Updated February 22, 2009 with some new thoughts on weapon durability and the game environment.

Now that the existence of Dead Rising 2 has officially been confirmed, the masses can begin speculating on its contents from the few screenshots that accompanied the announcement.

As rumored last year, Capcom is working closely with Vancouver’s Blue Castle Games to develop the sequel, which in their anticipation will result in “a even better game”. In order to maintain the design intent of the original game, key team members from Dead Rising at Capcom Japan are meeting with the designers at Blue Castle at least once a week through video conference, which in the opinion of Capcom’s Keiji Inafune is just the first steps in Capcom’s “Global Design” initiative. I have to admit I was a little curious why such a successful IP was farmed out, but it’s reassuring to know that the project is being guided by its original creators.

At this point, the only confirmable detail is the game’s environment: a casino. Whether this is modeled after downtown Las Vegas, Atlantic City or simply another enclosed complex like the Willamette shopping mall remains to be revealed. The setting alone has me pretty excited about Dead Rising 2‘s potential. An “adult playground” as Inafune puts it, where roulette wheels become weapons of mass destruction.

I love the original Dead Rising; I’ve said before this was always a game I wished I had been able to play upon release. Now that I’ve experienced the full version, the sequel is one of my most anticipated games of the coming year. I plan on writing a full review of Dead Rising at some point, but I find this to be an excellent opportunity to sketch out my main complaints with the original game and label them as expectations for the sequel, instead of cluttering my analysis with a wish list of improved features.

Keep the overall time limit, but be a little more forgiving for the main story. Time was the underlying mechanic at work in the original Dead Rising. You had 72 hours to follow the main plot and discover the cause of the outbreak at Willamette. While this lent an incredible sense of urgency to the entire game’s proceedings, I felt that it was a little unforgiving in the way it forced you to adhere to an arbitrary schedule. If I was out beating on zombies and forgot to look at Frank’s watch, I would miss the lead-in to the next main mission and the game would end. It was frustrating because it didn’t feel like events unfolded naturally; the story progressed only at set times. However, having a time limit for the whole game created an underlying need to always be doing something, whether completing a quest or trying to make it to the next mission. It made you plan your time in between story events carefully to get the most out of the experience. For Dead Rising 2, the designers should leave the overarall time limit, but give players a more flexible “opt-in” approach. If they don’t want to follow the main quest, they don’t have to and the game still continues, but they miss out on the game’s story. It would be like Infinite mode in Dead Rising, where the Player “wins” by simply surviving. Of course, basic quests should be available for people who aren’t content to simply smash in the heads of lots and lots of zombies.

Change the quest delivery system. I have to give Otis credit. He kept his eye on things in Willamette and made sure no one was left behind. Except that he would always interrupt me when I was trying to defend myself. The walke-talkie was a clumsy quest delivery system, because whether you wanted the quest or not, as soon as you answered it a quest was added to your list. Even hanging up would elicit a snarky comment! The guy was relentless. For Dead Rising 2, I would be happy with a simple RPG quest system, which opens up quests by discovering the helpless NPCs or situations directly. It would reward exploration instead of following the instructions of someone in the safety of the Security Room, and would allow players to ignore the quests altogether if they choose to.

Variable Weapon Durability. One of Dead Rising‘s unique strengths is that almost everything can be a weapon. But what I didn’t like is how every weapon has more or less the same durability. That is, a Lead Pipe lasts about as long as a 2×4 or a Bowling Ball or an Electric Guitar. Capcom made up for this by adding in a “book” system that increases the durability or adds bonuses to certain weapons as long as you carry the book in your inventory, but this takes up a valuable slot. The current system seems to be in contradiction with Frank’s character levelling system, which only addresses hand-to-hand moves and not skills with weapons. Why are weapons and power-ups so disposable? Shouldn’t Frank gain at least some bonuses for using melee-based weapons all the time? I can see where the original design came from, though: it forces inventory management and with a limit of resources it contributes to that underlying feeling of tension I mentioned earlier. However, when I’m in the middle of a crowd of zombies and suddenly my bowling ball disappears after only a few hits, it’s a little puzzling. Naturally the developers don’t want players searching for the “best” weapon that lasts the whole game, but varying the durability of weapons based on their material would add a new dimension to this tension. Yes, that Lead Pipe will last longer than that Baseball Bat, but how much longer? Making the higher durability weapons less common or a little tougher to find would also balance this out.

More unique weapons unlockable through completing quests. After defeating the True Eye cult leader in one of Dead Rising‘s quests, you get his ceremonial broadsword. It is a magnificent weapon. Once it broke, I knew I would never hold it in my hands again. But having access to its attack speed, damage and excellent raw durability for that short while was worth it. Dead Rising 2 needs more unique weapons like these. Obviously the quests can’t be re-completed to get the weapon again, so once the weapon is unlocked and destroyed I want it to be spawned somewhere else in the game world. And it will be up to the player to find them.

