World War Z

It would be unfair to call World War Z a complete rip-off of Left 4 Dead. After all, some of it was ripped off from Killing Floor. But it’s actually better than L4D in some respects. The class system and increased focus on stealth lend a little more variety to the proceedings, and the developers have taken full advantage of the ten years of technological progress between titles, so the levels are full of detail, and the gargantuan zombie hordes feature remarkable swarming mechanics. However, Valve’s touch is still obviously missing. There’s no attempt to guide players intuitively, and instead of controlling one of four memorable personalities, you now control one of sixteen interchangeable dipshits. The bot AI is pretty limited, so solo play isn’t much fun, and the PVP…isn’t exactly bad, but it’s basically Call of Duty with incidental zombie swarms, complete with regenerating health and rapid player death – a far cry from L4D’s unique asymmetric setup. Still, the core of the experience is co-op, which is designed and constructed very competently, so as obvious copycats go, this one’s reasonably worthwhile.