Left 4 Dead Survival Mode Impressions
If anything my single complaint with Left 4 Dead was that I felt I was making a big commitment going into a campaign. I felt obligated to finish that whole campaign in a single sitting, and sometimes I really didn’t have the time for that, but my desire to slay hordes of zombies kept me playing later into the night than ever intended. Enter Survival Mode, remove all the tedium of a long journey to safety, you’ve got no hope right from the start.
The premise is pretty simple, you’re going to die, go out in a blaze of glory. The game gives you a bunch of weapons and lots of things that explode, you then hit a trigger and everything the game can possibly throw at you it does, in large number and quickly. Combine this with the fact that the maps for survival provide you nowhere to hide. Pretty much every wall you could put your back to will bust down and flood with zombies and in no way are you protected from special infected. That being said, the mode does not fool around, the average match will last something around 3 minutes, even less on the new “Last Stand” survival specific map that seems to be tweaked for extra difficulty. Basically all those crazy L4D stories look to be 1up’d by this mode, and while this is more an hors d’oeuvres rather than a full meal, if that’s what you’re looking for Survival is a great way to hop in kill undead and hop right back out without worrying wether or not you’ll be letting anyone down. It’s out right now for the low low price of free on both PC and 360, and for a price like that it’s atleast worth a look.
