Just a thread about the new upcoming FPS Left 4 Dead. Left 4 Dead is a new zombie game by Turtle Rock Studios(Valve). This one looks more challenging than other zombie games seeing as how the zombies have been infected by a performance-enhancing virus and now resemble the infected from the British Horror\Action film "28 days later". The zombies also have variations and can be more deadly than the standard infected. They could have made this a bit more challenging by making the zombies a little more realistic(head shots only

) but other than it looks great

.

http://www.gametrailers.com/game/4094.html

Finally a game where the zombies actually run towards you. Instead of just being night of the living dead "sleep walkers".

I played this at QC07 and it was a blast. I can't wait for it to be released. Going to get some heavy playtime in the office.

To me, one of the achievements requiring you to kill 20 zombies in a single explosion is a good indicator that the game will be great. Pre-ordered and can't wait.

Can this be played co-op with one person on XBox and the other on PC?

Only if you work for valve

Brain Trepaning wrote:

Can this be played co-op with one person on XBox and the other on PC?

4 player co-op campaign or 8 player versus. both are online, the game is really really based around multiplayer. but i wouldn't know about the xbox-pc thing but probably. they did it with halo 3.

I find running zombies more realistic to today becuz of science. i had seen on the discovery channel that they will be trying to manufacture super humans since they found a few actual ones . the most likley use of this would be for soldiers. and one way to create thousands of super cells is by a virus. suppose this virus makes them like Rage zombies with a way to make soldiers more aggressive in combat going terribly wrong along with the high-performance fromula? they would just have a primal instinct to kill. then, with all that added, (this would definitley make them more frightening) suppose after the virus enters the bloodstream, after death (caused either by the virus or other causes)the virus takes over and shuts down all bodily functions besides the brain, which is then mutated into its own organ and that and the working parts of the body become oxygen independent. the nerves and other organs would be shut down becuz they would be deemed useless. blood would no longer matter becuz it carries oxygen to organs but they are all shut down or have become oxygen independent. so now u have a perfect killing machine, an invincilble, headshots only zombie, very fast and very strong. this part about the brain being the only working thing could be possible as well be cuz if soldiers felt no pain and no fear of it, then they would be almost unstoppable if they were oxygen independent and felt no pain. any ways sorry for the rant, too much info but if u fell the need let me know wat u think, possible? btw Left 4 Dead will be fuckin kick ASS!!!

This looks fantastic finally a fight for survival with friends! Danny boyle is going to be so annoyed when he sees this.

sorry for killing your zombie theory but cells need ATP (adenosine triphosphate) to function, not just oxygen. So zombies would need to fully digest what they eat. The conventional zombie isn't possible because once a cell is dead, it is dead and there's no way you can bring them back alive. The rage zombie might be possible if there is a mutated strain of rabies or something, but it's not likely. Even if there was, power of the human mind is amazing so most people would probably be able to over come the urge to kill everything and everyone.

sorry for killing the fun

no, the virus mutates all the cells (all tissues, muscles ect.). the cells dont die, they become mutated. it's basically like an alien life form(as in it doesnt require the things humans need) but...it's a virus :mrgreen:

. the organ that is formed causes a massive drop in seretonin, espaecially at the hypothalamus, which is one of the most important parts of the brain for controlling aggression. this is where the core or heart of the virus embedds itself into the brain. since it finds no need for seretonin it discards it.

lolz you're theory is well planned out. But viruses use cells to reproduce, in most cases cells that are attacked/tampered with by viruses end up being destroyed in the process. Cells are really easy to kill. How would oxygen be carried to the brain without blood? Because brain cells die without oxygen ( that's how some people die from heart attacks, if it takes too long for the defibrillator to arrive then the brain cells die ). why would the virus "think" to cut off the seretonin? Viruses are very basic and don't think about attacking certain areas they collide with cells by chance and inject their genes.

thats just it, it doesnt think, this virus doesnt cut off seretonin, it is simply not affected by it. also i said twice now that this "virus"(i know it really cant be classified as a virus due to how it works) is a performance enhancer so destroying cells would be useless. it simply mutates the cells, and a virus is very effective at spreading. as well, oxygen is not needed. this "virus" is meant to make the people infected almost invincible. military applications.

but with out oxygen cells will die, you can't just say the virus can mutate them to run on nothing because that's not physically possible. Like Einstien said e=mc2 (squared, i cant make the little 2), cells need some sort of mass to create energy what ever the form of mutation. How does the virus make the people invincible? if you damage parts of the body, they will be damaged and will never heal because there's no blood.

