Gearheads of War

Co-op is fun. Shit, it's the premise of the game. But it's not where the game truly shines. Frankly, I played this morning and though I had fun, it just wasn't challenging enough. Even though you can play the game on a retardedly high difficulty, there's still something missing. And that's people.

The problem is solved in versus, and that's where the game truly shines.

In versus, you play one round as a survivor with four buddies. You have to complete a map going from start to finish before you're murdered by 4 human opponents amongst the zombie horde. It makes playing as a survivor even more fun, because let's face it, people are devious bastards. They're going to try to think of the most creative ways to get the drop on you.

The team that makes it furthest as survivors wins.

Like I said, playing as a survivor is fun, but playing as one of the boss infected is even more amusing.

Basically, the AI director (the sadistic bastard that torments the survivors by sending in zombies) determines what class you can play as. There's four playable human classes... the Tank, a lumbering bullet-sponge behemoth (which I haven't played as, but can't wait), the Boomer, a lumbering fat-ass that vomits or explodes on survivors and causes AI zombies to run to 'em like moths to a flame, the Smoker, who has a long tongue like the licker from Resident Evil (and uses it to strangle survivors), and the Hunter, a bad-ass with huge talons who pounces on his enemies and rends them to shreds.

So far, I've only played as the Hunter or Boomer.

As the Boomer, I got put down mercilessly. They're slow as hell.

As the hunter, I caused total suffering (more of that in a minute).

When you play as an infected, you start off in a ghost cam. You can see the silhouettes of survivors through walls. From there, you just have to figure out the most optimal spawn to cause the most carnage. Also, you have to spawn OUT OF SIGHT of the survivors.

I ended up getting put down a few times until I just followed the survivors in ghost cam. The fatal error my enemies made was this: they broke up into pairs. Sounds okay, right? Wrong.

Two guys stayed at rearguard holding down a stairwell as the other two took point and cleared a hallway. I waited until about 30 AI zombies rushed the dudes holding the stairwell. The lovable (and sadistic) director threw two waves, one in the hall, and one from the stairwell. I spawned at the bottom of the stairwell, ran crouched amongst the horde, and pounced on the poor bastard in the stairwell doorway. My zombie buddies helped me tear this guy to shreds. I was laughing my ass off with glee all the while. Well, the other guy in the hall kills the zombies out there and tries to work his was to his buddy. But it was too late... I killed his friend, then just as he makes it to me, pounce on him. Me and the remaining zombies end him.

So I got a two-fer. And all the while, my remaining three teammates took out the point-guards.

This is what makes the game. Other than that, co-op is fun, but the real meat is versus. And here's why: this forces you to act like a team. In co-op, you run around shooting with glee (unless in expert). But because you face people in versus, and they can choose WHERE they spawn, each room needs to be taken with caution. It totally changes the pacing and brings back the nostalgia of the original Resident Evil, but there's still an element of RE4 there because there's so much shit on screen.

In versus, any moment someone gets downed is nerve-wracking, because a human infected could be sitting around, waiting to spawn in such a vulnerable moment.

Just be ready to die as an infected. A lot. Aside from the tank, you're incredibly weak, and often die in a few shots. So strategy, and causing the most mayhem per life is key. You generally won't outright kill a survivor, but you'll whittle 'em down till they're done.

Long story short: it's good. Check it out.