Holiday Plans and Left 4 Dead Exploits

I’m heading off to Baltimore for Thanksgiving tomorrow morning.  We’ll see how much time I have for blogging–who knows, maybe it’ll be more, since I’m not working!

The last few nights I’ve been enjoying Left 4 Dead as it was meant to be played–with people.  Ben, one of the co-founders of Monday Night Crew, and a fellow PAX 07 Omegathon Alum invited me in to play with his crew each of the last three nights, and it’s been a blast.

The thing about Left 4 Dead is that you get out of it what you bring to the table.  Playing with people you know creates this amazing dynamic experience that is unlike any other shooter out there.  The fact that the campaigns play different every time makes it so that each play through is unpredictable.  The fact that your friends are right there with you mean that you shape the expierence and react naturally, creating your own dialogue to interpret the action with–something that no scripted game can provide.

I’ve finished all but one of the four campaigns, but I’ve really enjoyed playing through the game in versus mode.  Every podcast I listen to is talking about how it’s not as fun to play as the infected as it is to play the survivors.  I feel just the opposite–playing as the infected in Left 4 Dead versus mode is one of my top three most satisfying gaming experiences of 2008.

Last night I and one other player were pitted against three of Ben’s crew–plotting how best to stop them from progressing through each chapter was a river of delights.  One of us would hide as a Boomer, a giant infected that explodes mucus on the survivors, which then calls upon the horde.  While the players are distracted, the other one of us would be above them on a roof top as a smoker (a zombie with a long tongue that can reach and drag a player for long distances), and would take them out one by one.

If you’ve got a sinister streak in you, learning how to play as the weak but crafty superinfected classes can offer hours and hours of fun.  The problem is that it requires teamwork.  If you simply run at the survivors without planning an ambush, they can pick you off in two or three shots.  This can be frustrating if you’re playing with random people who don’t want to work together, but have a halo mentality about multiplayer.  I recommend working with people on your friendlist.  If you can’t find people to play the game with, I wouldn’t buy it at all.

I’m bringing my 360 along with me on the trip, but I was hoping to borrow a projector that became unavailable to me at the last moment.  I’m bummed because I was hoping to play quite a bit with my brother, and now we’ll only have a dinky 19 inch tele to play on.  We’ll see how this works out.

I picked up Chrono Trigger on the DS today, as my thanksgiving travel game.  I’m looking forward to popping it in during the seven hour drive tomorrow.

What are you playing over the Thanksgiving holiday?  Give us a shout out and let us know!

–WG