Improve or completely redesign guns and shooting mechanics. The guns are the worst weapons in Dead Rising. What should be the most reliable weapon to use is all at once the most tedious, least effective and unsatisfying. Borrowing controls from Resident Evil 4 (probably why I hate using it), the gun must be aimed in an over-the-shoulder zoomed-in third person view. There is no separate acquisition of ammo and no reload – you have to pick up more guns for that. You can run around while shooting in regular third person view, but don’t expect to land many shots. And compared to the other bludgeoning-type weapons or the swords, the guns are suprisingly weak and ineffective in dealing with groups. Keep the crappy controls if you must adhere to the “Resident Evil Guide to Shitty Controls for Shooting a Gun”, but at least make the guns in Dead Rising 2 more powerful and worth using an inventory slot for. And make ammo separate. If you’ve gone out of your way to find a good weapon, you should at the very least be able to keep it and reload it.

Make Zombies spawn randomly. There were certain areas in the Willamette mall that I knew weapon-wielding zombies would hang out. After running out of bullets, or when I needed a new knife, there was always Chubby the Police Officer or Hawaiian Shirt Dude to rely on to hook me up. After I had already killed them 10 minutes prior. Make these guys tougher to find, especially if they are carrying more powerful weapons. Randomly respawning common zombies would also create the illusion that the player really is being overwhelmed, instead of regenerating a bunch of models that were there moments before.

Boss battles should be more interesting. I want more variety, and less reliance on gunplay – especially if the controls remain the same. Make solutions to defeating boss characters interesting! Dead Rising with all of its usable material had so much potential for trap setting in advance and using your immediate surroundings to defeat a boss. I so very badly wanted to topple scaffolding onto Isabela and her motorcycle during that fight. Though no button combinations to defeat bosses, please. I want to feel like I have some control over the process.

Why limit usable materials to weapons? While we’re on the subject, I want to be able to use my surroundings for just about anything. I want to create barriers to move zombies into a choke point to easily take them out, or topple over structures to dispatch large groups. And how about introducing easy access to some explosives, like creating your own molotov cocktails? They’re great fun in Left 4 Dead. About the closest I got to this feature in Dead Rising was dropping a propane tank into a mob, and shooting it from afar. But it’s more challenging than it sounds.

For the sake of my sanity, overhaul the NPC AI. There was nothing more frustrating in Dead Rising than escorting a bunch of people that just end up a zombie buffet. I wasted far too many weapons on these people in the hopes that they could defend themselves. Dead Rising seemed well aware of this shortcoming, because you were rewarded for saving people as well as bringing them back to the Security Room. The rescue missions are essential in a game like this. So if I’m going out of my way to save someone, I want to make sure I don’t have to babysit them the whole way.

Do not add co-op. Please. This seems to be a design descision that is granted these days, but I liked how I was alone in the world of Dead Rising. Sure it had its moments of (often unintentional) comedy that lessened the impact of the situation, but in the end it was me versus an entire fucking shopping mall full of zombies. It was an incredible feeling. Co-op, whether split-screen or online, will remove some of this atmosphere and turn it into a bit of a joke. I don’t want to go on a zombie killing spree with my friends. I want to survive. I want to feel the lonliness and desperation against overwhelming odds.

Lose the camera. I can only assume that the new main character is not a photojournalist, but some guy caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. He’s wearing a pretty nifty racing jacket too! While the camera was the perfect gimmick in Dead Rising given Frank’s mission in Willamette, I don’t think it was necessary. There were experience points and Achievments to be gained from good photos, but the photo system didn’t really offer much to the overall game. As such, there’s no need for anything like this in the sequel. I would rather see more work put in to a better variety of quests and missions.

More Save Points, but not a new save system. There were a lot of complaints about the save system in the original game. They were too far apart, artificially extending the length of the game by forcing players to replay entire sections. I’ll agree that there were too few, but I don’t want the original system to change too much. Saving in games is a tricky thing when you start talking about realism, but I think Capcom’s decision to use Bathrooms as save points was certainly a more practical approach. It’s a room that made sense to be repeated throughout the mall. I don’t want the ability to save anywhere, because this completely removes any tension in the game. If the player isn’t worried about making it through a shambling mass of zombies with their NPCs in tow, what are they doing except beating up a bunch of slow moving targets? I also don’t want to see the use of checkpoints, because this will inhibit the original free-form design of the game. The original game automatically saved once key mission objectives in the main storyline were completed, which I think is a completely acceptable compromise. If the developers can come up with a similar scheme with more points reasonably spread out for Dead Rising 2, I’ll be satisfied.

Better Writing and Character Development. Yes, this is a game about a Zombie invasion, but Capcom’s story behind the Willamette outbreak was like a bad Resident Evil outtake (and really, that is saying something). There is a certain amount of tongue in cheek involved in telling a story like this, but I think someone took it a bit too far. The characters were cliché, the source of the virus and the location of the outbreak had a tenuous link, and everything was conveniently isolated within the walls of a shopping mall. Frank grew on me through the game; you had to admire his infallible dedication to the job of getting the scoop on this phenomenon. But everyone around him was a caricature, and the sub-plots surrounding the NPC rescue missions ranged from B-Movie horror to adolescent parody of American action films. Also, no more big breasted schoolmarms with hair the color of their skin. Obviously good writing is a request of most games and it rarely materializes, but try and indulge me with a little more effort, guys.

