Left 4 Dead Survival Mode Impressions
Yeah, yeah this is old. Well guess what? I haven’t been able to play Left 4 Dead in at least 17 days, so I finally got my sweaty nerd hands wrapped around my Xbox 360 controller last night and on Live to play me some of the “new” online mode.
First of all, Kudos to both Valve and Microsoft for making Survival Mode free. Sure it’s not a huge update and one that should have shipped in the game, but it’s big enough that they could have tried to unfairly squeeze us out of the cash.
I managed to play a few rounds of survival and my conclusions are that it would be a lot more fun playing with actual friends instead of complete randoms. Co-op survival of this kind needs to be with friends who are willing to talk to each other to make it through the waves of zombies as opposed to dudes that will just run off on their own. The other thing that I noticed right off the bat was that the Left 4 Dead survival mode is no Gears of War 2 Horde Mode. There doesn’t seem to be enough breaks for the survivors to reorganize and have some actual hope of surviving. Yes, the point of the mode is to throw wave after wave of zombies at you, but the quiet parts in a horror movie or an action movie help lend even more drama to the proceedings.
Overall, the mode brings added life to the game which was needed. It seems fun enough and I look forward to checking it out more to get me my Zombie Genocidist achievement (currently over halfway there!).
May 7th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Yeah you need 3 other buddies for this to somewhat work, and honestly the experience is only really fun for about 15 minutes. The mode is just relentless. Otherwise, I recommend Gears 2 for a far better experience.
May 14th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
I love the survival mode and have played LOTS of it, but unless I am playing with a team that I know well online, the only time it has been truly fun is when we did a system link with 4 consoles. We racked up some pretty damn good times then and it was tons of fun when the people you are playing with are sat right next to you.
If you get the chance to somehow get four 360’s/TV’s together I highly recommend it!
The game is also awesome in system link when you play campaign and vs mode of course.