Left dying to do it all over again! [pt1]

Of all things Zombie, my single favourite is Left4Dead; the multiplayer co-op survival horror first person shooter (fps) from Valve. It's quite literally genius. I've played it for eight hour sessions at a time, with only small breaks to get a cuppa or let nature's course (and the previous cuppa) run through, so to speak... I'm going to come back to L4D in a minute, but I have to inform you all how bad I have this Zombie bug.

On one hard-drive alone, I have a directory of just Zombie films. At the last count, a few months ago, it was at a hundred and twenty, plus... I've probably obtained roughly one or two more per week since then and easily have a hundred and fifty now. I've watched all of them barring maybe three. Every single one has it's own quality, even if in many cases that quality happens to be a total lack of quality; they can still be admired even for that though, and of course for having zombies in them.

It all started when I was about eleven or twelve and watched Evil Dead 2 with my parents. For the first time I could remember, I cried, not in fear, but from laughing my pre-teen ass off. It made me jump, shriek, jump again, then laugh. A full ninety minutes later I was exhausted and delirious. Stunning. After that baptism of blood it took many more years before I realised I'd become a closet zombiephiliac.

Later I started to admire the earlier Italian zombie films, initially the Fulci films and I then found my way to Day of the Dead; George A Romero's third film in his series. I also laughed at that film, but a completely different kind of laugh. I wasn't guffawing at the Abbot and Costello style slapstick of a man getting his ass kicked by his own, and still attached, Zombiefied hand, but at the sheer gruesome spectacle I was witnessing. At the time it was Tom Savini that blew me away. Seeing a man pulled in half, hearing his voice reach almost ultra-sonic levels as his vocal chords stretched, tore and finally rend apart, all on screen. No dark filters or night time lighting to hide shoddy effects. No, this looked as real as my own hand in front of my mouth.

As I got over my teenage years I began to understand what it was that Romero was actually doing in each of his films and my love for them grew. There were deep social and political issues that he dealt with, that in complete honesty no other director would touch. Around the same time I began tracking down more classic Italian zombie films and finally over the few years I've broadened my collection; figuring that if there's one genre I can have every single entry of, that would be the one. Really I should have picked something more artistic or classy. Then again, I'm basically a geek...

It's at this point that I came to play L4D. I was excited when I first read about it; multiplayer game's where you band together to fight a common enemy appeal to the social and competitive gamer in me. Soon after the screenshots, I was playing the beta version a couple months in advance of the full game being released. Only two small maps and a couple of guns, yet I played that fifteen minute snippet over and over, more times than I could possibly remember. I had Gears of War, Assassins Creed and many other excellent games at the time, but that little demo whipped 'em all, like a fat girl in black leather, called Miss Payne. Or something...

After what felt like aeon's, the full game came out; I'd pre-ordered and pre-loaded it from Valve's Steam gaming network. I started it up, kicked off the single player campaign and relived a combination of Evil Dead and Day of the Dead (with some 28 Days Later thrown in for good measure). It scared me, excited me, amused me and made me rush through to Audrey's office every ten minutes to tell her how I barely survived a fifty strong zombie horde rushing me at a breakneck pace. Me backing away, throwing a Molotov cocktail down on the ground to snag any zombies trying to get to me through the flames. There were hundreds of moments I played through, each one of them like a classic heart-stopping moment straight out of any of my favourite films. Pure and simple genius. The game is a classic.

Forward the clock on a few months, Valve are at some games show with a big announcement. I wouldn't say I get excited when Valve announce something, but I get erect. Actually, I do mean excited... Anyway, I scan through the posting, bypassing the title, eagerly lapping up all the details; being able to sever a zombies foot and watching it hobble slowly towards you. Completely amputating it's legs and watching it drag itself along by the hands before bringing your axe down on it's head to finish it off. Further into the announcement the magic word appeared; "Chainsaw". Jesus himself appearing in front of me and giving me a lifetime worth of bread couldn't have had a bigger impact. Though maybe if he gave me a shitload of cash or magic powers instead of bread my reaction would be different. After satiating myself on all the announced Zombie goodness, I read the title; Left 4 Dead 2.

* - to be continued...