Anticipating Resident Evil 5 was clearly a mistake. After playing Resident Evil 4 twice and subsequently labeling it “the most overrated game of 2005″, I should have known better than to expect anything different from a sequel banking on its progenitor’s critical and commercial success. But I can hardly be blamed in full for this misconception after all the posturing in the demo’s press release citing Halo and Gears of War as influences on its enhanced control scheme. This is only slightly true, as playing through the demo’s two available levels would painfully reveal.

The actual controls used in Resident Evil 5 share more in common with Resident Evil 4 with a few additions, but they are still clumsy and unnatural. Sure, one trigger is AIM and the other is SHOOT, but how about that awkward inventory selection screen? The D-pad can be used to quick select weapons, but there’s no on-screen menu or feedback like in Gears.

What is clouding the issue – and I explain this in my lengthy analysis of Resident Evil 4 – is that these controls are new to the Resident Evil series, and as such are only praised by fans who had to deal with even shittier controls before. But to ignore all the advances that have been made in console-based shooters in the last four years is to say that they don’t matter, and that the average gamer interested in getting into the series had better start learning some new controls. This is especially relevant now that Capcom has basically abandoned the horror aspects of the game and created a simplified shooter.

Contrary to what the designers at Capcom may think (and some fans, even) slow-turning tanks are not fun to control and only induce frustration, not fear. For the entire length of the series, Resident Evil fans have been making excuses for poor controls to the point where people actually stand up to blindly defend them when they are questioned. These controls have not adapted to genre standards, despite publicly referencing them.

The series is no longer scary. Resident Evil is not a horror game anymore, it is a third-person shooter. Why were enhancements made to the controls in Resident Evil 4? To make it easier to kill things. If killing things is more important than developing story or tension, then you have made a shooter. Except these controls were only half-realized. You can’t move and shoot; Even Dead Space, a game widely recognized as being based on Resident Evil 4, allows you to slowly move your character while aiming a gun. It is not unrealistic to expect a human to be able to do that, perhaps with reduced accuracy – and this is reflected in most games. You must be aiming your gun to be able to reload. There is also a context-sensitive melee system that makes no sense when you are surrounded by a pack of zombies. There should be a melee action button for whetever weapon you are holding and that’s the end of it. I should not have to equip my machete.

Resident Evil 5 certainly makes the most of the XBox 360 hardware: the visuals show serious improvement over Resident Evil 4, especially with the main characters. And that’s probably the only positive thing I can muster about this game. The Zombies/Infected as a collective are boring. They seem more human than ever before. Even Resident Evil 4‘s denizens were more exciting because decapitating them or shooting limbs off would reveal an enemy that could smack you around from afar with evil-looking tendrils. In Resident Evil 5 the “zombies” are eager to run in for the kill, but stop suddenly in the general vicinity allowing you to queue up that laser pointer and blast away.

Resident Evil 5 is vanilla; it is unoriginal and it is playing it safe. Co-op may be where games are gravitating towards, but even that is not preventing this demo from being some of the most unexciting gaming I’ve ever experienced. Make me scared again, Capcom. Return to the horror roots of this franchise and stop trying to compete with shooters. There are already too many of them.

I’ve been playing Dead Rising for the last few weeks, and must give credit to Capcom for capturing what it’s like to actually be threatened by a crowd of zombies. Sure, shooting a gun is about as satisfying as punching myself in the side of the head, but at least I can pick up a baseball bat and swing that for a while. In its current form, Resident Evil is offering nothing more than a bunch of slow moving targets to aim a laser pointer at. I never liked Resident Evil 4, so maybe I was a bit naïve thinking that Resident Evil 5 would win me over. This game is for Resident Evil fans, and they can have it. For a tedious exercise in survival horror, I’d rather go back to Dead Space.

When I saw the name of this mission in Left 4 Dead, my thoughts turned to a last stand at an abandoned small town radio station, where the four Survivors must send out a distress call to anyone who would answer, while static rang through the building in defiance. With the onslaught of Infected raging outside the building, the Survivors slowly start to make peace with the fact that they might not get rescued this time after all. As the ammunition is consumed and the walls start to crumble behind the massive weight of encroaching Tanks, the Survivors take stock of the situation. They are about to die.

Except that’s not what happened. Apparently Valve was thinking about an airline staffed entirely by Infected. So we get an airport. A big, sprawling airport with an incredible scene involving a plane crash just in time for the final standoff. Which, as it turns out, is nowhere near as exciting as my little scenario. But that doesn’t mean that the rest of the mission wasn’t as exhilarating as those that preceded it.

This past weekend’s session of “Dead Air” was was with a full foursome. Having the AI at your side may be like having the ideal teammates, but they need to be watched. They will pull off unnecessary heroics and choose to heal you over themselves. Martyrs, all. Four humans on a team exposes the true dynamics of this game as they were intended. The balancing of health packs, managing friendly fire and sticking together while under attack are the essential tenets of the game’s mechanics that must be learned. While the difficulty seemed to ony marginally increase, when there are four free-thinking individuals on a team it’s harder to manage a group that starts to unravel during an Infected invasion. Choose yourself over the group and you will die.

