I Hate You, Stop Sucking at Left 4 Dead

It has come to my attention that if the human race was really in danger of being eliminated by hoards of un-dead, the gamers of today would be grossly ill prepared to deal with it. Contrary to what they might think of their own skills and the suitability of their zombie plans gamers have taken to the zombie invasion like a paraplegic to swimming.

I believe this to be the case as my recent escapades in Valve’s latest zombie killing simulator have pulled the wool from over my eyes to reveal the bunch of drooling mentally challenged morons that you are. Yes you. I bet you were sitting there thinking something along the lines of: “I agree with what this guy is laying down on me, holmes” because you think you’re cooler then actually you are. “Everyone I play with is hella shit and can’t keep up with me and my mad skillz boi”.

This is not the case. You too, are a steamy pile of crap at Left 4 Dead. But fear not! For you see I am in-fact one of the perfect players of this glorious apocalypse training tool (I am not so naive to think that I am the ONLY perfect player. Me and the other one should meet up and talk sometime). And I shall use my vast library of zombie ending knowledge to educate you worthless peons so that you might stand a better chance of surviving the (let’s face it) inevitable zombie apocalypse. Or failing that you have my permission to act as a human shield to protect me. Just don’t look me in the eyes.

To begin with I shall talk about the primary concept that will enable you to survive a spiffing round of L4D: cooperation

Now I know that this word will confuse most of you gamers. So I am going to hold your hand and take you through it step by step. All right? Let’s define the word and see what we can learn. The Oxford English Dictionary defines cooperation as a noun that describes the verb (doing word) cooperate. Cooperate has two very simple meanings. The first meaning is to work jointly towards the same end. The second meaning is to comply with a request.

Both of these meaning are relevant in our lesson. The “same end” in our case is surviving or to be more specific: making it to the next safe room. The “working jointly” is a medley of tasks that players can complete whilst working together to ensure victory. The latter meaning is simple: do what you’re told. You aren’t very clever so you might want to pick up on this as early in life as you can.

Cooperation in L4D is vital for success. If one slobbering retard breaks away from the group, he or she will die. If one slobbering retard runs ahead with the misconception that he or she is better than the rest of the group and can manage without, he or she will die. So on and so forth.

Many, if not all, of the deaths you have assuredly experienced will have likely been avoidable had you put your incompetence aside, stayed together and worked as a group. It only takes a simple melee to break your companion free from the clutches of a smoker or hunter. And eight eyes are considerably more useful than two. If you do not see a boomer waddling up to you from behind, and your team is not there to assist, you will be chucked up on and have to face a hoard all by yourself. And While I can admit that one semi-sentient player can deal with a hoard no problem, the delay caused by it will have allowed any number of special infected to spawn and attack you. Likewise with the boss infected: the witch and the tank. You will not survive if you go up against them by yourself. In summary: Stay close to your team, idiot. If your team dies you are left alone.

The next point which I wish to address is communication. Arguably this could have fallen neatly under cooperation but I do not wish to fry your feeble and easily confused mind. That and I felt it deserved a section of its own. Don’t fret. I’m still here right beside you.

L4D has a very clever way of enabling a player to see his or her team mate’s status. The coloured outlines you will have been scared and confused by are not your enemy. They’re there to help you. Each colour represents a state. Here is a handy list:

Green: fine, healthy.
Orange: reduced health.
Red: needs medical assistance / downed.
Pink: vomited on.

If you think you are going to have trouble remembering that feel free to print out this page and use it as reference.

You can use these states to help you make decisions. For example: Bill has been downed. Do you A) pick him up and heal him if you can. Or do you B) do nothing?

Since this is your first lesson I shall tell you the correct answer. It is A. You should help him.

As well as the coloured outlines you also have verbal communication! Through the power of technology scientists have been able to send audio signals at very high speeds around the world. L4D utilises this technology in the form of team chat. To make the most of this wizardry simply equip your headset of choice and speak into the affixed microphone. This is not a toy and for maximum survivability you should actively suggest methods and events that will enable your team mates to made decisions and take actions based on your input. Hopefully they will do the same in return.

“But Half Leeeeeeeft, I don’t want to speak to other people!”. Shut your face. If you feel that you are too sensitive to the often harsh words of other gamers there is an alternative. If you see a special infected. Click the left stick in / press the Z key whilst looking at it. As if by magic, your character will inform the other players! This method also works for alerting team mates to the whereabouts of explosives and weaponry.

Now I am going to cover some small but handy tips that you can actively employ on the battlefield. If you feel you aren’t up to the task you might want to distribute these tips in the pre-game lobby, so that you might have at least one applicable skill each.

