Left 4 Dead Preview

Four-player co-op looks like it'll be a must

No rest for the wicked, as the saying goes. We're soon thrust back into the action, spraying as many bullets as we've got into the rotting flesh of our demented enemy. We can feel the game boosting the bass, one of The Director's tricks used especially during combat. We're inching towards the Hospital, our ultimate goal, where a big, final battle with The Infected awaits while we wait for the helicopter to rescue us.

"So now we've played for a little bit The Director is gathering information and you'll see it start to make decisions about what we're ready for in the way of challenges," says Newell. "You can hear that the soundtrack is changing. Notice that the characters will talk about their experience. It's basically analogous to our single-player characters, like Alyx." We don't hear much more than the occasional "Reloading!" as our fellow Survivors, well, reload. But expect to hear much more than that during extended play. Valve has recorded thousands of lines of dialogue for the game.

We reach the first goal of the campaign, about 15 minutes in, and we're exhausted. It's only 20 per cent of the way through the Hospital movie, though, which will last most groups between 45 minutes and an hour. As we've mentioned there will be four in total. The movie following The Hospital sees the helicopter you escape in crash out in the country, leaving you and your chums to fight your way through hordes of Infected in farms and corn fields. There's even a campaign set in an airport, where you have to deal with crashing planes as well as the Infected. Brutal.

While it's the kick arse zombies that will grab Valve's fans by the balls, the real star of this survival horror shoot-fest is The Director. Ironically, you won't even notice it. From your point of view, you'll marvel at how the game somehow feels like it knows what you're doing and reacts accordingly, but The Director won't slap you in the face and shout about it. "It uses things like audio cues," says Newell. "Everybody who's seen a horror movie knows that when quiet sounds are amplified a lot that something bad is about to happen. So if you have dripping water and suddenly you can hear it very clearly that's right before the monster jumps out. The same thing with desaturation. A cinematographer will indicate something is going to happen by taking all of the colour out of the world and then dropping the illumination. So we use that language that's been created in movie making, steal it and apply it to the Left 4 Dead experience."

If you're in trouble your co-op buddies can help you out

It's a hard concept to grasp - the idea that you're playing a story that's adapting to your every move, every jerk of your thumb, every press of your finger, isn't something we've seen properly executed in a game of this type before, and it's probably the reason why the game still retains an aura of mystique. But that's OK. We like a surprise.

Left 4 Dead will definitely be a better game played cooperatively with friends, whether that's through Xbox LIVE, split-screen, or with friends over Steam. But it can also be played single-player if you wish, with the computer taking over your survivor buddies (and you, if you leave your character idle for a while). You'll be able to communicate with your real-life team mates via the headset, and we imagine there will be no small amount of screaming in terror and barking of instructions when we finally get playable code in the office here at VideoGamer.com HQ. There's even competitive multiplayer modes. Here, you either play as a Survivor or as a zombie. As a zombie the tactics you'll employ will be very different to those of a human. You've no access to weapons, so you have to rely on your zombie skills to make mince meat of your targets. Zombie skills like puking on humans, causing all of the zombies in the area to attack them, or using your tongue to yank them out of their protective group and make them more vulnerable. Lovely.

Still, it's the main cooperative game that we're most keen on - the prospect of mowing down swarms of zombies on your way to a last ditch escape with your mates screaming in your ear has us wet with excitement. With just over two months till the game's release, Newell primes us for another attack: "We have to open this door here," he says calmly. "When we open the door the sound is going to attract a bunch of zombies. So get ready for them." We were born ready.

Left 4 Dead is due out on November 21 for PC and Xbox 360.