In “Dead Air” there are once again plenty of rooftop battles through a city overrun by Infected. Eventually we arrived at the airport, where we were treated to a very interesting setpiece that takes place in the main foyer and departures waiting area inside. The set-up of this scene was a little disturbing: we were surrounded by piles of luggage placed by people who likely never made it out of the city. Pressing on, we had to drive a van into a pile of luggage and debris to clear the path forward. Naturally that alerted the horde. All four of us were waiting in the foyer as the Infected swarm enclosed us on all sides. At first things seemed to go pretty well: two of us on shotgun duty and two with assault rifles. But those reload times on the shotguns began to take their toll as the Infected steadily increased in number. One of us fell, then two. The group wiped in short order.

The second attempt was a little more organized. After moving the van, we all went to the mezzanine that overlooked the foyer, hoping to take pot shots at the Horde before moving on. But we underestimated the AI Director. This time, the Horde was both upstairs and downstairs, coming from shadowy corridors behind us and rushing up the escalators in front of us. And suddenly we were in the same predicament as before.

I wouldn’t call the response to events like these in Left 4 Dead “problem solving”, but it requires a great deal of thinking on your feet and cooperation without second guessing. Planning a raid in MMORPGs is a lot easier than figuring out how to simply survive an enemy that fears nothing and completely surrounds you. Voice chat makes these snap decisions easy to communicate, and eventually we made it through into the final stretch.

Left 4 Dead isn’t satisfied to simply set up a small staging area to make the last stand in. It needs to inject a feeling of desperation and urgency, of fear that you won’t make it. Nothing could have prepared us for the shocking display of a passenger plane crash right in front of the group. It was symbolic; it made us think for a second that maybe that was the last ride out of here. Maybe we were simply going out onto the tarmac to die, like that theoretical scene in the abandoned radio station.

The finale’s centerpiece is a gas truck used to refuel a cargo plane. As the hapless survivors stumbling onto the scene, the anonymous pilot of the plane asks us to refuel it. Of course, the noise will alert the Horde and it’s a matter of waiting out that fill cycle before we can leave.

Since the landing strip was an open area, the firefight seemed a lot more manageable than the one from “Death Toll” by allowing us to see the entire battlefield. Though the number of Horde was about the same, and the AI Director made itself known by dealing out Specials with frustrating frequency. The last thing on our minds was worrying about the gas truck behind us blowing up in a storm of flying bullets. Instead, I couldn’t help wondering why that lazy fucker in the plane didn’t get out to help us.

Some of us were incapacitated, or dragged off by Smokers, but someone always managed to be there. Then the health packs suddenly ran out. Two of us jumped on to the top of the truck, which proved to be a strategic advantage in the final moments of the battle as the AI Director decided to deliver one last swarm for good measure. This is when the game makes you want to shoot a gun until there is no ammo left, until you are down to a pistol and keep shooting long after the last Infected has fallen. It is a feeling that is simultanously disheartening and exhilarating.

Once we were given the go-ahead to jump onto the plane, only three of us did: one of us stayed outside for a few more seconds to fend off the horde with his automatic shotgun for a safe boarding. At this point I think we all held our breath, wondering if he’d make it out of his last-stand heroics alive. He quickly realized that bothering to reload at this point was a stupid idea, so he hopped onto the plane and joined the rest of us. The plane took off, and we let out a cheer. Another happy ending.

The biggest criticism against this game is that there are only four missions. And while the FPS obsessed might fly through these missions just to get to the end, this type of approach misses out on the game’s biggest strength. It’s not about the kill count or pointing out who startled the Witch or finishing the missions on the highest difficulty. Left 4 Dead encourages a co-operative effort to survive. “No One Left Behind” is not just an Achievement; it is the philosophy behind the entire game.

Last night I played through the “Death Toll” campaign in Left 4 Dead with my game group. Which, to avoid sounding like I have a surplus of friends who play games is really just me and a good friend of mine (you might remember him from this story). We deftly tackled “No Mercy” over the weekend and were ready for more.

Playing with two AI-controlled Survivors is like playing with the ideal teammates. The AI is responsive to the group’s well being, and definitely puts the whole “need before greed” thing into practice when it comes to first aid kits and pain pills. You’re never incapacitated for long either, as one of the AI-controlled Survivors are usually there to lend a hand after clearing the immediate area around you. If only humans were willingly this considerate.

One of the achievements in Left 4 Dead is “No One Left Behind”, where you must finish any campaign with all four survivors alive. We easily accomplished that with “No Mercy”, but the final standoff in “Death Toll” proved to be a lot more challenging.

A lot has been said about the AI Director, and while it seems a little more noticeable than it was in the demo, its presence is still a subtle one. The sudden appearance of the Infected horde feels like a natural buildup to a tense “What do we do now?” moment when you’re lost in one of the game’s many dead-end rooms. The Special infected also tend to show up when you least expect it, but not in a way that it breaks immersion. In the final standoff of each campaign, you’re supposed to be inundated with Infected as you await your rescue vehicle. At least, that’s what would happen in a movie.

So when we finally cleared a pathway to the dock where the fishing boat was to pick us up, I noticed that Zoey had fallen down and was being swarmed by a large group of Infected behind us. I jumped off the dock, and ran back to assist. Keep in mind, I had already obtained the achievement and there was no reward for doing this. I just felt the sudden need to return the favor. Of course, it also meant my immediate death. My friend laughed at me saying, “What was the point of that, exactly?” He died shortly after, trying to come back to save me.