Keep low. Crouch as much as possible. If you have to fight of a horde and find yourself in one spot for an extended period of time crouch down. This will improve your weapon’s accuracy a considerable amount. It also enables players standing behind you to shoot over your head, reducing the chance that another small bus rider will not dilute your spinal fluid with hot lead. In versus mode crouching wall also cause your own outline to vanish which in turn will confuse your pea brained zombie antagonists.

Avoid wide open spaces. This one is simple. It makes it more difficult for a smoker to lick you if it has less available area in which it can hit you. Similarly hunters will have a more difficult time leaping on you undetected if it has fewer potential avenues of attack. Keeping your back to a wall will also reduce the amount of common infected that can huddle around you reducing damage taken almost in half!

LEAVE THE WITCH ALONE. This really should not need explaining. The opening cut scene to the game acts as an instructional video in this regard. But I can sense your stupidity from here and it’s clear I shall have to spell it out. Just avoid her completely if you can. Keep torches off and gunfire to a minimum as you pass her and you should have little to no trouble from her. In the unfortunate instances that she can’t be avoided you have two options. The first depends on your own skill with the auto shotgun, which is likely to be lax. This method needs you to actively annoy the witch. When she looks up at you, unload into her face with the shotgun. If everything goes to plan you can kill her without incident. The second method is plain and simple: Shoot the shit out of her. Her target should back-pedal and shoot at the same time to avoid being downed.

The tank is a piece of piss if you all concentrate on him quickly enough. Let’s face it he ain’t hard to miss. If you can hit a barn door from ten paces you can more or less handle the tank. He is slow as shit and cannot catch up to a healthy survivor. If a team-mate is downed during his attack leave them alive and keep unloading into the tank while making sure to dodge flying cars and bins. You can pick them up later. However, if your team-mate has been pounced or licked you should rescue them as quickly as possible so that they may continue their efforts against the brute.

Reload as often as you can. This ensures that you will not be caught short during an attack. Another tip on a similar note is to avoid going below one shot left with the auto shotgun. Letting the weapon run out of ammo causes it to need re-cocking, which wastes precious zombie slaughtering seconds (which is a bad thing).

Avoid ledges which you can fall or be dragged off. Falling off will cause your spine to shatter. This too, is a bad thing.

All of these tips apply for both versus and campaign modes. To make sure you don’t have to warm up a single brain cell of yours I’ll now cover some advice for when you get your change to play as the un-dead.

Synchronise… Erm, align… Attack at the same time (I’m trying to keep it on your level). A single hunter pouncing a survivor is useless if there are three comrades there to protect the victim. Even worker ants with brains weighing almost as much as yours work great at attacking enemies as a team. Take a leaf from their book and try to emul… mimi… copy what they’re doing. This of course goes for all of the un-dead types.

As the hunter, leap high as you can. The higher the leap, the larger the fall. This will cause the survivor to take up to 25 damage from a single blow. Speaking of single blows, The hunters regular swipe is a surprisingly good killer. When a survivor is in the red it is advisable to swipe him a few times rather than pouncing on him and being knocked off instantly. Keep in mind the hunters wall jump ability. I won’t go into it as your small brain will not handle it. But it’s good for moving about the level and getting to places that other infected can’t.

As the smoker, DO NOT STAND RIGHT IN THEIR FUCKING FACES. Are you really that retarded? No wait. Silly question. Of course you are. For someone to be so stupid as to stand right in front of a group of armed survivors and try to lick one of them and get away with it must have some sort of autism at least.

As the boomer, EXACTLY THE SAME AS ABOVE. Try to hide round corners or on top of ledges. The boomers are massive fragile targets. If your bile attack has failed feel free to do a suicide attack in the vain attempt to make your sacrifice actually be worth anything. Go ahead, no one cares.

As the tank: knock shit into their faces. A survivor getting hit with a car is an instant down. That is all you are after: downs. Your job as the tank is to down as many of your rivals as possible. Don’t waste time smashing them into the ground. The tank has a particularly hard time as everyone instantly focuses on bringing him down. Remember that you don’t have to attack straight away. You can allow your attention bar to drain a little if it offers a more tactically viable approach to the situation. Wow. I heard you zone out of that last sentence from here, idiot.

In summary: I hate you. In the abhorrent chance that I end up in a party with you just try to not die please. Is that too much to ask, really? I actually had a lot more tips to add. But mid-sentence I realised that I have just wasted over 2,000 of my words on your stupid face. I wish you were dead.

Whatever.