*another idea - you could say that it is a bacterial infection that gives off a toxin that impares seretonin production.

plz look up solanum its the closest thing to my theory

i guess i just like the idea of them being more deadly, but however they do it we all be fucked in the ass!!! :!:

ha ha ha yes we will be literally screwed! i bet you've read the zombie survival guide by max brooks (internet high five cos i have to!). Some interesting stuff in that book but it doesn't mean salanum is possible. It's just better to dream about how you would survive a zombie apocalypse (or play left 4 dead). I'd personally keep moving around the world with a team of survivors who all have different skills, going from town to town for supplies and new team members if the others get eaten.

fuck yea, must build solar vehicle with mini-gun :twisted:

mavrik65 wrote:

I'd personally keep moving around the world with a team of survivors who all have different skills, going from town to town for supplies and new team members if the others get eaten.

Heh, that's they way my own mod is heading.
Forgive me for harping on about my mod again, but because of some similarities - fast zombies, small group coop focus - designing my own mod gave me a few insights into some of the game design choices they've made.

Obviously I can't compete with the polished quality of Valve, I certainly think Valve/Turtle Rock are going to raise the bar for certain aspects.
I'm just poking away at things and planning to differentiate my mod via gameplay further than what I've currently got.

Left4Dead seems to be campaigns of get from a-to-b, hold b until rescue. The maps style seems to be similar to classic singleplayer linear with the AI managed attack waves being the main driver of replayability. Though I wouldn't be surprised if the maps have a few divergent routes through them.

Dusk focuses on getting supplies and getting a vehicle happy enough to travel to the next map. The player classes help differentiate roles too and push coop (though theres still a lot more I could do there). The maps are very open so you can decide how you want to sweep the area.
Next version I'm beefing up the interlinks between maps so from each map you'll be able to decide 'which town' to head to next (3-5 exits leading to other maps).
I hope to build further gameplay elements to pull it away from a campaign with a finish to a more persistent 'life after the zombie apocalypse' or 'How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Zombies' lol.

Back to left4dead.
I can see why they keep the survivor count at 4 and have bots take over if there's less humans playing, it's easier to balance and keep a constant experience than having survivor numbers fluctuate.
This of course means they needed to put a lot of work into the survivor AI. Turtle Rock has a good track record on that account.

I can see why have the Boss infected - you want the basic zombie that the survivors face be fodder, weak individually, but strong in numbers. It's just the whole swarmed/fast zombie horde combat style that you go for (in the case of my mod because of the open map size it's a necessity, slow zombies just don't work as well, and I wanted to keep quake pace anyway). Left4Deads horde does seem to have an interesting state where at some points they seem to be in a catatonic/classic zombie state until the get triggered off into their rage.
Except of course it's no fun as a human to play that kind of zombie, you very rarely get the feeling you're making any difference as your lifespan is so sort.
So Boss zombies - again limited to 4 for balance/consistent design reasons. However since the focus is still strongly on the survivors experience the bosses can't be too strong/one-on-one. So where does that leave them? Basically to cause a ruckus and add interest to the survivor combat with abilities that are fun for humans to play.

And of course there's the split of the two game modes.
One: where there's just humans on survivors, boss infected are controlled by ai, - it's for a nice, consistent/managed experience for the survivors with their buddies.
Two: the vs mode (or what ever it's called) - with humans on boss infected - is more competitive, humans playing bosses are of course going to cause as much havoc as possible, survivors 'experience' be damned - and balanced to a degree with each play through of map (or is it campaign?) repeating with swapped teams.

