Zombie games!

Recently, I've been playing zombie games... mostly Left for Dead and Killing floor, two very similar FPS games where a team of people are attempting to survive against waves of zombies including various elite zombies that wreck your shit if you're not careful...

The main difference between these two games are the production values, and a few of the details.

Left for Dead has a huge production value advantage over Killing floor, but both are good, simple zombie mashing fun.

In left for dead you're trying to escape some location with a few other survivors, there's a sense of desperation and the reason behind the zombie plague is unknown. The only explanation of anything I've heard in game is that the player characters are "immune" to zombification apparently, which suggests this is a standard zombie virus scenario. The main goal of players is to "not die" and reach some escape point; with various traps and secondary objectives along the way each scenario feels different, although not different enough to prevent stagnation after repeated plays, LFDs only weakness.

Killing floor is a similar game, but it's story is different, instead of a standard viral outbreak or whatnot, the "zombies" are actually biological constructs called "Zeds", cloned biorobots created for war by crazed scientists... it's an interesting twist on the zombie story. The player characters are very different too, being mostly military types sent in to find survivors, search and destroy or block the Zed advance. In this game the only real goal is to kill everything without dying yourselves, every game ends with the Patriach, a Zed with a combi-missile launcher/minigun for an arm and a melee attacking chest arms thing... and he can stealth.

Despite the crazyness of the patriach, I never feel scared or horrified by Killing floor, it's just too out there and over the top, despite that it is a fun game especially on harder difficulties with good teammates. Left for Dead on the other hand actually feels creepy; the musical score, realistic environments, sudden ambushes, eerily realistic zombies and the good voice acting of the various characters in the game, including player characters, make a much more engaging game.

In short, buy both of these games if you love zombie killin' and enjoy multiplayer shooters...

A caveat: If you're Australian, avoid LFD2, it's been butchered at the request of the Australian ratings people; I won't review because it's not fair to the developers.