"Why can't it be Left 5 Dead???" - rabbit221

EDIT! The name of this post comes from the game we were playing last night. Brett posed that question when all four of us were already in a game and another friend logged on. EDIT!

EDIT2! I'd just like to point out that the Director can be HUGE dick at times. EDIT2!

My first post! Anyway. So last night was my first serious foray into Left 4 Dead's versus mode. I must say, I don't know why I don't play this mode more often. It was way more fun than the regular campaign at many points. Versus mode pits four players playing as the special infected (Hunter, Smoker, Boomer and Tank) while the other four play as the survivors. While you can play as long as you have one person playing the infected and one person playing as the survivors, the survivors playing with A.I. teammates puts the people playing as the infected at a severe disadvantage. The A.I. survivors are probably ten times more deadly than a regular player seeing as they tend to have pin point accuracy. A few times during our versus campaign this happened to us and it was clear who was a player and who was A.I. Nothing ruins the experience of versus more than hiding behind a tree in the Blood Harvest campaign only to have an A.I. survivor blast you without seeing or hearing you.

ANYwho.

Back to our campaign. We played through the No Mercy campaign (No Mercy and Blood Harvest are the only two you can play through). Let me just state first that your best bet at having a good time is making sure you know your teammates. I was playing with two guys on my friends list and I think we had a fourth guy jump in at one point. Each chapter, one team plays as the infected while the other team plays the survivors and tries to make it to the safe room or get as far as they can before dying. Then the teams switch. You get points based on how far you got, how hard the chapter was, how many people survived (if you make it to the safe room) and such. Based on our game last night, you get MAD points for actually making it to the safe room, and if one team does and the other doesn't, there is a HUGE gap in points.

Let's start with playing the infected side. Nothing, I repeat, NOTHING is more satisfying then setting up an ambush for the survivors and then effectively getting them all down and out. Also, each chapter at some point one person gets picked to become the tank, and since versus is played on the normal difficulty, that means total ass kicking is about to ensue. On the shorter chapters, like the opening ones, the infected have to get to work immediately since there's not much time. On other chapters, like 2, 3, the longer ones, setting up ambushes and using the different infected together is a better strategy. Usually you get spawned as each kind so there's a variety but sometimes you all get spawned as a certain kind. But when you're all different kinds, having the boomer vomit on all four survivors while a smoker snags one and then a hunter jumps on the survivor trying to save the one the smokers got, all the while zombies are everywhere because of the vomit. . . oh, it's fantastic. Teamwork is still the key even on the infected side. A word of advice for those who picked as the tank; it IS possible to hit your infected teammates. It was awesome learning this on the No Mercy finale, when my teammate as the tank uppercutted one of the survivors I was trying to jump on as a hunter and I effectively got thrown off the roof, limp body cartwheeling through the air all the while.

Now, let's talk about playing the survivors. While playing a normal campaign consists of several, "Let's do this. . . OH SHIT!" moments, these are probably doubled on versus. Since the infected are being played by actual people, their ambushes are far more effective. Nothing like climbing up a ladder only have multiple hunters bombard you at once. Also, staying together is FAR more important in this mode. One person straying by themselves is almost certain death if you don't know the people you're playing with. The parts where you must alert the horde are also twice as bad. Nothings worse than having to fend off an already a large horde and then you get vomited on by a boomer bringing out even MORE zombies. Good times.

I'd have to say though, if I can get my friends on here as a regular thing, versus mode may take precedence over my futile attempts at beating the campaigns on expert. As a final thought, this game is perfect for anyone who happens to be an achievement whore. This games got achievements out the ass if you play it right.