Holy crap! Valve (developers of the HALF LIFE series) really knows they're stuff. You see, LEFT 4 DEAD, their latest title, is a fast paced, run and gun zombie fest that is so simple and so surface that I was ready to write it off as piffle and move on. I mean, I love zombies and I love guns and it seems hard to go wrong with any combination of the two, but I'm not much into online gaming and LEFT 4 DEAD is all about cooperative, online play. Its no frills game play and wild action are best enjoyed in the company of friends. Or so it may seem.

If you're an online gaming aficionado the title is instant gaming nirvana. You partner up with three friends and fight your way through zombie infested locales for safe passage on a rescue copter. Survival is predicated by four weapon types, a few incendiary devices and health packs. That's it. No other special power ups. No save points. No leveling up or character progression. There are safe houses were you can restock ammo, but saving your progress makes little difference because you can select any level from the main menu and jump right in (even the final boss levels). The heart and soul of the game mechanic here is teamwork plain and simple. It is imperative that you protect your friends and your friends protect you.

For me, offline is where it's at. A deep, solo campaign is a necessity. I snatched LEFT 4 DEAD off the shelf (its cover art sucked me in) and salivated as I read the back of the box (I'm a sucker for zombies) and though I'd heard about the game and its team based mechanic, the back cover copy boasted a single player campaign. The guy behind the counter assured me of as much, and after a bit of deliberation, pacing my local Game Stop with box in hand, that striking cover got the best of me. But back at home, while reading the instruction manual (yes, I'm the type of goober that reads the instructions from cover to cover before popping the disc in), I figured I just wasted 59.99. The solo campaign is not really a solo campaign, but a host of practice levels strewn together (remember - no save files, just checkpoints that can be accessed from the main menu).

Loading the game, I sighed deeply, shrugged, and got ready to whistle the blues. I figured if I cut my losses and took the game back in a couple of days (while the game is still considered "hot"), I'd probably recoup thirty bucks toward another title, so, whatever, I'd try to get my twenty bucks worth and peter around the "practice" levels posing as a solo campaign.

After a few hours of white knuckled action I was humming a completely different tune. While the game is clearly geared for online, four player, co-op, it works remarkably well all by your lonesome. The computer controlled squad mates are as smart as (probably smarter) any of the video game playing friends I don't have and though it does no good to scream, "Flank him!" or "Shit! Kill the Boomer!" I found myself doing it anyway. And you know what? Even though my A.I. friends didn't necessarily understand me, they flanked when I needed them to flank and killed Boomers when I need them to kill Boomers. Valve's artificial intelligence is top notch and my new, highly intuitive friends make L4D worth playing.

The game is broken into four different horror movie scenarios (each with their own faux movie poster) - No Mercy, takes place in an urban sprawl, Death Toll, a countryside, Dead Air, an airport, and Blood Harvest, a farm. Each set piece is basically the same, but while the variety of environments mixes things up a bit, be it a back alley or a rural field or an overrun hospital, the game is purely about zombie killing.

The survivors, Francis, the arrogant, tattooed meathead, Louis, the be-suited business man, Bill, the grizzled war vet, and Zoey, the perky, young college student, all play pretty much the same. After choosing one, you are tasked to help the others proceed to a rendezvous point for that rescue copter. Moving cautiously through abandoned warehouses and rain slicked streets takes on a truly palatable sense of dread and here is where Valve really gets things right. The pacing is dead on, the suspense nerve wracking. L4D is one of the most horrific horror games I have ever played. It's actually scary (many try, many fail) and tense as hell.

Zombies shamble about listlessly, lost and dead and Romero-perfect, but then, once you get their attention, the horde becomes a hyper fast mob of flesh hungry brain munchers. Purist might scoff, but the fast zombies make for some mighty thrilling game play. The slightest provocation kicks the eerie calm into high gear and your little foursome is bombarded with flailing arms and chomping teeth and you have to work in tandem to survive the onslaught. If enough zombies pounce on you (and they will), it's up to your squad mates to thin them out and revive you with a health pack and vice versa. If you choose to abandon your squad mates and run off on your own you won't last very long. Teamwork is absolutely necessary for survival.

Mixed in amongst the rushing zombie hordes are a number of tougher zombie types that make life in hell even more hellish. The Boomer is a disgusting, tub of lard that pukes bile. Worse, his skin coating bile attracts the horde. The Hunter is quick and agile, leaping and pouncing and trying to break your foursome apart. The Smoker has a tongue snare capable of binding a player, forcing another player to free the entangled before he pulls them into his mouth and eats their head. The Tank is a big, lumbering hulk that wields bone crushing fists and pummels anyone in its path. My favorite, The Witch, can be found weeping in corners and dark shadows. If you or your squad mates accidentally shine a light on her she rises into the air and attacks with wild abandon. Scary, scary stuff.

Even cooler, if you go the online route, you can play as the aforementioned zombie types and hunt down the hapless survivors. In an ideal setup - eight friends on XBOX Live - you can pit four survivors against four zombies and go at it until one side emerges as the victor. Though, the zombies seem to have a bit of an advantage in that the horde is on their side. One of these days I'll round up seven players and give it a shot.

I liken L4D to an arcade classic like GAUNTLET. This isn't deep gaming, but it's fun and addictive, the kind of pure, fresh experience that had me plugging quarter after quarter to keep my ever-dying elf alive. You run and gun and gobble health and help your friends to survive the hordes and that's that. No inventory system or saves or character management. It's refreshing in its simplicity and considering how much change I plunked into those old arcade cabinets, a decent value at two hundred and forty quarters.