Left 4 Dead Hands-on Preview - Infected Side
GRAPHICS
Running on the Source engine, it is no surprise that the game looks stunning. The environments are dark and gritty and create a post-zompocalytic atmosphere very well. As you have seen in screenshots, the Survivor and boss zombie models are very detailed and look like you'd want them to. With over 40 of the zombie Horde able to be on screen at once it's surprising just how good they look close up. Left 4 Dead is leveraging Episode 2's new effects system heavily, and the players' flashlights cast projected shadows.
I think the most impressive part about the graphics are the animations. It is vitally important to a game in which the majority of your time is spent running from and fighting the infected horde that their running and fighting animations be believable. As most of you have seen in the good but unfortunately low-resolution 1UP Video, the zombies run at you, climb over cars and obstacles and run around corners all with very believable animations.
Another great part of the graphics, and also one of the most important, is the blood and guts. We can assure you there are plenty of both present in this game. As explained in the first part of the preview, it is possible to blast off limbs and heads of the infected horde. I don't believe that could ever get less cool or satisfying. Not only can you see blood splatter throughout the level and outside of yourself, but also a really cool effect that you can see in the 1UP video is that it is possible to get blood and guts on yourself. When a Boomer explodes near you, visually you see parts of it fly outwards and it gets onto your screen. This not only is disgusting and awesome, but also adds another level of gameplay by blocking your vision from seeing the oncoming Horde and boss zombies.
A graphic treat that adds to the fear and immersion of the game was just discussed in this part a few pages back, and that is the fact that the zombie Horde can actually claw their way through doors. Throughout the levels there are doors and some of these are lockable. If you lock a door, the doorknob doesn't work. The zombies solve this problem by scratching, clawing and bashing at it like real zombies would do. It starts off by being a small hole that you can shoot through, then they rip more and more from the hole, and eventually the entire top half of the door is off and they bash through it and come at you. This all happens relatively fast and is just one more added treat that everyone will enjoy.
From Turtle Rock's Michael Booth in an interview with Firingsquad.com:
In addition to the new stats and ranking features, we're also working with Valve to include support for multi-core processors. We've added physics-based animation to Source for things such as the Boomer's jiggly belly full of blood, flexible hair that moves naturally, and floppy bits of clothing. We're also leveraging the new particle system coming to Source for enhanced effects. That's just some of what's coming in the first release.