After another couple of tries, we managed to make it through the finale. Except it involved me dying a very dramatic death on the gangway to the boat as the Infected followed us on to the dock. I held them off from the ground with my two pistols, while I watched the other Survivors run past. Everyone got away except me, but I didn’t feel cheated. It felt like the perfect ending.

Left 4 Dead is pure hollywood.

Updated November 14, 2008

Left 4 Dead goes out of its way to create an interactive horror movie. The movie poster introducing the upcoming mission, the four horror movie archetypes forming the group of survivors, a city overrun with Infected presenting seemingly overwhelming odds, and enough darkened corners to make anyone trigger-happy. The maps are linear, designed to move the player forward without too much thought and keep players shooting at the Infected. Swarms of the Infected will appear as if from nowhere, at any time. There are no monster closets. They are everywhere. They will jump through windows. They will rush through hallways. They will pretend not to see you, and then all of a sudden a group of them is launching an attack. And then the Boomer shambles around the corner, and your party of four is suddenly fucked.

The Left 4 Dead demo went live for everyone yesterday. The pre-order crowd has been playing since Friday, myself included. Portions of the “No Mercy” mission were included in the demo, which pits the four person team against hordes of the Infected as they battle their way to a rescue location at Mercy Hospital, where other survivors are apparently gathering. The opening cinematic does a seamless lead-in to a rooftop gathering of the team where you drop into your selected avatar, grab a weapon and get ready to defend yourselves against the Infected.

First, a qualifier: I mostly played Single-player offline, as I initially had trouble getting a match going without a lot of re-connecting to games. There appeared to be an issue with the matchmaking service, and I was booted from three different lobbies after games had started before I finally gave up. I talked to a few users afterwards, and they appeared to be experiencing the same thing, and assumed it was lag and connection timeouts. An update to the demo went out on Monday to fix some of these issues, but even tonight I had problems connecting to a game. Obviously this will be fixed for the full version – or else this game just lost its entire reason for being. One thing that really irritated me is the lack of an actual server browser, something that all Valve games to this point have included as part of the Steam client. Why can’t I choose where I want to play? This handholding comes directly from the world of online console gaming, and I don’t like it. Just because Left 4 Dead is also being released for the Xbox 360 doesn’t mean you ignore what the PC gaming market has grown accustomed to. And being dumped into a lobby with random players who are more interested in plowing through the map for frag counts kind of ruins the effect of the game.

Before starting a game, you choose your character: Louis the office worker, Francis the tattoo-emblazoned biker, Bill the grizzled war veteran (or gun enthusiast?) and Zoey the…girl. Yes, a token girl wearing a red tracksuit jacket that favors the pistols. I liked the design of Alyx better; she looked like she could handle herself in a fight without being obvious about it. In Zoey’s case, there is nothing to discern her from the rest of the group. Bill has the dangling cigarette and gruff commentary, Louis is the office worker acting out every white collar slave’s fantasy, and Francis is, well, the embodiment of the biker stereotype, but we’d never want to say that to his face. In multiplayer mode, once dropped into a lobby you either have to make your claim on a character right away or else one will be assigned to you. Unless you’re really concerned about what you look like in-game, this really doesn’t make a difference.

And that’s one of the first exceptions I took with Left 4 Dead. Why a pre-made set of characters? There are no bonuses or specialties offered by any of them, and they aren’t “classes” like one might expect. Any character can take any weapon, though if you’re playing with the AI controlled characters they will pick certain types of weapons: for example Bill will always choose the Automatic weapons, and Francis will always choose the shotgun. I’m not asking for customizable characters, but adding a little depth to the avatars forced onto players would have been appreciated.

Left 4 Dead provides only the basic tools for Zombie invasion survival: a heavy weapon, a pistol, an explosive and a First Aid kit. Unfortunately, the weapons don’t feel very substantial or unique, though they do provide satisfying results. It doesn’t take much skill to launch an assault head on; simply firing the shotgun into a crowd of Infected usually gets the job done if you can manage reloading quickly. Even with a more conservative approach, the waves of Infected that constantly beset your group will use up most of your heavy weapon’s ammo. But then there’s always the pistol, which has unlimited bullets, is almost as effective as firing the submachine gun or automatic rifle, and provides similar accuracy.

For atmospherics, the darkened alleyways and closed-in rooms necessitate the use of the flashlight. Wandering around with your flashlight and gun in hand, wondering where that next Infected attack will come from was completely unnerving. Not in the way you need to install the Doom 3 duct-tape mod, but the I Am Legend, oh-my-god-don’t-look-into-those-shadows-I-don’t-want-to-know-what-is-lurking-there kind of feeling. Anyone who has disturbed the Witch doesn’t live to tell about it.

Being attacked by a mob of Infected is not the same as your typical gunfight in other FPS titles. They will jump on you, they will claw you and push you to the ground. The action does not give players pause to breathe; the urgency of each sub-mission is palpable. When outnumbered in Left 4 Dead, there is a genuine feeling of hopelessness. Well, except for the pistols.

One of the game’s best features is how it integrates teamwork into the action. This isn’t a totally generic FPS where you happen to be playing alongside other humans; you have to watch out for your party. You can’t ignore them and just keep shooting, or they will be incapacitated by a Smoker or a Hunter and there’s one less gun in the fight. Either you or another party member must kill their assailant, or if they are completely incapacitated, you have to help them up similar to Gears of War. In another movie-like touch, you can still shoot while incapacitated, to provide covering fire while someone attempts the rescue.