With a little more people (12-16 players in mp) you could make a "last survivor" mod-like.
Something very similar to one of the AVP mode, where at start, there is only 1 zombie, this one must infect other players and has infinite respawn. then "infected" become zombies too, etc. The goal is to be the last survivor as long as possible to gain points.
Then (when the last one die), another round start where this last survivor become the first zombie.

This AVP mode was really great, i played it all a weekend in a lan party long time ago (in a far galaxy).

TinMan wrote:

Heh, that's they way my own mod is heading.

you mean that you're making a doom3 zombie survival mod? if so cool! I had some ideas for a zombie survival mod:

1. you could have a welder tool that allows player to pick up objects and create things with them (sort of like Gary's mod) e.g. weld armour and spikes onto a minibus (like in dawn of the dead), boarder up a house and make a sniper nest on the roof. Make players rely on their ingenuity to survive.

2. loads of weapons: Practically everything can be picked up and used as a weapon making the game frantic but also comical.

3. zombie brutality! were raging zombies can grab you by the head/screen and smash you against a wall or bite you right in the neck.

4. counter attacks: like in resident evil 4, if you are grappling with a zombie and you press a button a load of times, then it goes into 3rd person mode and your character kicks the zombies head off or something equally as cool!

6th Venom wrote:

With a little more people (12-16 players in mp) you could make a "last survivor" mod-like.

I did protoype those rules a while ago but decided I didn't want to split my focus between two game modes.
There's a few mods for various games like that, Zombie Panic for Source comes to mind.
Though the downside of that mod is doors and some objects are indestructible, so for some maps it just devolves to camping a spot with fewest entrances, and wedging indestructible stuff in the entrances while picking off zombies as they clumsily try and move over physics objects - if you've played hl2 then you know how awkward moving on top of physics objects can be, combine that with slow zombie speed and bullet hits that push you back and you can imagine how bad it can be - basically it just gets tedious for both sides, though I suppose that's partly map design shortcomings.
left4deads destructible doors seem like a nice addition, either lock them and push on relying on the door to delay, or take a short breather and kill zombies through the hole in the door as they attack it. Well in theory since they game isn't out yet heh.
Ideally for a plain survival type of game (and like the final section of a l4dead campaign from what I hear) I think you want to give humans some set up time for barricading, and the map should promote being able to have several levels of fall back once one area is overcome.

mavrik65 wrote:

you mean that you're making a doom3 zombie survival mod?

No, a Quake Wars mod : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgeVeT-eaLM&fmt=18 not so much emphasis on survival at the moment.

Quote:

I had some ideas for a zombie survival mod:
1. you could have a welder tool that allows player to pick up objects and create things with them (sort of like Gary's mod) e.g. weld armour and spikes onto a minibus (like in dawn of the dead), boarder up a house and make a sniper nest on the roof. Make players rely on their ingenuity to survive.

Since I've discussed barricading a bit above I'll pick at a couple of things.
Garrys mod does seem to do a good job at an interface for interacting with physics objects - 'look mah no hands' aside, when it comes down to it keyboard/mouse are pretty limited/clumsy when workings with manipulating 3d objects from a restricted point of view.
Another downside of physics objects like in source engine is they require a lot more bandwidth and are hell to interact with when things get laggy.

Quote:

2. loads of weapons: Practically everything can be picked up and used as a weapon making the game frantic but also comical.

Zombie Panic is a bit like that with fry pans and golf clubs, but let down by the normal, high-to-low, only slight diagonal, melee attack - it seems to the basic one hit trace type of melee attack too instead of hit throughout path of swing - that means you usually miss 9 times out of 10, plus you want more of a baseball style horizontal swing

It doesn't seem to have a effective throw action either for objects.

Quote:

3. zombie brutality! were raging zombies can grab you by the head/screen and smash you against a wall or bite you right in the neck.

That would be nice, a few more visceral and connected attacks than the usual zombie flails we've seen in the past. l4dead has a couple for the different boss zombies, not so melee/direct as your suggestion, like the one with the lasso tongue that drags the humans, or the pounce strike that knocks and pins down the human.

