Although I wouldn’t personally brand Left 4 Dead as a ‘survival horror’ game in the sense that Silent Hill or the original Alone in the Dark games are survival horror, I’d be lying if I said more than once I haven’t jumped so much I nearly knocked my tea over when I’ve turned a corner to find that I’ve just stuck my foot half a metre up a witch’s behind. If I’ve been lucky enough to run away unscathed my poor cup of tea is placed in further jeopardy when I spin around to see a Hunter trying to remove my intestines from their rightful place.
All that in mind, I have lately found myself laughing at one or two of the characters that make it impossible to immerse myself in the atmosphere. I’m not talking in a ‘wow check Ellis out he’s got some messed up stories’ funny, but unintentionally funny. Some might say it is a ‘bad’ kind of funny, but I’m not so sure!
Bill is like an Alzheimer’s patient who was unfortunate enough to find a gun on his way out of the nursing home. He hates Helicopters. He hates vampires. Zombies, he hasn’t yet voiced an opinion on. Louis is like a squirrel on crystal meth (if it came in pill form, of course) and Francis is so butch that it makes me wonder if the developers meant to design him like a giant penis with a beard. There’s just no way anything else could contain so much testosterone.
Sadly Zoey to date remains giggle-free, until you throw her off a building and listen to her ridiculous screams as she plummets to a survivor-flavoured mush on the ground. But perhaps that’s just me.
But this is what I love about Left 4 Dead. It’s gory, shocking and if any of the thousands of online players were thrown into this situation, it’s be downright horrific but Valve certainly knows when to place their tongue firmly in cheek and give the fans just the slightest of winks.
