I just got done playing my first run through of Death Toll in versus mode. Although we didn’t get to the finale due to time constraints, I can sum the Survivor experience up in two words: FRIKKING HARD. Read the rest of this entry »
Valve have made some pretty serious updates in the last couple of weeks, especially with regard to versus mode. The Smoker got some serious buffs, Survivor melee got nerfed and the order in which the teams play through the stages now depends on points. Generally speaking I think that they’re for the better, and here’s why. Read the rest of this entry »
Last time, I discussed the various tactics that I’ve seen/used for taking on the Witch in versus mode. Experienced players can definitely make short work of her and if the Infected team isn’t paying attention they can be caught on the back foot, putting them at a disadvantage. The purpose of this article is to give players some pointers and ideas on how to turn Witch encounters back into something that the Survivors should be very, very afraid of. Read the rest of this entry »
Ahh, the Witch. When Left 4 Dead came out, she was toted as being the scariest adversary in video gaming. I certainly agreed with that to begin with, but now I think otherwise. I have become blazé, maybe even overconfident in my treatment of L4D’s most powerful zombie. One-hit kills? I have a shotgun, lady, and I give as good as I get. Crowning the witch has become almost automatic in campaign mode. An action to be performed out of habit, without a second thought.
There’s not much to be done about this. Unless the witch gets a serious buff from Valve in a future update, she’s not ever going to cause a problem for players who have spent enough time running up and down the zombie-infested wasteland to know which end of their gun is the dangerous end, and where to stick it for maximum effect.
Versus mode is another matter entirely. Unless the survivors work together the infected team can easily wreak havoc whenever a witch shows up. Similarly, the opportunities a witch creates for the infected can be wasted if they’re not on their toes. Here’s a breakdown of some of the best (and worst) tactics I’ve seen for the Survivors. Part 2 will deal with the Infected counter-tactics. Read the rest of this entry »
Previous parts: part 1 (Intro), part 2 (Zoey)
Here’s the shortlist:
Ok, first thing’s first. Martin Lawrence is the poor man’s Will Smith. If you can’t afford to get Smith in your movie, you get Lawrence. Except if you’re making Bad Boys. Seeing as these articles are hypothetical, fantasy wishlists with no regard for feasability or cost, we can ditch Lawrence immediately. Sorry man, don’t take it too harshly. Read the rest of this entry »
Part one of this series can be found here.
There have been a lot of people saying that the real-life inspiration for Zoey’s character model is Sonja Kinski. Personally I don’t see the resemblance. Looks aside, she’s known primarily as a model not an actress. As I see it, casting her as Zoey would be a big mistake. Here’s my shortlist:
Best known for her role in the Pirates of the Caribbean films, Kira Knightly also played a gun-toting bounty hunter in Domino. Kate Beckinsale kicked some serious ass in the Underworld films.Both of them are serious action-chicks. However, I don’t think they have the range to portray Zoey doing anything other than shooting zombies. Her character has much more depth than that, and I don’t think either of these two actresses would be able to explore it.
Ok, what about Natalie Portman then? She showed off her vulnerable side in V For Vendetta and from her performance in Leon we can see that she clearly has a talent for portraying believable characters in unusual situations. However, she still doesn’t get the role. Whilst the previous two actresses are too hard, Portman is too far the other way. For all her depth as an actress, I just can’t see her wielding a shotgun against hordes of zombies. Although she did look HAWT with all her hair shaved off.
So who is it then? Who has both the guts and the tears to give Zoey a proper representation on the big screen?
Summer Glau could have been born to play this role. She is known for her ass-kicking roles in Firefly/Serenity as River Tam and as Cameron in the new Terminator TV series. In character as River she also displayed her ability to show vulnerability and fear, proving that she isn’t just a one-dimentional action heroine. I think she has what it takes to show off both sides of Zoey’s character that we see in-game: The zombie punching, gun wielding team player and the scared, nervous wreck that we see when she or another survivor gets seriously injured. And of course, she’ll look GREAT while doing it.
Just came across this over on DeviantArt. PURE GOLD:
Left4Dead – Aperture Science by ~FireOps on deviantART
Why has no-one thought of this before now? Ok, the chances are someone has, but why did no-one tell me?! The whole secret-underground-research-facility setting is begging for a zombie revamp but neither of the Resident Evil mods that I’m currently aware of (here and here) deal with the Umbrella Corp’s lab beneath Raccoon City.
Clearly any campaign set in Aperture’s labs would lack the portal gun itself (we’ll just have to hope for multiplayer in Portal 2), but there is ample room for exploration of other areas in the Aperture complex. I see a potential campaign being executed in one of the following ways:
I’ll repeat the last point in case you missed it: You get to kill the A.I. Director. How rewarding would it be to dispose not only of the mastermind behind your imprisonment in the Aperture labs, but also a personification of the entity responsible for killing you in every single L4D game you ever played?
I really hope there is a mapper or modder with enough free time out there capable of taking this on. I really do. So hurry up Valve, release the L4D SDK already so that someone with talent and time can implement my dreams.
For a while I’ve been thinking about what a Left 4 Dead film would be like. We’ve seen a lot of awful game-to-movie adaptations over the years. For whatever reason, it seems that games have always translated badly onto the silver screen. Left 4 Dead is somewhat different though. The whole point of the game is to re-create the tension, the action and the overall feel of a zombie movie. If any game deserves a movie adaptation, this is it. It even has ready made movie posters! Rather than making a movie out of a game, you’d be getting a movie out of a game born out of movies. Making a movie would bring the whole process full circle.
Each campaign takes 1-1.5 hours to complete (depending on restarts, and a little longer on Expert), rather than the 20+ hours of gameplay that most single-player games are expected to provide. I think this format lends itself excellently to being filmed as no-one will be disappointed by huge swathes of content being cut. Admittedly only one campaign would be able to be portrayed in a film, but we all know that Hollywood isn’t afraid of franchises and sequels.
The main thing that L4D has going for it in a motion-picture conversion is the characters. The 4 survivors have been outfitted with well defined, distinct personalities that drive the players through the world. This is achieved primarily through the brilliant dialog, which can be lifted straight from the game and worked into the script for a movie. As for the actors that would take these roles… I’ve had some thoughts on that too. I’ll be posting the second part of this article in the next week or so detailing my decisions, but in the meantime I welcome any suggestions people might have in the comments.
