Left 4 Dead Preview - November 5th, 2008
The last time we at Left 4 Dead 411 played Left 4 Dead was April 2, 2007. At that time only a handful of articles, interviews and screenshots had been released on L4D and no video at all. On that day, a year and nearly seven months ago, walking to Valve headquarters from our hotel and having no idea how the game looked or played, all we hoped for was that the game wasn't bad. It might sound silly now, but Valve had been gracious enough to pay for our trip all the way from Ohio to Seattle based on a tiny fledgling website and it would have been pretty awkward if we didn't enjoy the game.
That day Frogopus and I played Left 4 Dead for 12 hours, and the first two paragraphs of our preview sums up our feelings pretty well:
Left 4 Dead is absolute chaos. It is intense, fast-paced, thrilling, exhilarating, and exhausting. It is everything you could ever hope for a game to be and more - every single expectation I had for the game was blown away entirely. I was literally in awe over how fun and unique of an experience it offered and I have to say that it was honestly the best gaming experience I've had in my life.
We as gamers seem to hear this kind of sensationalism for unreleased games far too often, and believe me that I too have been the victim of such unwarranted hype - but I promise you that these are not empty words. This game is truly original and it offers up a pure gaming experience. Everything in Left 4 Dead is geared towards reaching that mindset of pure gaming bliss. It is challenging, and you will fail. You will scream, curse, laugh and cry, and love every single second of it.
That was the game then, a game that could easily have been released within a few months and been a great game. Summer 2007 turned to Fall turned to Winter turned to early 2008 turned to Summer turned to Fall turned to early November turned to November 18th. Since that day of playing, I have spent 573 days reading and reporting on literally every single piece of news, looking at every screenshot and watching every video that came out on Left 4 Dead. In that time some major events happened that brought some questions to our mind; Turtle Rock Studios was acquired by Valve, the game was split up into two separate modes and one was at first referred to as deathmatch mode, our beloved Survivors that we came to love were replaced, and the AI Director started to be referred to as a way to make things easier on teams doing poorly.
With all that in mind, we flew to California to Valve South on October 24th wondering whether the game we fell in love with so long ago was still the same.
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