Let's Kick IT!

Hello my new friends, I hope :)

People are always telling me I have this talent for communication and that while some of my ideas might be a bit "off" I have a lot of good ideas for fixing problems and the like.  I'm a PC Gamer from way back, ZORK was my first PC Game, before that I played on the Commodore 64, and actually did some beginner's hacking into games and found a telephone number for Scott Adams, the maker of the game.  Being someone that likes to investigate things like this, I called the number and after telling the receptionist how I found the number, was connected to Scott Adams shortly there after.  Mr. Adams was a very nice person, he informed that about 20 others had found the phone number and called and we talked about the game.  Unfortunately, because of the drugs and my age, I can't remember the name of the game, but I did give Mr. Adams my take on what he could do to improve his game; I'm sure he was delighted to hear that too :)

So, my plan here is to give reviews of games I've played thru Steam and of course my recommendations on whether anyone should bother to play it and how the game(s) might be improved.

My first review is for "Left 4 Dead".  This is one of those games that sneak up and bite you in the butt, no pun intended.  A few of my friends were playing this game and invited me to play as well, even offered to buy me a copy of the game as a gift, but I refused at first.  After a couple of weeks, I noticed my friends were always playing this game, so having an extra few dollars around, I went ahead and bought my own copy. (OK, so first I tried it out by getting a Torrent of it, but I did pay for it afterwards).

I was completely shocked how this game becomes addictive so fast.  This reminded me a lot of Ultima Online, same way to get started, friends playing, I got invited to play, took the plunge and next thing I know I was playing everyday for hours.  If you look at my Play Stats for Left 4 Dead you will see I'm addicted to this thing.  The biggest reason for this, is of course, the multiplayer functionality and the ability to play the "bad guys".  I just love it when me and my friends get together and play "local server" and "arrange" it so we can always play Infected.  There's just something about being the bad boy that is fun in games like this.

One issue I've had with "Left 4 Dead" is that when you do "arrange" the Local Server for our style of fun, the AI Human Bots seem to have certain "Logic Loops" where they get stuck at points on the map and need someone to lead them out.  One such spot is as the Warehouse with the lift.  The Logic Loop occurs if an AI Bot starts the lift without everyone on it or when an AI BOT falls back to the ground outside the warehouse.  The AI BOT(s) will run to the corner of the Warehouse, where the lift is, and stay there until a real Human takes control of one of the AI Human Bots and leads them into the Warehouse.

It also seems that when you play a Campaign or Single Player, some AI BOTs can "teleport" from one spot to another.  There were times when I saw a AI BOT actually move from one spot to another, much futher then it's possible to jump, only to land right in front of the group I was leading.  This probably has something to do with the rules that if a player group gets too far ahead of certain "monsters" they will regenerate ahead of this group.  Having something like this in the game is useful, but probably should be revisited by the Coding Staff and see if it can't be tightened up a bit.

Personally I think "Left 4 Dead" is a surprisingly fun game and a sleeper; not many people think they would want to play it, but once they do, they are hooked.  With the small amount of "bugs" and annoyances, I would give this game 5 stars myself and most likely a score of 95 out of 100.  If you want to have endless hours of FUN with your friends, this is one of those games.  Just make sure you find some friends who are looking to have as much fun as you are, as we all know there are some very "serious" game players out there that just want to be Number ONE all the time, and that's ok, but those type of people are difficult (to say the least) to play with.