Left 4 Dead: co-op zombie slaying action [update 2]

Let's talk about great game conventions. Let's see, there's guns. Everyone likes those. Zombies, gotta love zombies. What else? Ooh, co-op. There's nothing like good co-op. Turtle Rock Studios, the team behind the AI bots in Counter-Strike, looks to combine all of these things in one glorious package with their latest offering, Left 4 Dead. Left 4 Dead puts players in the middle of a contemporary setting in which an incredibly virulent strain of rabies has overtaken the general populace. So, we're not dealing with zombies per se, but definitely crazed people with a penchant for biting their neighbors. Players will create a group of four different survivors, each with different personalities and backgrounds, and fight for survival. Players will cooperate in a survival horror setting, blasting their way through several different "campaigns" which are essentially a series of connected maps that end in a final standoff as players wait for rescue.

But here's the twist: the enemies (the "infected") are playable as well. Whereas the human survivors have the same basic weapons and skills, the infected are divided into classes. Some enemies can vomit blood to attract other infected, others can reel in survivors with a long tongue, and the "tank" class can even power through concrete walls. Finally, Turtle Rock claims that their next gen AI technology will allow human players to drop in and out of the game without affecting the overall experience or restarting the scenario.

The idea of playing an online enabled, co-op survival horror game with playable enemies is positively dreamy (though not exactly original). If all that wasn't enough, the game is expected to hit the 360 by the end of 2007. Looks like we might have one more to put up on the big board.

[Via Xboxygen]

Update: Replaced crappy not moving image with awesome trailer. Thanks for spotting this, Mike.
Update 2: Turtle Rock implemented bots into CS. They didn't create the game.