Left 4 Dead & Call of Duty: Play them before the world ends

Left 4 Dead from Electronic Arts

Right now, gamers are spoilt for choice when it comes to shooters.

Now there are two more excellent candidates for FPS fans to choose from;

Left 4 Dead

(pictured above, EA; rated 18) and

Call of Duty: World at War

(Activision; rated 16).

Left 4 Dead

(On 360 and PC) is from Valve (

Counter-Strike

and

Half-Life

fame) so has been eagerly awaited. It's a survival-horror about four survivors (think

Resident Evil

) battling zombies and "Boss infected" mutants.

Ok, we've fought zombies before but this is an innovative multiplayer approach with co-op between four players battling for their lives against the hordes of flesh-eating creatures.

So what's innovative? For one thing the AI makes it unpredictable so that each time you play, the creatures spawn and attack randomly in new places so you have no idea what is coming and from where - even though you've played that part thrice before.

The brilliant co-op play (saves and revives) and multiplayer feels like a fresh take on the zombie infestation and horror games we're used to.

This is an amazing shared terrifying gaming experience as four of you co-operate in a battle of wits to get through what feels like endless hordes of these infected vile creatures.

Like numerous horror movies of this nature, this is about basic survival after some sort of apocalyptic catastrophe. Controls are intuitive but kept basic. Your survival tools are limited as you roam the streets and find weapon caches. The story is limited and you really only have one way to go as you try to get out of the city.

You may assume everyone else is dead but you don't know as there are indications others have trodden the same path. There are messages of conspiracy theories and safe-rooms built by other escapees. You may not understand the clues, but in the end you're concentrating on just trying to get to some form of safety. This is all about fending off zombies and killing them. That is far from easy.

The "Boss" zombies have special abilities and you get bonus points for taking them down with a stylish combo. Wailing witches use their claws to grab you and tongues clasp around you from out of the dark. They're all fast, tricky and flexible beasts. Best thing for it is to take them down with a pipe-bomb and auto shotgun.

There is also a fun but equally chilling dark side Versus mode in which people can alternate between being a survivor and living as a zombie.

It sounds like a horror movie, the graphics are very realistic and the engine works well as you'd expect from these veteran master developers.

Half Life

fans should instantly love this. It's fresh approach means you'll want to replay it over and over.

MadGamer's rating: 9 / 10

War shooters, like the

Call of Duty

franchise, probably feel much the same to those who look over the shoulder at the gamers playing them. After the countless war games, when you're dealing with history, there's only so much variation of the story left to explore.

There's a story of sorts, a campaign, plenty of intense action, an impressive cache of weapons to use, endless reloading of guns, devious AI enemies and these days multiplayer online capability.

So after all the dozens of WWII games, it's hard to believe this genre is still delivering. Thankfully, the new game

Call of Duty: World at War

spares us the well-trod war fields of places like Normandy and instead involves two campaigns; US soldiers battling Japanese Kamikaze around the Pacific and Russians fighting the Nazis across Europe.

So the game presents some new twists on the usual world war battles, some reminiscent of classic WWII movies. A Japanese soldier charges you directly with a bayonet. A flame thrower lies at the ready and comes in handy clearing out bunkers. You face a German sniper one on one in Stalingrad and dive out of flaming buildings. You escort your tank command to engage the enemy on their own soil. And call in air strikes on mortar and bunker positions.

Watch the opening video in the game which showed some of the historical footage from the time:

I notice some of the comments on the You Tube thread have mixed feelings about the stereotypes especially the sneaky kamikaze-type attitude of the Japanese. Yeah, it's not nice but long-time Call of Duty fans will savour the typically intense aggressive action and accept that that's the way it was portrayed and hating your enemy is the way it is in war.

As with the predecessor

Modern Warfare

, the multiplayer is satisfying with the addition of several player co-op. You can play up to four players online or two players using split screen.

I played it on 360 but it's on a wide range of consoles (PS3, PS2, DS, Wii) and PC.

MadGamer rating: 8.5 / 10

Well, it's getting harder to pinpoint my game of the year. Any suggestions?