At this point, Left 4 Dead sounds like an exciting multiplayer game that could have easily been created as a mod. There just isn’t enough depth to the core game. However, is it fair to criticize a game that’s sole purpose is assaulting the senses with a cavalcade of unlimited micro-crises? Absolutely. And I will tell you why: feeling fear in survival horror should be knowing you can’t game the system, there is no health pack waiting for you, you really are out of ammo, and it’s time to start shoving your way through the pack of Infected in front of you and make it into that abandoned building, because your last teammate died and you’re pretty much fucked if you don’t. Instead, I always get the feeling that there is a safehouse nearby, and while my main weapon’s ammo has run out there are always the pistols.

Left 4 Dead also doesn’t handle the concept of infection very well. With the amount of times I was clawed, mauled, (probably) bitten, blood spattered in my face and on my teammates, and the clouds of gore and brain particulate filling my immediate environment, it amazes me that none of us get sick. Either the game is following the convention of Zombie movies (in which you must be bitten), or it’s following the convention of say, 28 Days Later, where you have to ingest or come into contact with the blood of the Infected; I can’t figure out which. And the Zombies can run, which presents even more uncertainty.

You can also take a lot of punishment in this game. Even though I was only granted one health pack, it was rarely needed unless I was in the middle of an Infected swarm and couldn’t blast my way to safety. And because of this, the only reason I was going to die was if I took a lot of damage. There is no fear of getting bitten or Infected, just overpowered by the enemy. It ends up feeling kind of…trivial.

Since the demo only includes the introductory mission, there isn’t enough information presented to establish a storyline or purpose for the player’s actions aside from survival, so I’ll presume that delving further into the campaign may reveal some sinister government plot. Even though this may be a multiplayer game at heart, it isn’t deathmatching – Left 4 Dead could have incorporated some additional realism to make the experience more essential; as it is, it’s merely a shooter with lots and lots of Infected to splatter all over the street. Which can be fun, to a point.

A question that also needs answering is whether I will be able to save the game’s progress, or at least continue from the beginning of each sublevel. This is important to me and the people I’m playing with. I don’t want to have to start again because we have something more important to do.

In the face of these criticisms, I can’t help but think that Left 4 Dead has a certain charm. Co-operative play in this type of scenario isn’t new (Resident Evil: Outbreak and its sequel did it first with moderate success), but I think Left 4 Dead‘s primary function is to create an accessible adventure to be enjoyed with friends. Sure, the campaign mode can be played offline with AI controlled teammates, but fighting alongside them was like fighting with the rebels in Half Life 2. There was no character; they were disposable next to my prowess with a submachine gun. By focusing on the multiplayer elements of the game Valve lets players provide the character behind the avatars, and in the reactions to this game world, a new story can be created.

Update: I’ve managed to play more online multiplayer, and still think that this is a game you have you play with people you know, or at least people who can appreciate the pacing required for this kind of shooter. Naturally the action comes hard and fast while under attack by the Infected, but this isn’t a god damned race. Someone took the time to design these levels to make them creepy, at times claustrophobic, and appear ravaged by the clash of survivor versus infected. I’m not about to strike up a conversation in between firefights, but can we at least take a bit of time to regroup?

Ultimately, I think the demo is just too short to truly grasp what the game is capable of. I’m looking forward to playing the full version next week.

“You are Dead,” Resident Evil 4 tells me as my avatar gets fried for the fourth time by the trap with erratically moving laser beams. It’s this type of hamfisted advice that seems to be the undercurrent of the entire experience. The game isn’t content to set up a rustic, chilling atmosphere for you to cautiously explore, and instead offers you many, many reasons on why you should be killing the things on screen, as if the player couldn’t figure it out for themselves. If Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer had made a game, I’m pretty sure this is how it would turn out. Only with less plot.

I’ve been trying to figure out Resident Evil 4′s appeal for a year. I even played through it twice, thinking my first impressions may have been too harsh. They weren’t, and for one very big reason: the story doesn’t make any god damned sense. A game that is considered part of the Survival Horror genre has to rely on two, very important things: an immersive, believable atmosphere, and a good story to support this atmosphere as well as give purpose to the action. Forget the clunky controls and rail-shooter pacing, it should be about getting to the point where you feared for your virtual life.

I remember being scared out of my wits after a few hours with Resident Evil 2 on a friend’s Playstation, my first taste of survival horror. “This,” he told me as he flicked the lights off, “is the future of interactive fiction.” The premise was simple enough: survive a city full of zombies intent on eating your brains. He had recently picked up a dual-shock controller, and was eager to try it out, bragging that I would be jumping out of my seat. And I did a few times, after moments that years later would be dubbed as “cheap tricks” in the genre. I’m referring of course to the many times zombies break through a window you’ve just passed or bust through a wall in the hallway you’re walking down. Resident Evil 4 doesn’t have any of these typical scares, placing emphasis on its convoluted story to drive the action forward instead of relying on the player’s basest fears and the game’s atmosphere to keep them playing.

