The Complete Guide to Left 4 Dead

Versus Mode

Versus mode gives the AI Director a chance to go back to the drawing board and brush up his hoary old clichés while two human-powered teams take each other on. One group plays as survivors, one as the infected, and just like a game of football (only with fewer pies and more brains on the menu), the groups swap ends at the end of each chapter.

Playing as survivors will feel more familiar to most players from the co-operative online games, but playing as infected is great fun as you get to make the most of the horrible abilities that usually torment you.

Outlines

Outlines are very important visual cues, for both survivor teams and the infected. Everything of importance in the game has an outline. Objects and survivors are outlined in blue if they aren’t in a special state. If a team-mate is restrained in or covered in boomer bile their outline will go orange. You can also see the silhouette of a hunter if he’s pinning one of your team-mates, which makes it easier to shoot them even if they are on the wrong side of a wall.

The infected have a much more detailed outline system, which lets them know the current status of all the survivors. The standard indicators are green for high health, orange for hurt and slightly slow, and red for near death.

As a survivor, you can make these outlines go away by staying still, or moving very slowly and not firing your weapon. Your torch doesn’t affect your outline, so there’s never any need to turn it off, ever.

The most important indicator for infected is the purple which signifies a boomer has hit a survivor with his bile. As soon as they’re hit with vomit the outline goes purple to signify the survivor has been blinded. Be careful though, because the outline stays solid purple, even though the blindness clears gradually.

You only have a few seconds of total blindness to attack, after that the survivors’ sight will clear enough for them to identify shapes and start aiming. If you’re going to pounce or snag them always go for the players who are still green. If you go for a purple player while there are still unblinded survivors your victorious attack will be short lived. After the purple blindness indicator wears off, a biled survivor’s outline will go yellow, to show they’re still attracting zombies.

Scoring points

The team with the most points wins, and points are awarded based on four different criteria. First is the average distance travelled (maximum 100) which is then added to the survivors’ health bonus (maximum 200). This is then multiplied by the number of survivors who made it to the safe-room (maximum four) and finally the score is multiplied by the difficulty modifier (one for first level, rising to two for the finale). At the end of each game the scores are added to previous scores in a running total. Games are played over the five maps of the campaign, and survivor respawing is disabled.

The health bonus of the survivors, and the number of survivors who make it to the safe-room are the most important numbers. It’s important to note that only players on their feet count towards this score. If one of your team is incapacitated when the door is closed, or the other survivors are on the escape vehicle, then the game will not add them to the score. That’s a major loss of points. If you’re in a safe room you should always revive the fallen before closing the door. However in the case of finales and rescue vehicles you often don’t get the chance.

The health bonus works off both the medpacks you’re carrying when you get into the safe-room, and the health of your team. Many people think you have to use your medpacks to increase the bonus, but this isn’t really so as they’re factored into the score. It’s more important that you get the safe-room door closed as quickly as possible to conserve your remaining health.

There is one caveat to this, which is if one of your team is heavily injured, and has no medpack, then if the healthiest person in your team heals them with a medpack you will see a reasonable modifier increase. However, if you do stop to heal and are overwhelmed by infected and thus all lose health it’s a big waste of time. Closing the door quickly is almost always the best option.