I spent last night with Valve Software's new zombie shooter Left 4 Dead, which has been designed specifically for co-operative multiplayer gaming. It offers four short stories each of which is brief enough that a quartet of players ought to be able to work through it in a single session (under an hour, if you're really speedy).
Of course, there's not much of a tale to any of these campaigns. Players simply have to reach a series of safe houses en route to a means of rescue—such as a helicopter or boat—while staving off floods of undead that rival the size and ferocity of the zombie hordes seen in movies like 28 Days Later.
Still, it's thrilling, heart-pounding stuff. And there are several pleasant multiplayer flourishes, to boot. Our heroes are always talking to one another by calling out for cover when reloading, announcing when they find ammunition stashes, and shouting for aid when they've run into overwhelming swarms of enemies. Plus, players often have to help each other by kicking away zombies pinning their team mates, patching up wounds, and helping comrades up from ledges.
However, there are some serious issues inherent in online-only fare, and Valve's game—expertly designed though it may be—is not immune to them.
For starters, Left 4 Dead offers little narrative nourishment. Having spent a full night playing, all I know about the story is that some unnamed infection has turned thousands of people into ravenous, mindless, murderous creatures, many of which are grotesquely deformed. I have no idea how widespread the disease is or how it started. And I'm in the dark about the history of all the game's heroes, save the token three-sentence bios provided in the instruction manual.
Of course, this is to be expected in an online game, the players of which don't take to sitting through the same expository sequences time and again. Still, it feels rather like a movie that's loaded with action but lacking context.
What's more, of the four online games I played, each one had at least one jerk who insisted on telling everyone else what to do and who cursed us when we didn't follow orders. Obviously, the best way around this problem is to play with people you know. However, none of my gaming friends own Left 4 Dead, and, even if they did, none were online last night.
That meant if I really wanted to play—and I did—I had to either hook up with strangers or recruit a group of computer controlled allies who, I discovered, are a relatively meek and useless lot.
Which led me to wonder: How popular will online games ever become?
Based on my experience with Left 4 Dead—a shining example of highly polished, smartly designed online gaming—it seems to me they'll only find traction amongst a minority of hardcore players passionate for multiplayer gaming. I can't see many casual gamers (the fastest growing demographic in console games) donning a headset and striking up conversations with strangers, nor can I imagine many older players (another growing group of gamers) putting up with the sort of social shenanigans I encountered.
However, earlier this year Infogrames Entertainment chief Phil Harrison—generally considered a very bright man in the games industry—said that he thought we wouldn't see many more single-player only games, that developers would instead move en masse to online formats.
If that's the case and we end up with more games like Left 4 Dead, I may end up replacing many of my gaming hours with books and movies, which provide more food for thought and don't necessitate group product purchases and organized get-togethers.
