All 4 One: One 4 Nine released, reviewed

It appears that when modder keved tells you when something’s “almost done,” you better listen to him, doggone it, because he’s probably telling the truth. Not any more than twenty days after saying “it’s coming out soon”, keved’s four level campaign One 4 Nine releases onto the unsuspecting public. UPDATE: I actually review it.

I’ll spare you a lengthy writeup over the campaign’s features, since Matthew already did that in his original post. But one reason you might want to check this out, other than the unique desert setting would be the promises of a unique and totally new finale. We already know that it has something to do with aliens and tombs, so it’s hard to get anything better than that. Spaceships? Lasers? Spaceships with lasers on them?  Left 4 Dead in space?

Wait, this is good stuff. There really needs to be a campaign set entirely in space.

Anyway, One 4 Nine is only on Left 4 Dead–for now–but there will be a Left 4 Dead 2 version forthcoming. You know, if you prefer like to smack zombies with things instead of shooting them.

So you know how I said that I’d spare you a lengthy write-up? Well, I changed my mind. Consider the rest of this post a review of sorts. It’s not going to be a really long review, since it’s easier to write long reviews if the item in question has bad things that I’d need to nit-pick into oblivion. But, I will go as far as saying that this is one of the best Left 4 Dead campaigns I’ve played. Since that repartee only consists of the fabulous I Hate Mountains, that’s saying something. Or nothing at all, take your pick.

One thing that never ceased to impress me all throughout the campaign is the fact that it really seems like the abandoned Army base you run through for most the campaign had people in it before the zombies took over. Hastily-erected barricades, well-placed machine guns, evidences of firefights, it all seems like that there was people there, they were fighting for their lives and eventually, they lost. It’s a really nice touch and a nice change from office buildings that seem virtually untouched.

Because the doomed inhabitants of the base died fighting for their lives, there’s a lack of weapons and ammunition that takes some getting used to. Normally, in Valve campaigns and other customs, you’re basically tripping over weapons and ammo piles. There’s very few times in both Left 4 Dead games where you’re actually in want of ammo. This would be one of those times. The criminally overpowered pistol kept me through most of the first two levels, and it wasn’t until halfway through the second that I actually found an SMG. Zoey, though, had an M-16 at the end of the first. She was holding out on me, the fiend.

Visually, the map is quite a spectacle. In the outdoor areas (and a few of the indoors) keved seems to have gone a little overboard with the sepia tone filter, though it’s not quite as much as the color-correction/acid trip of a finale. It’ll be really difficult to explain the finale, because it’s rather odd and I don’t want to spoil it. I expected aliens, and keved delivered, but I didn’t expect those aliens. You’ll know when you play through it. It’s both a surprising and completely logical ending, though the actual end was kind of weak. I expected something a little meatier than what happened right before it cuts to the credits.

Is this worth your time? Yes, most definitely. In terms of quality and attention-to-detail, it rivals Valve campaigns. It’s a tad long for a four-level campaign though, but that’s something that’ll apparently be rectified in version 2.

You can download the campaign riiight around here.