Anyway, interesting post.

I wish I had a PC that could run Valve games well. Maybe I could go to a lan center, but that’s kind of expensive.

I’m planning on taking another look at co-op game design of RE5 mercenaries mode and hopefully some L4D.

I always forget that L4D is on the 360 as well. Maybe if Microsoft/Valve wanted to send me a copy of L4D to review (or something) I could magically get my hands on it and put some time into it.

Valve’s original plan was to have the stories connected, and there’s a sort of narrative progression across the campaigns, but they’re still disjointed enough that those connections are no longer there. Any rationale for the sequence concept needs to explain how the Survivors lose out on their escape plan. Why does a fully-fueled plane land again in the same state (as seen by maps) without crashing badly enough to hurt the Survivors? Why would the boat from Death Toll land in what is evidently the Infected, burning city of Dead Air? And so on. Even if they are connected, there is enough vagueness and contradiction to make the sequence fuzzy and odd.

The opening cutscene of the game has the survivors climbing onto a rooftop. The No Mercy campaign is considered to be the first scenario, and I believe a closer look will show that the survivors begin this campaign on that very same rooftop. Likewise, the developer commentary at the end of the campaign reveals that in the original cut, the helicopter pilot at the finale mentions that he has been feeling strange, and the second campaign would have begun at the site of the crashed helicopter. In the end, Valve chose to cut those connecting details out, because referring explicitly to the unsuccessful escape would cheapen the sense of accomplishment players feel. Still, going through the campaigns in order, there is a definite progression of moving out of the city, through the suburbs and into the rural countryside. I believe the game can be thought of as a cohesive sequence of events from opening cutscene to cornfield shootout, not a disjointed set of repetitive misadventures. In this fashion the story is more like that of the episodic half-life sequels and not some ever-repeating purgatory. Future expansions could easily be made to continue this single narrative, rather than simply be new scenarios.

The character’s sudden knowledge of the nuances of witch behavior is a little harder to explain in context though. And I don’t even want to *think* about explaining the ability to magically return to life in nearby closets.

However, the idea of sin and punishment ties into the gameplay nicely. There is a constant illusion that the dangers of the game are avoidable, and thus it becomes the players fault that get hurt in it. Things that can be avoided in theory: car alarms, Hunter pounces can be broken midair with a melee attack, Smokers give two or three seconds after they grab you to aim and fire to free yourself, Boomers can only attack up close, Witches can be snuck past or crowned, and Tanks can be outrun (but only if you’ve avoided the other dangers and kept your health up). Even the zombies take a moment to start striking you after stumbling up. There isn’t a single attack in the game that is unavoidable if reacted to quickly enough, which is quite a design feat in it’s own right. In practice of course there’s almost always too much chaos for this to work out perfectly, and people trying to act as lone wolves are especially susceptible to being ambushed and killed. More than this, because of the Director, cowardice and a slow pace is punished by extra waves, while hubris and rushing ahead is equally dangerous because the player then gets caught with no cover when the Horde shows up.

I’ll take this a little farther and note that the game is set up like a pilgrimage. You travel from safe house to safe house, all of which have had countless survivors already come through, marking the path and showing the way ahead to a predetermined final location that holds the promise of salvation. The four characters are always seemingly the final ones leaving the city, even the helicopter pilot remarks that it’s his last run for the day. Considering that the chapters of the game were initially intended to link together, stringing one failed escape attempt after another, the seeming purgatory vibe of it isn’t so misplaced. Perhaps the answer isn’t that they are the last ones trying to leave after having dawdled too long, but instead that it is truly impossible to leave and they are simply the ones who have survived the longest on a cyclical journey through the ruined city.

Thanks! Cool review/thingy ^^

Still, I don’t think there’s that much in L4D to merit such a cool interpretation, at least as far as characterisation is concerned. What does strike me as interesting is the effect the random and scaling elements within Left 4 Dead have on your experience of the game. Because it’s very difficult to ‘master’ the title in the same way that you might master, say, Super Mario Bros, you get the sense that you’re not in control of the action, but merely reacting to it as best you can. The fact that you work in a team further reduces your belief in the individual agency of your character to have any impact on the larger game world.

Mind you, as far as metatheatre goes, I’d reckon a crossover like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Left 4 Dead would make for a more interesting title, heh.