Before Left 4 Dead came along, I would've never thought it was possible to be in the same room with three other people and yet still feel so very alone and scared. Though there have been a number of horrifying FPS and survival horror games over the past years, Left 4 Dead is the first one to actually make me "feel" as if I was really transported into the game, living out the actions of my character. You can chalk part of that up to the atmosphere and immersion level, but part of it also comes from the frantic gunfights and team cooperation gameplay. Left 4 Dead – proof that running zombies are always more frightening.

Left 4 Dead places the player in the role of a handful of survivors who are merely looking to survive. There are several different survivors of various races and backgrounds, but for the most part the look of your character really is a secondary matter since everyone can perform the same actions. The game controls with the WASD keys, while you'll use the mouse to not only shoot your weapon (left mouse button), but also perform melee attacks as well (right mouse button). If you've played a FPS on the PC before, chances are you'll be right at home with the controls.

Yep, We're Bad

I joined the game during the opening section, which had our team making our way to a hospital with the hope that we would be able to signal a rescue helicopter from the roof and be taken to safety. We started out in a safe room within the hospital, where medical packs, weapons, and ammo were laying around. The safe rooms act as a lobby of sorts, allowing players to heal up and grab the weapons they most prefer for the upcoming battles. Since the survivors are regular people, it's impossible for the characters to carry more than two weapons at a time, and only one of them can be a power weapon. For instance, if you have a pistol and machine gun, you can't get rid of the pistol in order to have a shotgun instead. If you pick the shotgun up you'll automatically discard the machine gun. The inability to carry two powerful weapons at once initially seems like a terrible drawback, but it really serves the purpose of making you "normal." Imagine facing down a running zombie with nothing but a pistol because you ran out of ammo for your machine gun – this is the type of horror Left 4 Dead creates.

Once we were done setting up our characters for the fight ahead, we stepped out into the deserted corridors of the hospital and made our ascent to the top. The hospital was quiet, darkened, and an utter mess. Fluorescent lights hanging overhead were either shattered or shortening out. Filing cabinets and examining rooms were thrown asunder. The claustrophobic nature of the hallways did a great job of building up the tension, because not only did we have to be on the lookout for enemies that might be just around the corner or lurking in the darkness, but we had to check our fire since it's not easy to avoid shooting your friends in such tight corridors with ten zombies breathing down your neck.

Zombies were the default enemy of choice throughout our run of the game, constantly rushing headlong towards us. Forget Resident Evil's zombies and imagine the creatures in 28 Days Later or the Dawn of the Dead remake for a good representation of what to expect in terms of speed and viciousness. Running zombies weren't the only enemy, as there were also monsters that shot tentacles out to grab players and big, hulking brutes that could knock a player down in one or two hits if they were right on top of you. The tentacle spewing monsters actually lead to some of the greatest gaming moments throughout the entire demo. During my first encounter with them, for instance, I was looking directly at one of my teammates when a tentacle came from out of the darkness, grabbed him, and started reeling him in. My teammate would've surely been dead had I not managed to place a bullet into the creature. I was ensnared by the same type of creature during a later run-in, and found myself being slowly dragged to my death until I was literally being hung from a shelf as if the tentacle was a noose. Since I had wandered away from the rest of the group, I had to wait for a buddy to arrive and deliver a crashing melee blow to the creature before I was eventually dropped and revived.

Though it is possible to completely die within the game, you have a few chances to survive before officially kicking the bucket. After a player takes enough damage, they'll be forced to drop to the floor, where the only thing they are allowed to do is pop shots off with their pistol. In order to continue, another player must come find you and offer you a helping hand, standing beside you long enough for you to get back on your feet. It's pretty easy to find a downed teammate when the need arises, as they'll be outlined in white and easily show on your screen.

Much like the shocking scenes involving the tentacles, the thing that really made the game for me were the big, key action moments, which when experienced you'll have to share with other people. Our team had to do everything from protecting a teammate who was puked on by one of the zombies (the player can't do anything and zombies are drawn to them like homing missiles) to defending an area long enough for an elevator to arrive. We were told ahead of time to not press the elevator button until we were setup and prepared, but that didn't stop the moment from being intense, as enemies came from every possible hallway at once. Another key moment involved our team trying to gather supplies in one of the hospital's safe rooms, unaware that we actually needed to close the room's door in order to stop zombies from coming in. I hate to admit it, but we lost several lives to that little goof on our part.

Run Forrest Run

The final rooftop battle, however, was the single greatest moment I had at the entire E3 show. While waiting for our helicopter to arrive, we were bombarded by enemies coming at us at a steady pace. One player managed the stationary machine gun, positioned at the call button for the helicopter, while the rest of us tried to keep the enemies from getting up to him. We managed to last a while, but the number of zombies was simply too much for us, and soon they were climbing the walls and attacking our gunner. We dispersed after that, running around the roof and killing everything we could, at this point throwing all strategy to the wind in hopes of lasting long enough to see the helicopter.

It was at this time the roof went up in flames – someone hit a combustible tank, I believe – and one of the giant brutes appeared. I was the only one still up and alive, but I knew I couldn't make it on my own. I quickly ran over to the closest downed player – one of the game's actual developers who stepped in to play – and gave him a helping hand. The brute apparently didn't want me to revive him, so he quickly bashed him down as soon as he was up. I tried to help him up again, but instead he just yelled for me to save myself and make a break for the helicopter that had finally arrived. I actually felt bad for leaving a man down and thinking only of myself, but it was what he wanted, so I quickly made a wild dash to the helicopter. I had the helicopter in my line of sight, but with only a pistol and a flood of zombies impeding my progresses, I sadly didn't make it. Like the name of the game, we were left for dead.

Left 4 Dead is a gory, intense, and frightening FPS/survival horror experience, quite unlike any other game on the market today. If there was a downfall to the presentation at E3, it was that I had to leave the game after an all too brief hands-on experience, as a little over thirty-minutes was not nearly enough time to satiate my desire to play more of the game. Luckily, I won't have to wait much longer, as the game is set to release later this year.