Why Left 4 Dead Sucks Now (Or Why Psi Is A Whiner)

Left 4 Dead has lost its appeal to me.

I preordered the game. I’ve been playing it pretty religiously for almost a year now. I had my ‘all 4 completed on expert’ wiped in the first few weeks. I’ve poured a shitton of hours into the game. I like to think I’m fairly good at it. However, today, I found myself considering uninstalling the game.

I’ll start with why I don’t like Campaign Mode, then move on from there.

Campaign Mode has turned into a textbook case of formulaic drudgery. It’s the same challenges on the same maps. The same AI infected from the same spots. The levels are creative enough in their design, but are fundamentally flawed: it feels like they aren’t complex enough to support the AI Director system to its maximum abilities. The Infected’s behavior has never changed. Once you’ve played each campaign on every difficulty, you’re done, outside of having fun with friends. This wasn’t a problem to me originally, but I’ve run through each with varying server cvars, different crowds, and it feels the same.

This wouldn’t be a problem if we could mod the game directly. However, I don’t think there is a user friendly way to directly manipulate the Director’s methods of behaving, adding new items to the game, or anything similar. If I remember correctly, the only way to modify the game is SMOD (server-side plugins made by a third party) or server cvars (which are limited).

None of that would be a problem if there a constant timely or semi-timely montage of new maps. In the context of Left 4 Dead, the idea of new maps has become something of a cruel joke. Not only has Valve consistently failed to make deadlines (which isn’t a problem considering it’s Valve), but only two new campaign maps have been delivered. The custom campaigns are, on the whole, really dark. There’s a few gems, but for the most part aren’t worth downloading unless you have a group of eight friends who doesn’t mind playing on different variations of dark.

Next on my list of bitching is the Versus mode. At the time of writing, the skill gap for Versus is plain silly. Either people who just got the game are playing their first run, or a well-coordinated team of experts (or hackers) manages to headshot or melee you completely out of the air through two teammates, three walls, and a dump truck. There’s no room for players with some degree of skill who can’t play upwards of fifteen hours a week. Every Versus game I’ve ever played has been a complete shutout in one direction or the other. Then again, despite several changes to the fundamental mechanics of Versus, there is still at least two spots in each mini-finale where the survivors are utterly untouchable, rendering melee spam a decent replacement for any kind of skill.

I’m sure a catalyst to that is the proliferation of hacks available for Left 4 Dead. I understand the use of keybinds, the fact that 25% to 40% of the user base is better than me on a given day, and that luck/ping/random firing cone make a difference in the outcome, but these factors fail to explain rounds where roughly 1 in 4 pounces actually connect across an entire Infected team against a guy who you watched get the ‘Spinal Tap’ achievement. Google ‘Left 4 Dead hacks’ and go to town. What stumps me is why Valve hasn’t commented on these at all. Are they working on it? Do they know?

Lastly, I am tired of finally getting a lobby together, then getting tossed into an SMOD server. I understand that Official servers exist, but an option for the best available dedicated without 3rd party mods would be much appreciated.

Finally, we have Survival mode, which takes the same mini-finales and finales, and has you survive against endless waves of Infected. It would be an awesome mode, if players hadn’t thought of it within weeks then created pen and paper server cvar lists. The achievements are nice, and the Tanks are a great touch, but the mode lacks any kind of hook.

A better take on the ‘survival’ game mode archetype is World At War’s Nazi Zombies game mode, where players try to survive against constantly growing hordes of undead goose-stepping monsters. Compared to Left 4 Dead, Nazi Zombies starts off slower, but gradually builds to a generally explosive climax involving a plasma weapon and a bunch of bloodthirsty crazies. Left 4 Dead’s Survival lacks a certain something that Nazi Zombies has in spades, with various power-ups, barricade building, and an armory that is quite diverse. Nazi Zombies requires a great deal more strategy, compared to the rampaging clusterfuck that Left 4 Dead’s Survival mode rapidly degenerates to.

Will a buy Left 4 Dead 2? Probably. Is this post filled with opinion, grounded or ungrounded? Yes. Does this post make me an Angry Internet Man? Not quite, as most of the grievances I make can be sorted into (a) people are assholes or (b) easy fixes. It’s more like a post mortem on a game I generally enjoyed, and probably will again in the future. However, that won’t be until the random shenanigans I’ve seen fades into a distant memory and a wave of nostalgia leaves me misty eyed and hungry for the bacon-sizzling sound of Infected dying by the fifties.