While many of you will have already grabbed at it’s seductive cornery parts and transported it to your dwelling (while softly caressing it’s cellophane exterior on the seat next to you), others might not have picked up Left 4 Dead. That said, whether you own it or not, you probably know that it’s a co-op focused zombie shooter. If you didn’t know that, then it’s a co-op focused zombie shooter.

I therefore present you with a useless editorial that basically tells you what steps Valve took to ensure that Left 4 Dead was best played cooperatively. I just repeat everything you already know in a long-winded, albeit hilarious manner, so I wouldn’t bother wasting your time reading it.

So, you clicked the link, expecting me to say something like: “Wowza! My reverse psychology worked! By saying this editorial was useless and boring, you were intrigued and clicked the ‘continue reading’ button. Oh how wrong they were saying I couldn’t go to med school, just because of that unfortunate incident with the melon and that…bag of aggregate…and whatnot.”, but unfortunately I’ve done that joke before and I wasn’t joking about the whole ‘repeating in a long-winded manner’ thing.

Meh.

Left 4 Dead, if played alone, is boring. However, if played with other people, it becomes one of the best multiplayer games to grace store shelves this year. While the co-op fun is partly thanks to the inherent nature of a zombie shooter, it’s also down to a number of steps Valve took to ensure that Left 4 Dead was best played as a team.

Singleplayer third, co-op first

You know that Left 4 Dead was built for co-op as soon as you boot it up. Multiplayer campaign is the top menu option, followed by Versus and then finally, all the way in third, is the singleplayer.

Play with friends

In the same vain as the menu’s ordering, is the ‘play with friends’ feature. Without the need to go into the guide, the game tells you what you friends are doing in Left 4 Dead, whether you can join them and whether they can join you. It’s not ground breaking, but it’s a nice touch.

Giving health to other players

So when a zombie jumps at you, saying something along the lines of “BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINNNSSSS!”, you may well think that your end is nigh and that you might as well quit the match. Oh, how you would be. By allowing players to use their med packs on team mates (as well as themselves) Valve have encouraged players to try and stop their colleagues’ deaths, because:

a) The game is a lot harder with one man down.

b) You may just be a nice person.

Calling when finding ammo/weapons etc.

Upon finding a gun, some molotovs or a pile of ammo, you can click the left stick to make your character call out something like “weapons here!” or “molotovs here”…basically just “[thing found] here”. As well as letting players know whether you have stolen a pipe bomb, it also alerts the team to the newly found utility, making them thankful that you found it.

Take a Break

While this may be fairly tenuously related to co-op, the game features a ‘take a break’ option in the pause menu. If you have to nip down the shops or have to leave for some reason, you can just select ‘take a break’ and the AI will take over your character letting everyone else continue as normal. When you get back, just push the right trigger and your back playing.

If you haven’t bought Left 4 Dead yet then go and do so now, especially if you have a group of friends with the game. If you’re worried about the length, then get it on PC, where Valve are sure to release a load of free content. If you want it on 360 (like me), then that’s fine too, since the levels are very replayable.

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