REVIEW: Left 4 Dead

When you have the chance, play this game with your friends.

Left 4 Dead

While I have the game installed on my PC, it’s more fun when you play this in the company of friends at the cyber cafe or online. And because it’s made by Valve (the same folks that brought you Half-Life and Counter-Strike) I speculate that there will be exciting mods for this game.

The Survivors

So what’s Left 4 Dead? Remember those “knife fights” with the bots in Counter-strike? It’s something like that but the setting is in a doomed environment filled with zombies, like what you’d normally see in shows like Resident Evil, 28 Days Later and Dawn of the Dead.

Left 4 Dead is a first person shooter and the player controls one of the 4 Survivors:

Francis the biker
Bill the old war veteran
Louis a bank manager
Zoey a college student

There’s no distinction in health and advantage when choosing any character, so you can afford to choose randomly.

Zombie Horde

The objective of the game is usually simple: the Survivors must work together to go through stages, and simply survive. When you reach the finale of a campaign, you have to hold out the incoming hordes of zombies before rescue arrives.

Hunter’s got Zoey…!

Playing through a stage alone is usually impossible because besides the common zombie type (which are dangerous in hordes) there are also variations like the Boomer, Witch, Hunter, Smoker, and Tank.

Louis getting owned by the Smoker

Some of the variations like the Witch and Hunter are capable of taking down the player, and the player often cannot retaliate until is saved by another teammate. So cooperation and teamwork really counts in this game.

Fighting through the subway

Pity that the variety of weapons in this game are few (only a total of 5 primary weapons, 1 handgun type and 2 grenade types). It would be much cooler if more weapons were added.

Although the game experience can change (a little bit) every time you play the same stage – whereby different zombies or creatures would appear randomly at each check point or room – it can get dull quickly if you play alone (like what I’m doing at home right now, lol). 🙂 And for a game on blood, gore and violence, I think it’s lacking a little since one cannot play around with the corpse like rag dolls.

The game gets more amusing only when you play with other friends or online. As long as you know how to play any FPS games like Counter-Strike, mastering this game can be as fast as a few minutes since perpetually the principles, HUD, game play, etc. are the same.

Overall Rating: 6.5/10

Edmund Loh dot com – Internet Marketing Blog

Edmund Loh dot com

I am pleased to announce that my Internet Marketing Blog is up and going officially. 🙂 I will be adding more stuff to this new blog and I should have the commitment to keep the updates on a weekly frequency.

It’s challenging nonetheless; it’s just the start of 2009 and I am already so busy, because I’m producing a few products in the same month for a few launches in the subsequent months. Not to mention that I have a Forex class to attend over the weekend and I’m preparing for my trip to Sydney, Australia on 7th – 14th February.

Back to topic…

As mentioned 4 previous posts ago, EdmundLoh.name (this blog you’re reading now) will be kept strictly as my Personal Homepage. If you’re an old friend or new acquaintance, I hope you will continue visiting my Personal Homepage. I have set a goal for visiting at least 5 different countries this year (not counting Singapore) and I expect to put up a lot of photos on this blog throughout. 🙂

Whereas EdmundLoh dot com is now my official Internet Marketing blog and hub for all of my online projects and serial entrepreneurship. I have moved the PRODUCTS and TESTIMONIALS page to that blog. So if you’re at least even remotely interested in Internet Marketing and serial entrepreneurship, you can ‘pick my brain’ at my IM blog now. 🙂

http://edmundloh.com/

The Last Days of 2008

I’ve been late but I don’t think anyone’s going to complain it right? Here are the pics I took on the last 2 days of 2008. I’m in a hurry right now because I’m about to leave home soon (for a short trip to Desaru) so… more pics than words. Anyways, people always look at pics. 😉

Wendy’s with Khai & Yuenn

Khai and Yuenn introduced me and Ladan to Wendy’s at Giant, Kota Damansara!

@ Wendy’s

@ Wendy’s

The Arcade

Ladan playing Disc Hockey with Yuenn.

