Glitch Watch: Left 4 Dead

Welcome to Glitch Watch, the first of what will hopefully become an ongoing series of funny, annoying, or just plain bizarre glitchs in current games.

Left 4 Dead has already seen some trouble with crazy multiplying Witches in the Safe Room, and other silly hacks. However, these have been recognized by Valve and will (hopefully) be fixed shortly, so I’m not going to go into those. I have two rather annoying glitches to discuss, both within the No Mercy campaign: Elevator Death Trap and The Mystery of the Missing Helicopter.

Glitch 1: Elevator Death Trap

Surviving the horde after calling the elevator in Mercy Hospital is not one of the easiest parts of the level. However, if you’re defending by the elevator and happen to notice a lack of Special Infected attacking you, be warned: the enemy infected are probably preparing the Elevator Death Trap.

Basically, it takes advantage of the fact that Special Infected are much stronger than the Survivors. When in the construction site of the hospital, Special Infected can move certain objects by use or repeated melee attacks. Right near the exit of the elevator is a small construction vehicle that can be moved in front of the elevator doors. If done “properly”, the Survivors cannot get past it because they are simply not strong enough. However, normal zombies can climb over the obstruction and get into the elevator.

There’s no easy way to avoid this glitch, but there are a couple things to keep in mind. The first is to immediately switch to pistols if this happens. Being stuck in the elevator means that the Special Infected can’t do a whole lot of damage to you, so the point of this trick is mainly to force the Survivors to use up all of their ammo. If Special Infected (like Hunters) jump into the room, try to melee them into the obstruction, as it will cause it to move slightly. Keep trying to get past the obstruction, as sometimes you can manage to squeeze by it.

This is a really, really annoying glitch. It’s fun a couple times against friends but after that it feels kind of cheap. You know, because it is.

Glitch #2 – The Mystery of the Missing Helicopter

This glitch is a little different because it’s one that happens somewhat randomly, and is not induced by other players. It’s not quite as common but I have spoken with other players online who have experienced it.

One of the techniques for surviving the horde on the roof of Mercy Hospital is to get all of the Survivors under the metal ramp that leads to the helicopter landing pad. The zombies can only get in from the small entrance, Smokers can’t drag you off, and attacking Hunters are easily killed. The Tank serves as the only problem, but if your whole team has shotguns it’s not usually too bad.

This is what my team was doing as we waited for the helicopter. The something peculiar happened. The Tank was dead, but the music continued on. At first we thought they somehow managed to get two Tanks in a row, but after a few minutes passed we realized that no one was coming after us. Another five minutes passed and we continued to fight off the hordes effectively, all of us still at green health. However, the radio wasn’t broadcasting any more updates as to when the helicopter was going to arrive. After we did a small excursion to the radio to make sure we had in fact called the helicopter, then ran back under the ramp to regroup.

After nearly 20 minutes of defending ourselves, we realized we had hit a glitch and the helicopter wasn’t coming. I guess it was somewhat realistic that we wouldn’t survive the zombie apocalypse, it was nevertheless annoying. And unfortunately, there is not a whole lot you can do about this glitch. You can either stay under the ramp and try to work towards the Zombie Genocidest achievement or you can give up and jump off the building (I wouldn’t give the other team the satisfaction of offing me under such circumstances…plus jumping off of buildings is funny).

That concludes my Left 4 Dead glitches. If you guys have anymore that you’d like to share, please tell us in the comments section! Also if you know of any strange, amusing, or otherwise game-breaking glitches, let us know, either by email or forums.