Left 4 Dead is a Multi-Player Co-op First Person Shooter. In a nutshell that means there's lots of team play and tons of strategy. Knowing the basics will make you a valued team mate on the zombie battlegrounds.
The first thing a L4D player must learn is how to deal with common infected. Common infected are your every-day zombies who want to beat the life out of you. Expect to fight 200-300 of them on each map.
Common infected can't take much damage and are pretty easy to take out. Their strength is numbers. Hordes of them typically come with 15-30 zombies depending on what difficulty your playing in. Melee is the key to survival against these attacks.
Back yourself into a choke point to take away the number advantage then repel them back using your melee. Closets, train cars, and rooms with less than 3 doors or windows all make good areas to defend against hordes.
Once your proficient at dealing with normal zombies there's the special infected to play with. Before I said there's lots of team play in Left 4 Dead. Special infected are the reason why! Each special infected has abilities that your team mates must save you from.
Hunter - Pounces and incapacitates team mates.
Smoker Drags team mates off separating them from the team.
Boomer Vomits on survivors causing a horde to attack the tagged players.
Witch If disturbed attacks the offending player with a one hit kill
Tank Has more health than any other infected and deals tons of damage, takes a team to bring down.
A team of tight knit survivors can get through any campaign with ease. Special infected serve to break up survivors and make the journey difficult. There are two things you need to keep your team together. Keep track of team mates auras...
Green Good health and at full speed.
Yellow Half health or covered in boomer vomit, starting to slow down.
Red Incapacitated by a hunter or very low health. Limping slowly and needs health.
The other thing is Sound. Sound play a key role in Left 4 Dead. Each infected has its own distinct call/sound. Ontop of that there is also music queue's that alert you to impending attacks. Both hordes and the tank have music that plays as they come near. Learning these sounds takes the shock away from running into them and allows you to plan traps with your team.
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