Playing Disc Hockey

Getting creamed by Khai in car racing. Had never been good behind the wheels but hey, I got 2nd place. LOL

License to Reckless Driving

New Year’s Eve Carnival @1Utama

Ladan and I were at 1Utama’s carnival on New Year’s Eve. Lots of interesting things here like costumed characters, caporeira dance, concert performances, stalls, free balloons for everyone, and more. 🙂

Skimpy Gals @ 1Utama New Wing Carnival Another Skimpy Gal Balloons

img_6758.jpg img_6759.jpg img_6760.jpg

@1Utama

The New Year Fireworks at The Curve!

I want to wish a Happy New Year to All EdmundLoh.name Readers! 🙂

Early Christmas Vacation at Genting Highlands

It has been three years in a row that I celebrated Christmas at Genting Highlands.

Before Year 2006, the last time I went to Genting Highlands was when I was a kid. Of course, a lot of things had changed ever since though some things never did… like the Antique Car ride, to name one. 🙂

Two years back, I spent more time indoors. If you were there then you would remember that it was much colder up in Genting at that time (13-15 degree Celcius). The year before, I attended the Life Changing Party at Awana Genting Resort thus I spent a brief moment up in Genting Highlands during the wee hours with my friends. Temperature was warm though.

And this year? I revisited Genting Highlands for the third time and I came with my mom. Ashley didn’t join this time because she preferred to stay at home. We were in the outdoors more often this time around and great… the weather was misty and cooler than the year before! 🙂

22nd December: Checking in First World Hotel

Although Mom and I arrived at 1:30 PM, we waited for 3 and a half hours before we could finally check into the hotel. (read: PEAK season)

The crowd was huge and we were annoyed and disturbed by slow moving families, queue jumpers, you name it. I really should be taking full advantage of my flexible schedule and pick a non-peak season for a vacation next time. 🙂

23rd December: Chin Swee Temple

We missed the free shuttle bus service by a split second, so Mom and I hired a cab driver to take us to the Chin Swee Temple, 15 minutes down the road.

At Chin Swee Temple

My Mom said it reminded her a lot of her trip to Beijing, China – the temple, the scenery… more like ‘mini China’.

Mom at the Wishing Well

The wind was strong that standing still was difficult, really!

Journey to Enlightenment

Son Wu Kong

Tortoise Pond

Outdoor Theme Park

I had always wanted to go into the Outdoor Theme Park for the last 2 years but I kept coming at a wrong time! But not this round. 😉 I bought us an ‘all park’ access for a whole day.

Outdoor Theme Park Entrance

I also missed riding the Antique Car – can’t believe it is still around even after more than a decade! 😀

Antique Car Ride

London Bus

With Santa’s Gang

Live Performance

Posing with a non-venomous snake

The Arcade

I probably would never get tired of the arcade. 🙂 But if you’re an arcade fan like me, there are a couple of things I discovered that you might want to be aware of:

1. NEVER, EVER PLAY AT FUNTASY WORLD!
This is the arcade place near the K-Box, and just a level above “Ripley’s Believe it or Not!” There’s a good reason why this place doesn’t receive as many visitors as Vision City even though it’s situated in a busy location. I wanted to play “Ghost Squad” and all the 3 machines I tried were all spoilt! The first machine had a problem with the gun’s aiming (just go iron-sights and you’ll know). The gun on the second machine had the Action Button pulled out (how the heck was I going to save hostages and defuse bombs without it?) and the third machine had no sound. RM9.00 down the drain. 🙁

2. HOUSE OF THE DEAD III
The shotgun is often spoiled – probably due to rough handling by the players. Also, it’s EASIER for YOU to die in this game. Unless you’re truly exceptionally skilled, this game works exactly like a casino: it’s designed for you to lose. I’ve seen skilled players get killed too easily in this game, even in the early round (read: Chapter 0).

Ripley’s Believe it or Not!

While I was prohibited from taking photos inside the premise this time (no idea why, I pulled that off just fine two years ago) – here’s a video you should see. Believe it.

More Photos on FaceBook

Click here to see more photos from my FaceBook photo album.

On a side note, I realized that I have been wearing the same long sleeve shirt for the past 6 years. I really need to get new clothes…