Left 4 Dead: Brilliant multi-player in the perfectly simple framework

What impressed me most about "Left 4 Dead," which I reviewed in today's Daily Variety, isn't necessarily what it did so well, but what it didn't do. Too many games try to do everything. Thus we've got the mawkish, cliche-ridden, and utterly unnecessary story in "Gears of War 2." Or the tediously long campaign in "Halo 3" when most of us just want to get to the multi-player. Or the uninspired, tacked-on multi-player in "Fracture," a game without enough originality to even support 1/10 of its campaign.

In "Left 4 Dead," it's obvious that most of the work went into the co-op multiplayer. The result is brilliant, compelling, and virtually flawless, the biggest leap forward in multi-player since "Doom" or "Quake." From the menus to the interface to the enemy A.I. to the level design, the entire game makes strategic cooperation both simple and necessary and punishes selfishiness. I particularly love that you can see what fellow players are carrying, either in the HUD or on their persons. No hiding that first aid pack when I'm low on health, jerkface. (For a bit more on why the co-op works so great, check out my earlier post about why four people is the perfect number)

But what about the story? Doesn't "Left 4 Dead" need a single-player mode to set everything up? Hell no. That's not to say the game doesn't have a framework. Players don't just want to be dropped into a generic world with generic enemies to shoot.

"Left 4 Dead's" solution is to find a familiar genre that perfectly fits the co-op gameplay and embraces it. So it's a zombie movie, full of stock characters, settings, and visual/musical details. We all immediately get it. We know these characters, we know where they are, and we know what they want. As a result, "Left 4 Dead" doesn't waste its resources attempting to build an original plot or single-player experience that matches the quality of the co-op. It just drops us into the cliches and gets going with what it does best.

The formula is simple: Successfully innovate in a few key areas and simplify everything else in ways that compliment those features. Too many games try to do too much and the result is that while I'm imprssed by the attempt, the failures stand out and the overall game is hurt by the dissonance. It's no mistake that "Left 4 Dead" and "Boom Blox," two games with little in common, are my favorites of 2008 so far. They're not perfect in every way imaginable. Not even close. But the know what they do right, they know what's not important, and as overall works, they're both perfectly harmonious.

Full review: Left 4 Dead