Resident Evil 4 puts you in control of Leon Kennedy, who has been charged with rescuing the kidnapped daughter of the President of the United States. A newly recruited secret agent working directly for the President, Leon has come a long way since fending off zombies as a member of the Raccoon City P.D. in Resident Evil 2. A lead says that the President’s daughter is being held in a rural village somewhere in Spain; the game begins by you being dropped off at this creepy, remote enclave. And then things get ugly. After a close call with one of the locals, Leon is faced with a town that has apparently been turned into zombies. Leon begins his quest to save the President’s daughter, and hopefully figure out what has become of this hapless town.

It was a suitable introduction, and one that had me interested enough to keep playing. The controls were serviceable at first; to be honest I didn’t even really notice their limitations until I had gone past the stage of “hmm?.this game is interesting” into full on, stabbing-myself-in-the-groin frustration at the number of lame plot contrivances. You see, as with many Japanese-developed games, the plots tend to get convoluted extremely fast. Take any JRPG for example – it’s the same story every time, except with more characters with different colored hair. Of course I’m making mass generalizations here, but the story can often be overlooked if the gameplay is compelling enough. In the case of Resident Evil 4, both contributed to the game’s lack of appeal for me. The player shouldn’t be trying to figure out a story, they should be busy getting scared. In the case of horror, less is more! The player’s imagination should be running wild.

The action was just starting to move along when the game introduces Luis, a former police officer from Madrid. I had no idea why he was captured and left alive. He also disappears a lot during the game, but often leaves you handy notes for more plot exposition. Then this giant bearded man who looks uncannily similar to Rasputin, attempts to violate you with his mutant phallus. And well, then there’s the pasty faced midget dressed like Napoleon who lets you wander around his castle while you fend off robed zombies, who I can only assume were formerly the town’s inhabitants. Then you actually rescue Ashley, and have to protect her through some extremely frustrating sequences that bring those annoying controls to the forefront. But of course there’s two discs, so Ashley gets nabbed again and you have to go after her. And it turns out Jack Krauser isn’t dead, and you have to fight him off – wait, did I mention Leon gets injected with the zombie plague, which might actually be the contributing factor to the town’s infestation? Ah, good old Luis – he shows up to give a substance that will slow the poison, only to die in dramatic fashion. Wait – just who is controlling things behind the scenes here? It’s the evil Lord Saddler, high priest of the zombie-people, who turns into a giant spider-like creature and can can only be defeated with a well-placed rocket. After a thoroughly heroic rescue scene and awkward romantic advances from young Ashley, the game is done. Scary, indeed!

I should probably get the obvious out of the way: I was absolutely amazed at the graphical fidelity of this game. I had seen the screenshots, but had no idea that actually playing the game would be as beautifully rendered. At first, I was rolling my eyes at the colours in use to display the enviroment. I’m sure it’s entirely possible to create a convincingly creepy atmosphere without resorting to drab shades of brown and grey, but that’s another subject entirely and something level designers need to address eventually, because I know I’ll never stop mentioning it. Then I got to the graveyard and it started raining. Suitably moody; the rain makes everything depressing. Someone was paying attention in English lit! But nothing could have prepared me for the torches.

There’s a part in the game where you need to travel through a mysterious looking cave under a waterfall. Once you figure out how to get inside, a mob of zombies stand between you and your objective. The flickering of the fire, and the shadows playing on their faces quickly convinced me of the truth. The Gamecube is the most underused platform of all time.

The gameworld is seamless, with a smoothness equalled only by Metroid Prime. The only load times I experienced were when I continued from a save point, or restarted after dying. Which, by the way, happened far less than I expected. Both the overall length of the game and the normal difficulty level have been criticized. It seemed like the designers wanted you to spend less time in the game, and more time watching the story unfold. Perhaps in the survival horror genre this is a viable means to get a player to experience the game, because it’s certainly easier to control the pacing. However, the important question to ask yourself during Resident Evil 4 is: are you playing a game or are you watching one? This is something I never came to terms with amongst the favorable reviews.

Cinematic is a word many like to throw around, myself included, when describing a game. But in all honesty, that’s all I can come up with when thinking about Resident Evil 4′s presentation. It’s established like a movie, the action happens like a movie, and you’re pretty much on a set path for the entire game. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because I don’t think the intention of the game is to allow you to roam free through this creepy European village. I could have lived with that, because as far as I was concerned this was survival horror. Then I played through my first interactive cutscene – a foolish decision to make it seem like you’re still playing the game.

“Interactive cutscene” is a contradiction in terms. The gameplay mechanic during one of these cutscenes is not the same as when you’re in the game world. Instead, each scene begins with a brief clip of what’s happening: for example, a boulder has just been pushed down a hill and is coming after you. A button combination flashes on screen, upon which you must immediately start tapping away lest you be flattened/gutted/etc. This wouldn’t be so bad if the button combination stayed the same between attempts. It doesn’t. This same approach is used during boss battles. The controls will change partway through a fight – within the span of a few seconds you can go from shooting your gun to bashing “A” to wiggle free from some overbearing supervillain’s grip.

