Games For The Impoverished: Volume 1 - Left 4 Dead 1 & 2

As all of my friends are total arseholes, they'd be quick to tell you that I'm a tight git when it comes to money.

Seeing as this is true, I figured the least I could do is share some secrets with you all, in regards to how I manage to mainline a steady stream of decent games when I usually can't afford a night on the piss.

Recently I've been playing a lot of Infection games on Halo Reach, so I've been in the mood for a proper zombie game. Remembering that Dead Island isn't finished yet and that the Dead Rising and Left 4 Dead series are in their own ways about as definitive as zombie games get, I figured this was a good area to revisit.

I bought the original Left 4 Dead at launch and loved it because:

1. It's a zombie game.
2. It should be used as a how-to on co-operative gameplay.

However, a few months down the line I got lumped with an internet connection that was crap, shortly followed by one that wouldn't support Xbox Live whatsoever. So I had a game that mastered online co-op, but no online capabilities. Reluctantly, I traded it in and got a surprising amount of my money back. Eventually I played Left 4 Dead 2; it's pretty much more of the same, albeit brighter and with some more variety in the form of a couple of spectacular set-pieces in lieu of the better atmosphere of the original.

In a nutshell, Left 4 Dead 1 and 2 are very good zombie shooters, big on co-op, but almost completely vacant in the story department. Let's face it, the longevity of the big hitters is in online play anyway, where you spend your time in matchmade games shooting at different people in the same few environments.

The Left 4 Dead games fit this concept beautifully, with an AI 'director' mixing up encounters and ammo caches depending on how well you're working together. Best of all, I picked them up for £8 a pop (including postage) from eBay, and Left 4 Dead 1 has a free downloadable 'survival mode'. If you play shooters online, you should own these games, if you can't play online for whatever reason, you wont get the most out of them, sorry.