We All Made It To The Safe House…

It didn’t take long for Left 4 Dead to become my favorite game of 2008. Despite playing some fifty hours of Grand Theft Auto IV, probably as much Peggle Nights and possibly even more Team Fortress 2, no game from 2008 was as perfect as Valve and Turtle Rock’s latest shooter. It’s not just that I happen to love things zombie related, particularly the dread of the Fast Zombie, but that Valve seems to have locked the rule set down so tightly and honed the look and feel so expertly, that to look back upon its development, when it existed in other incarnations, makes one realize it couldn’t have been so perfect unless it was released as it was.

Yeah, I’m calling it my Game of the Year!

It’s amazing the amount of personality Valve and Turtle Rock were able to pack into the four survivors with so little dialogue and traditional character development techniques. Same for the infected — each one is a thrill to play and feels completely unique.

Oh sure, they could have let us play “Death Toll” and “Dead Air” in multiplayer versus and I personally wouldn’t mind some new weapon options, but listening to the developer commentary is full of so many “I’m so glad they didn’t do that!” moments. And Valve loves to keep adding content to its games year after year, so I’m extremely excited to see what they offer us in 2009.

My Xbox Live gamertag is Meat Bun Mike and my Steam ID is Geek if you want to give co-op on expert a go sometime. I wouldn’t mind some better teammates…

Speaking of zombies, looks like I’ll be playing my possible GotY for 2009, Resident Evil 5, next week in Vegas. For the first time, finally. Good times.