There’s a mysterious shopkeeper that keeps showing up, too. There is no explanation offered for why he is wandering around the village, or castle, or how he even knows where you are. Or why he hasn’t been infected by the zombie plague (though his arsenal might have something to do with it). The weapon upgrade options were a great excuse to spend money, but completely unnecessary if you look what was intended by the game. Why not just sell more powerful weapons? I was more annoyed that I couldn’t strafe while firing, or reload my weapons while moving – it certainly leaves you open for more punishment. I’ve read a lot of positive things about the game’s controls, but I still don’t see it – the very act of turning around takes ages, and is almost pointless when surrounded as it eats up valuable time that can be spent shooting. And the zombies don’t drop as much ammo as I’d have liked, though it’s an improvement over past installments of the series.

A word about zombies: as our culture of instant gratification walks us down the path of Instant Macaroni and Cheese, many people complained that the fast running zombies of 28 Days Later and the remake of Dawn of the Dead were a blasphemy upon the rich traditions developed by Romero’s classic movies. I’d definitely agree, as it seems strange that a lumbering, mindless skinbag can suddenly take off in a run to chase after people. The scary thing about zombies was the constant threat of inevitability; not that they would chase after you. As their numbers increased, the possibility of you being infected grows. Your allies dwindle, and it becomes a matter of accepting your fate.

In Resident Evil 4, the zombies are fairly unpredictable. I’m not saying there’s AI or anything – there were numerous times where I could wander around zombie mobs without being noticed – but when they do spot you, they begin their slow plodding to your position, establish you as a threat and then…run? Yes, they run towards you, axe or whatever bladed weapon was strapped to their back in hand, to hack you to bits. But then they stop, and just continue to shamble around, occasionally lunging for your neck when you least expect it. This was the most frightening part of the game. Sometimes I would run out of ammo, and no matter how quick I could reload my weapon the swarm would still get up again, in mockery of the bullets I had just embedded in their corrupted flesh. Aside from the graphics, the other thing this game does extremely well is the level of gore. From the parasites that erupt from the infected to watching Leon getting his head chainsawed off, there’s no shortage of blood on screen. But the violence soon became comedic, exarcerbated by the absurd story. When the fear you’re supposed to be feeling becomes obvious, it’s less engaging. A classic example of this is the much maligned Doom 3.

In an effort to extend the game’s life, once you’ve finished the main game an additional adventure is unlocked: Assignment Ada. This vignette puts you in control of the title character, exploring a part of the game from her perspective. Though it introduces a few new areas with new objectives, you’ve mostly already played through them as Leon. I suppose the intent behind this is to explain why Ada seemed to appear whenever Leon needed assistance, but I can’t say I was convinced. If replay value is to be considered, the “Mercenaries” arcade mode challenges you to kill as many zombies in a set time, which in turn unlocks new weapons and characters within this game mode. This would have been great as multiplayer; as it stands it feels like a time waster. You’re probably better off replaying the game with the unlimited rocket launcher. The explosions are pretty.

I usually dismiss the relevance of numerical ratings out of habit, but it’s pretty hard to ignore Resident Evil 4′s near perfect average on Metacritic and Gamerankings. Whether it deserves such a high rating is something I struggled with even during my first hours of play. To say that this improves on the Resident Evil series in every way is one thing, but to insinuate that this is one of the greatest games to ever grace my television is pushing the envelope. It’s good in the sense that I gained some enjoyment from playing it, but I will never play it again. The action was plodding at times, and felt as if it would be just as easy to toss the game into my DVD player and press “play” to watch the Resident Evil 4 movie. At least then I could fast forward through the “save Ashley” missions. In terms of action games, this is certainly a slickly produced endeavour, and in the collective minds of gamers will probably end up as the finest game in the Resident Evil series. But I’m not going to delude myself into thinking that this is a game worthy of a near-perfect rating; there are too many things wrong with it that in any other game would garner only moderate reviews (and a lot more criticism). At times extremely visceral and at others scraping the deepest pits of tired cliché, Resident Evil 4 was monumentally disappointing.

I’m not really a fan of the series, but when I’ve read numerous reviews (and received personal recommendations) that wax poetic about this game’s quality, eventually I have to give in. Yes, the game is indeed beautiful, and probably the best looking game I’ve seen on a console next to the Metroid Prime series and Crystal Chronicles. However, judgement of this game seems to be obsessively focused on its previous incarnations, and not other games in its genre. Am I missing something? If the fact that this is a Resident Evil game was removed from the equation, would it still be considered good?

When I hear the words “survival horror”, I assume an implicit agreement between the player and the developer. I should be scared. I concede that the game did a great job of setting the mood. A creepy, dilapidated remote village populated by grizzled looking farmers deftly establishes the tone. I freaked out the first time I saw a zombie shambling towards me even after I had just blown his head clean off. But the story, as detailed as it may be, just doesn’t seem that compelling to warrant an expedient playthrough of the remainder of the game. I feel like a tourist. Resident Evil 4 feels like Metal Gear Solid. Lots of story, action on rails. I have no control. Why should I be scared?

Maybe it was the annoying “interactive cutscenes” (an oxymoron if there ever was one) that switched up button combinations between tries, or the completely annoying controls that are almost useless during boss battles.

For me, I think what finally sealed Resident Evil 4′s fate was babysitting the president’s daughter. She can climb up a ladder with the best of them. But if I wander away after climbing down, she’s completely fucking helpless. Maybe if she would just pick up a god damned pistol when I’m about to get my head chainsawed off, I wouldn’t be so bitter.

the currents have their say