This is a post by Sarcastic Gamer community member bigsam656, who’s learned a trick or two while playing through Left 4 Dead. They’ve even had 8bit approval so they must be good! If you want a shot at getting your own stuff on the front page, register over at the forums and start writing in your own Blog!

Lately I have been playing a lot of Left 4 Dead and have learned a few tricks that could help out a ton so enjoy!

1. Don’t stay in one area for long periods of time: You will be attacked by the Horde and special enemies if you sit in one area too long (it’s not rare to get a Tank on Expert).
2. Melee while reloading: Once you start the reload animation, regardless of which weapon you can melee away at the Horde and the weapon will still reload in the same amount of time.
3. Hold the melee button when surrounded: This can easily knock back the Horde allowing you a precious few seconds to empty your clip into them. Another advantage to holding the button is that you will be immune to all non-special horde attacks in the direction you are looking.
4. Sneak past the Witches: They WILL drop you in one hit, regardless of difficulty setting or health. To have the best chance of passing them without needing medical attention, turn off your flashlight, avoid throwing bombs or shooting close to them, and walk behind them.
5. Turn subtitles on: This trick has saved my life on several occasions as the game will display messages such as “[Incoming attack!]” and “[(name of special enemy) alert!]”. These will give you time to prepare for the Horde or alert your team to an oncoming Hunter; they generally help your understanding of a situation.
6. Expert difficulty weapons: Shotguns will NOT drop specials in one hit and Horde enemies will take two shots at medium range. I recommend you stick with the SMG and assault rifle for this difficulty and avoid the hunting rifle altogether.
7. Pointman crouches: If you are taking point and you come across a room full of nasties, for the love of God CROUCH! It helps the team so much when they can shoot past you and your accuracy also improves, so its win-win.
8. Always have a human play Zoey: I know she is annoying, but have a person play as Zoey because she has a tendency to pick up the *gasp* hunting rifle at every opportunity she gets, which is pretty useless in the close range world of Left 4 Dead. If possible have another person play Francis as he likes to use the combat shotgun.
9. Set traps: Those propane tanks and petrol canisters sitting around aren’t just for decoration and can make deadly traps for Finales in Versus Mode. For example, I was playing the No Mercy Finale on Advanced and set three petrol containers along the main route on the roof. I climbed onto the roof, got someone to radio for help, then shot all three containers when the Horde came.
10. You are not Rambo: You lose 20% health with each hit on Expert so I recommend not running ahead of your team spraying blindly into the crowd of zombies while meleeing you way through: it will just end badly.

There you have it, ten tips to help you fight off the Horde and remember: the hunting rifle sucks.

That’s that then. For even more Left 4 Dead tips, check out our Survival Guide!

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