends attack. If you can land a hit, focus on downing that person. Stay close to them while your allies work the enemy. This way, they can’t sneak around and revive their ally and get away.

5. Tankwalling

This is an alternative to the above. A hunter or smoker is attacking a survivor, so the tank positions himself in between the trapped survivor and his would-be rescuers. They will not get close enough to free him, so chuck concrete when an opportunity presents itself. Once that survivor is incapped, rush to help the next infected get a down.

6. Multipounce

Occasionally you’ll have 3 hunters spawned. You’re limited to 1 smoker and 1 boomer, but I suppose Hunters can two or 3. Multipouncing is gathering a group of hunters to lay in ambush, then when the survivors come through jumping them at once. If your fourth can distract the only one not getting pounced (Blinded by boomer) then you will do heavy damage.

7. Overhang Pulls

Grabbing people with the Smoker and pulling them over a ledge, and sometimes you get a “Fall down” which they’re hanging on to the edge of a fall. A good spot is right before the rope bridge in Blood Harvest 1. Grab them from across the gorge (You’ll have to jump the wire-fence to get in position) and grab them if they wander too close. You’ll pull them down and they’ll effectively be incapped. Have hunters jump whoever goes to help, and you’ll have a high-damage assault and huge delay.

8. Save the boom

This involves having used your bile attack, covered some survivors, and you didn’t get killed in the process. Take your first opportunity to run ahead in the level, where the survivors need to go next. This way, your bile attack recharges, and you can use it again. Of course, if the survivors haven’t progressed at all since your previous attack, feel free to move back and set up another ambush. Chances are you won’t get to do this more than once, but generally being annoying as possible as the boomer is highly beneficial. Dragging an infected mob in to attack as well as all the pre-spawned infected means they keep getting slowed, are blinded for a good deal of time, and most of all: bait for your allies.

9. Concrete Rain

Some stay dry while others… wait, not what we’re talking about. This, of course, will involve the Tank. Should you get him a fair distance away on an open level (Huge disadvantage for a tank) you should take this opportunity to rain concrete on survivors. Aim high, in their general direction, and hope you score a few hits so your frustration meter doesn’t empty. For enhanced teamwork, an ally that has yet to spawn can stand near where survivors are and tell you whether your shots are short or far, so you can adjust and hopefully deal some good damage while being relatively immune to return fire. In an open level, attacking survivors is suicide. They can run circles around you and can fill you with fire from all angles. Closing to melee range is only an option indoors. Of course, if you see several purple outlines, your boomer friend took advantage of the distraction you provided, now you must do the same. It takes about 6 seconds for the bile to start clearing from their vision, and during that time are not very likely to see you in their face until its too late. They’ll feel their controller rumbling, see their screen shaking, but won’t know you’re nailing them until its too late. Also, as a rule: If a survivor has a hunter on them, DO NOT ATTACK. Hit the others. The survivor with the hunter will be dying shortly.

With this groundwork in place, you’ll be well on your way to destroying the opposition. Alter things so they fit for you, but don’t ever forget the big rules: Never separate as the survivors, and take advantage of the heightened mobility of the special infected to attack from unexpected angles.

Cross Posted at Cheesecake’s Rage

Press Release:

August 4, 2009 – Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Half-Life, Portal, Team Fortress, and Counter-Strike) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced the next major downloadable content (DLC) update for its co-operative zombie thriller, Left 4 Dead (L4D), the #1 new game title on Xbox 360 and PC in 2008

Entitled “Crash Course,” the latest DLC delivers new single-player, multiplayer and co-operative gameplay to both platforms. Targeted for release in September, “Crash Course” bridges the gap between the end of the “No Mercy” campaign and the beginning of “Death Toll” in the original game, expanding the game universe with new locations, new dialogue from the original cast, and an explosive finale While containing both Survival maps and a Co-operative Campaign, the primary goal of “Crash” is to deliver a complete Versus mode experience in just 30 minutes, resulting in a streamlined version of the game’s existing Versus campaigns. A recharge timer for infected teammates has also been added, and item spawn behavior has changed for more balanced gameplay.

