You’ve got £30-40 set aside to get your shooter fix; which one of these recent releases should you shell out for? This is the conundrum we face.

Join me, if you will, in drawing a mental Venn diagram comparing overlapping aspects of both games, and the aspects which make each game stand out.

Comparisons

• Production value; both games run on rock-solid engines and have been honed doubtless many times over.
• Intense, sweaty, edge-of-seat action. In a good way. Honest.
• Longevity; CoD: WaW’s levelling and perk/weapon unlock system will be similar to that of CoD 4, so will keep players returning again and again. L4D’s “AI Director” does an admirable job of ensuring that, even though you’re essentially replaying the same levels over and over, no experience is ever exactly the same. Plus, it’s Valve. They fooking love providing extra content as the months go by.
• Bloody good… ness; both titles are in the upper echelon of shooter releases this year, hence why we’re trying to decide which one to buy.

CoD: WaW

• It has a single-player game! If it gets anywhere near the quality of CoD 1 or 4, they’re on to a win before we even get to multiplayer.
• WWII setting; some claim it’s been overdone but personally I still love it. Band of Brothers is still the greatest TV production ever, and as long as the experiences keep entertaining and storylines don’t start blatantly repeating, many will continue to lap it up.
• Online team-play isn’t completely necessary; it might help to talk to your teammates and strategise, but it isn’t essential to the experience.

L4D

• Zombies. They’re ace. And they’re everywhere. Think 28 Days Later, rather than Romero. LOTS of 28 Days Later, with super-baddies.
• Co-optastic; as opposed to CoD: WaW’s competitive player-against-player “matches”, L4D plays out as separate zombie movies where players cling together against hordes of zombies. Atmospheric, exhilirating and packed with genuinely heroic moments of sacrifice, the player feels like one of the gang rather than a one-man-army.

It would be foolish of us to try and sway you one way or the other. Both games are big successes in their own right, but the experience for the player depends more on preference of setting or team mechanics than one game being outright better than the other.

UPDATE: Yes, I realise there’s a zombie mode in CoD: WaW. Let’s not confuse matters any sodding more!

1 Comment

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  By kPod, 18 November, 2008 @ 7:40 pm

  I bought CoD: WaW myself, because I see Left 4 Dead picking up the pace in a few months. It’s position at the back end of the deluge of games will mean other people will have to wait.

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