Quote:

4. counter attacks: like in resident evil 4, if you are grappling with a zombie and you press a button a load of times, then it goes into 3rd person mode and your character kicks the zombies head off or something equally as cool!

I think you'd have to have a big variety of animations and they'd have to be pretty 'cool' to justify taking both direct control and viewpoint from the player.
Better than just mashing buttons would be to use mouselook and movement to try and break out of the grapple.

I guess those last two ideas kind of fall into more-in-depth-melee/more physical character interactions.

Another thing Left4dead seems to be having a good attempt in some respect there - not only the melee causing zombie stumble (with chain reactions within a crowd) but weapons and explosions contributing too.

left 4 dead: I have to admit left for dead looks pretty realistic, the most realistic fps i've seen, i mean crysis has great graphics, but it's the intricate detail (proper arm animations, level design, clever AI) in left 4 dead that make it look so natural.

Tinman: nice mod by the way, but hasn't the model format been updated? how are you going to make your own zombie models?

Just a thread about the new upcoming FPS Left 4 Dead. Left 4 Dead is a new zombie game by Turtle Rock Studios(Valve). This one looks more challenging than other zombie games seeing as how the zombies have been infected by a performance-enhancing virus and now resemble the infected from the British Horror\Action film "28 days later". The zombies also have variations and can be more deadly than the standard infected. They could have made this a bit more challenging by making the zombies a little more realistic(head shots only

) but other than it looks great

.

http://www.gametrailers.com/game/4094.html

Finally a game where the zombies actually run towards you. Instead of just being night of the living dead "sleep walkers".

I played this at QC07 and it was a blast. I can't wait for it to be released. Going to get some heavy playtime in the office.

To me, one of the achievements requiring you to kill 20 zombies in a single explosion is a good indicator that the game will be great. Pre-ordered and can't wait.

Can this be played co-op with one person on XBox and the other on PC?

Only if you work for valve

Brain Trepaning wrote:

Can this be played co-op with one person on XBox and the other on PC?

4 player co-op campaign or 8 player versus. both are online, the game is really really based around multiplayer. but i wouldn't know about the xbox-pc thing but probably. they did it with halo 3.

I find running zombies more realistic to today becuz of science. i had seen on the discovery channel that they will be trying to manufacture super humans since they found a few actual ones . the most likley use of this would be for soldiers. and one way to create thousands of super cells is by a virus. suppose this virus makes them like Rage zombies with a way to make soldiers more aggressive in combat going terribly wrong along with the high-performance fromula? they would just have a primal instinct to kill. then, with all that added, (this would definitley make them more frightening) suppose after the virus enters the bloodstream, after death (caused either by the virus or other causes)the virus takes over and shuts down all bodily functions besides the brain, which is then mutated into its own organ and that and the working parts of the body become oxygen independent. the nerves and other organs would be shut down becuz they would be deemed useless. blood would no longer matter becuz it carries oxygen to organs but they are all shut down or have become oxygen independent. so now u have a perfect killing machine, an invincilble, headshots only zombie, very fast and very strong. this part about the brain being the only working thing could be possible as well be cuz if soldiers felt no pain and no fear of it, then they would be almost unstoppable if they were oxygen independent and felt no pain. any ways sorry for the rant, too much info but if u fell the need let me know wat u think, possible? btw Left 4 Dead will be fuckin kick ASS!!!

This looks fantastic finally a fight for survival with friends! Danny boyle is going to be so annoyed when he sees this.

sorry for killing your zombie theory but cells need ATP (adenosine triphosphate) to function, not just oxygen. So zombies would need to fully digest what they eat. The conventional zombie isn't possible because once a cell is dead, it is dead and there's no way you can bring them back alive. The rage zombie might be possible if there is a mutated strain of rabies or something, but it's not likely. Even if there was, power of the human mind is amazing so most people would probably be able to over come the urge to kill everything and everyone.

sorry for killing the fun

no, the virus mutates all the cells (all tissues, muscles ect.). the cells dont die, they become mutated. it's basically like an alien life form(as in it doesnt require the things humans need) but...it's a virus :mrgreen:

