Finally had a few hours of kid-asleep time to play some Left 4 Dead. Warning, minor spoilers ahead.

I *love* zombie games. Resident Evil and Dead Rising are probably among some of my favorite games of all time. But L4D just isn't doing it for me. Maybe it's one of those things where I can't accept the game that is, because of the game I want it to be. But I don't want to be playing co-op with random people in my intense zombie horror game -- a feeling confirmed when my attempts to play online were full of idiots, disconnectors, and resource hogs. I didn't even have to get to the verbally abusives and team killers to have my experience ruined.

Ok, so after failing to communicate to people several times about any kind of a plan for surviving the final mission of the first campaign, we keep dying over and over. So I give up and go to single player, which is maybe where I should have started but the UI and the whole game vibe so strongly pushes towards online co-op. The experience is still pretty good, but after dying yet again on that same final mission of the first campaign, frustrating factor is going up. Mind you this is a game with a 15 minute weather-the-storm following a 5-10 minute regular mission area, and failure = restart. At least the game is usually pretty fair amount when you get knocked down or incapacitated someone else can save you. On this attempt at the final heli rescue, a giant "Tank" zombie shoulder-rushes me and knocks me all the way off the building = instant death. Total shelf moment for me.

I can see how this game might be fun -- it is well executed in many ways and the co-op vibe is kind of neat. The tension can be pretty high, and I love the way there is a lot of variance to how the missions play out. But at the end of the day, it feels like zombie mod for Rainbow 6 or something, rather than the zombie experience I know, love, and want to have more of.

So I guess I'm stuck waiting hoping they do a Dead Rising 2.