If you’da been there that flimsily short day that was yet robust in content at PAX – the Penny Arcade Expo – you would have the glory of spit-shining your teeth for a goofy grin.  Everyone waiting alongside the Valve booth had less room than yearned for, more time on their hands than the rest of the day had left, less battery life from hours of dual-screening, and perhaps even five o’clock shadows from Left 4 Dead’s preview wait (even the ladies, yes sir).  The line to jump in circled easily ‘round braces of division poles and threads.  The only thing to look forward to other than your ten minute trial period was the plush carpet rosying your buttocks with padding once you progressed in line enough.  More people turned tail to show face at Valve’s zombie stations than proceeded to any other attraction, seemingly.  The cast leg braces needed for an ambulatory exit after that doozie-of-a-wait pained even me, but the pain was scrumptiously edible after that detour through hell.  Truly, the undead could do worse than satisfy less.

          After making waves in the gaming industry with recent Half-Life 2 episodes, Portal, and Team Fortress 2, Valve has staked another claim to success with a follow-up online multiplayer shooter that most digitally literate folks should be finding in their nighttime fantasies.  That gamers’ boon is titled Left 4 Dead.  Veering from the well-received direction of cartoon modeling as proven popular in team-based multiplayer Team Fortress 2, Valve decided to approach their fans with a cooperative thriller that literally screams bloody murder to rivet its audience and shall make gaming weak links distinguishably, rustily announced.  Or at least it seemed that way when I tried it…  Knowing the general Xbox controller schematics would have helped with usability, no doubt.

          Left 4 Dead delivers objective-based gameplay taking a four-player team on a tour through cityscapes and wilderness reminiscent of Ravenholm.  Your objective is simple: stay alive.  This simple goal transcending the rest of the game’s essentialism drives you and your trio human partners through forests, buildings, streets, and you name it.  What will you be hoofing away from (or more like giving the gun)?  Zombies of course.  Traditions shall be immortalized, it seems, and Valve can milk that “been there, done that” cow for I all shall ever care.  If a concept has been done in the past, I guarantee you Valve shall reproduce it with superiority and flamboyance flying modestly.  Players are equipped with old pastime soft-spot triggers like the irreproducible shotgun and her shells, standard pistols with their provocative general use, automatic rifles spitting ever hastily – the same cast you’d expect and yet still respect for its modesty.  The demonically simple gimmick tasting of environmental satisfaction remains the use of lighting (in other words, your flashlight).  By default each character’s flashlight lights directly along their line of sight.  This allows teammates to know precisely where each others’ characters are facing and aiming and also eradicates any susceptibility to precognition – you know of nothing until you’ve got your beam in its pupils, buddy.  Nearly ineffable blackness constantly surrounds the player’s character and forces the player to make constant use of spot-checking tactics and prolific choice words.  Most are appropriate in Left 4 Dead, all are satisfactory.  Never do you see your next target until you round the corner and are snogging their sandpaper complexion.  Obviously, such enhances the gameplay experience to levels unheard of, not to mention the fact that none of the enemies encountered are scripted.  At times I thought eating my avatar’s gun would fulfill by apparent personal tendencies with pragmatic ease.

          Teamwork is encouraged through terrain transparencies.  Your teammates’ locations are always readily available by means of illuminated character outlines when teammates stand invisibly behind walls.  Ingenuity never strikes the same place twice?  Pah!  Someone must have stuck a lightning rod atop Valve’s boardroom for this “less is more policy” reigns.  Happen to lose your way?  Cheer up!  Your buddy is effortlessly locatable just next door, and no, he’s not waving to be neighborly…  Your absence probably spurred a concentrated ambush.  Great going, pal.  Teammates are given the ability to patch each others’ wounds as well (you cannot apply medical aid to yourself) so love thy neighbor.  The most obvious of features is zombies’ tendency to truly bite with an UMPH!  when you haven’t an ally to yank them off you.  Strength in numbers is your game and for your character’s medical bills’ sake, play to your strengths.  Becoming separated from your group may be actively fought by through-wall visuals, but be prepared to be irreparably spanked if you venture into an infamous Leroy Jenkins hardiness.  Spotlight heroes do not exist when your squad has been Left 4 Dead; you succeed, you all kick it, or you play the aggro gorger and you cause your entire team to die.  Any of those sounds sound according to your sense of humor in-game.

          So nothing too new actually strikes the industry’s dartboard-o-innovation with this toss, however neither does Left 4 Dead backtrack.  What is offered is, in a nutshell, four folks surviving Ravenholm hospitality with nothing but each others’ human backs for bullet cover.  If you like shooters, if you like the Half-Life franchise, if you like multiplayers… Well shoot, if you like fun in general you’ll be a buyer of bouncing good times riding this haunted gunner coaster.  I’ll just say that after waiting for two bloody hours in line to play a darned measly ten minutes of game time, I just about circled to the line entrance again.  Shameless, I know.  Even if, in some nonexistent, paradoxical universe, Left 4 Dead went to release as Valve’s shoddiest game to date… Valve’s shoddiest game could still raffle off its grandeur with all the excessive perfection it’d have.