“Since the release of Left 4 Dead last November, the design team has been excited about creating new experiences for this world and allowing players to do the same, by releasing much of our internal toolset, like the Survival Pack and Authoring Tools,” said Gabe Newell. “We’re working with the fans toward the ongoing entertainment value of the product.”

Left 4 Dead is an action horror game from Valve that blends the social entertainment experience of multiplayer games such as Counter-Strike and Team Fortress with the dramatic, narrative experience made popular in single player action game classics such as the Half-Life series of games. Released in November of 2008, L4D has earned over 50 industry awards from outlets around the world and sold almost 3 million copies worldwide.

Left 4 Dead: Crash Course is targeted for release in September and will be available free of charge on the PC and for 560 Gamer points on Xbox Live.
For more information, please visit www.l4d.com

Faced with high expectations, Valve was careful not to slip up with Left 4 Dead. The game is filled with life-like graphics, detailed buildings and textures, and full sound effects that make this a very realistic shooter. The different zombie roles will keep you on your toes, keeping you coming back to play it again and again.

Left 4 Dead doesn’t shy from the zombie genre’s roots in motion pictures. Each campaign is a separate movie in which your party attempts to reach the end alive, complete with theater posters featuring each of the survivors, credits and all. The party consists of four strangers thrown together with only their fight for survival in common. Francis is an average American biker who looks and attempts to be the big bad man. Bill is an older war veteran, filled with knowledge and expertise of military tactics. Louis is an African American office worker, completely at odds with his new situation. Last, but certainly not least, is Zoey, the innocent women that just happened to land in the wrong place at the wrong time (or right place at the right time, depending on your point of view). Together they work to stay alive against seemingly unstoppable odds. Each playable character brings their own unique traits to the game.

The zombies in the game come off as simple and unimaginative at first, but if you underestimate them, you might find yourself in a situation you can’t get out of. A normal zombie will slash, bite, smash through doors, climb through windows, climb up buildings just to get to you. They are relentless and will keep coming, wave after wave. Though not difficult to kill they can overwhelm you if too many come at you. In addition to the normal zombies there are those special infected that exhibit more specialized characteristics. The four different classes of special infected play different roles in attacking the survivors. The Hunter can suprise you with a wicked pounce and then begins to tear the survivor apart. Smokers have a long range attack, in that they use their extra long tongue to strangle survivors and draw them to him. The Boomer is the nauseas one of the group, throwing up bile onto survivors, which attracks hordes of normal zombies to the feast. The Tank is an oversized, super strong zombie that can destroy the whole survivor party if he gets the jump on them. Last, but most certainly not least, is a special boss zombie, the Witch. The Witch lies in wait until survivors shine a light on her, awakening her into a deadly rage that quickly destroys anyone near her. Witches can, however be avoided by carefully listening to their cries and staying as far away as possible. Collectively, these zombie varieties provide a heavy challenge to the game.

The AI Director controls weapon placement during the campaign as well as zombie attacks. This ingenius bit of engineering provides the game with a high degree of replay ability. After playing through the campaigns mulitple times I can still go back in and the AI Director will throw new challenges at me that I haven’t seen before. There are four different campaigns (or movies) to play, on three different degrees of difficulty. Each campaign consists of five chapters that each end in a climactic fight against a large horde of enemies, holding out until rescue shows up.

The game also provides multiplayer options to gamers, allowing you to play online cooperative in the campaigns or in a four vs four Versus mode. In the Versus mode has teams of four play against each other in alternating roles as either infected or survivor. Players on the infected team get to choose one of the special zombies, excluding the Witch. The Versus mode is very fun and is something that can be played for hours at a time.

So to break it all down in a few words, this is the zombie shooter that doesn’t leave anything behind. It’s a game that you will pick up and always go back to, again and again. I give Left 4 Dead for the Xbox 360 a 10/10.