Night of the Lively Undead: 'Left 4 Dead'

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YOU HAVE TO hand it to Valve. Not only is it the developer behind hits like the "Half-Life," "Team Fortress" and "Counter-Strike" franchises, the company is also behind last year's genre re-defining "Portal." Quite simply, Valve is the developer to beat when it comes to innovative first-person shooters.

With "Left 4 Dead," Valve mixes some technological wizardry with more than a little survival horror to create a completely different kind of experience that delivers some of the most intense co-op multiplayer thrills you'll find in any game released this year.

The premise is simple: the zombie apocalypse that gamers and horror movie buffs have long expected has finally come to pass, leaving a wasteland overrun with hordes of the undead. You and three other survivors (computer or player-controlled) have but one goal: get out alive. The characters themselves are classic B-movie staples: the grizzled veteran, the computer nerd, the badass biker and the wisecracking college student.

There are four campaigns, each styled after classic zombie movies, with accompanying posters, taglines and brief introductions. Each is of the post-apocalyptic variety: a burned-out city, an overrun small-town, an airport and a rural countryside. Each campaign is broken down into several chapters that begin and end in safe-rooms where players can heal, re-arm and revive fallen teammates. The final chapter in each is marked by a last stand against the incoming horde while awaiting rescue. Each scenario lasts about an hour, and in keeping with the B-horror movie theme, the players are treated to a movie-style credit sequence that highlights their achievements upon completion.

While light on variety in the campaigns, the game provides loads of replay value through the use of a complex artificial intelligence, dubbed "The Director," that drives the pacing and mood of the game by controlling the visual effects, fantastic music cues and sound, along with enemy spawns to portray a dynamic environment that constantly adapt to player-actions. The goal is to create a game that never plays the same way twice, something that's achieved with mixed results. While the system manages to keep the atmosphere taut with the tools at its disposal, the levels are mostly linear affairs with set objectives that never change.

"Left 4 Dead" was designed from the ground-up around multiplayer, and its there that the game shines. While the AI-controlled characters do an effective job at providing support, nothing touches having three friends along using either split-screen or Xbox Live. Toss in 8-player versus, where 4 opposing players take the role of the infected, and you are in for a lively undead experience.

Written by Express' Micah Pearson