. the organ that is formed causes a massive drop in seretonin, espaecially at the hypothalamus, which is one of the most important parts of the brain for controlling aggression. this is where the core or heart of the virus embedds itself into the brain. since it finds no need for seretonin it discards it.

lolz you're theory is well planned out. But viruses use cells to reproduce, in most cases cells that are attacked/tampered with by viruses end up being destroyed in the process. Cells are really easy to kill. How would oxygen be carried to the brain without blood? Because brain cells die without oxygen ( that's how some people die from heart attacks, if it takes too long for the defibrillator to arrive then the brain cells die ). why would the virus "think" to cut off the seretonin? Viruses are very basic and don't think about attacking certain areas they collide with cells by chance and inject their genes.

thats just it, it doesnt think, this virus doesnt cut off seretonin, it is simply not affected by it. also i said twice now that this "virus"(i know it really cant be classified as a virus due to how it works) is a performance enhancer so destroying cells would be useless. it simply mutates the cells, and a virus is very effective at spreading. as well, oxygen is not needed. this "virus" is meant to make the people infected almost invincible. military applications.

but with out oxygen cells will die, you can't just say the virus can mutate them to run on nothing because that's not physically possible. Like Einstien said e=mc2 (squared, i cant make the little 2), cells need some sort of mass to create energy what ever the form of mutation. How does the virus make the people invincible? if you damage parts of the body, they will be damaged and will never heal because there's no blood.

*another idea - you could say that it is a bacterial infection that gives off a toxin that impares seretonin production.

plz look up solanum its the closest thing to my theory

i guess i just like the idea of them being more deadly, but however they do it we all be fucked in the ass!!! :!:

ha ha ha yes we will be literally screwed! i bet you've read the zombie survival guide by max brooks (internet high five cos i have to!). Some interesting stuff in that book but it doesn't mean salanum is possible. It's just better to dream about how you would survive a zombie apocalypse (or play left 4 dead). I'd personally keep moving around the world with a team of survivors who all have different skills, going from town to town for supplies and new team members if the others get eaten.

fuck yea, must build solar vehicle with mini-gun :twisted:

mavrik65 wrote:

I'd personally keep moving around the world with a team of survivors who all have different skills, going from town to town for supplies and new team members if the others get eaten.

Heh, that's they way my own mod is heading.
Forgive me for harping on about my mod again, but because of some similarities - fast zombies, small group coop focus - designing my own mod gave me a few insights into some of the game design choices they've made.

Obviously I can't compete with the polished quality of Valve, I certainly think Valve/Turtle Rock are going to raise the bar for certain aspects.
I'm just poking away at things and planning to differentiate my mod via gameplay further than what I've currently got.

Left4Dead seems to be campaigns of get from a-to-b, hold b until rescue. The maps style seems to be similar to classic singleplayer linear with the AI managed attack waves being the main driver of replayability. Though I wouldn't be surprised if the maps have a few divergent routes through them.

Dusk focuses on getting supplies and getting a vehicle happy enough to travel to the next map. The player classes help differentiate roles too and push coop (though theres still a lot more I could do there). The maps are very open so you can decide how you want to sweep the area.
Next version I'm beefing up the interlinks between maps so from each map you'll be able to decide 'which town' to head to next (3-5 exits leading to other maps).
I hope to build further gameplay elements to pull it away from a campaign with a finish to a more persistent 'life after the zombie apocalypse' or 'How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Zombies' lol.

Back to left4dead.
I can see why they keep the survivor count at 4 and have bots take over if there's less humans playing, it's easier to balance and keep a constant experience than having survivor numbers fluctuate.
This of course means they needed to put a lot of work into the survivor AI. Turtle Rock has a good track record on that account.

I can see why have the Boss infected - you want the basic zombie that the survivors face be fodder, weak individually, but strong in numbers. It's just the whole swarmed/fast zombie horde combat style that you go for (in the case of my mod because of the open map size it's a necessity, slow zombies just don't work as well, and I wanted to keep quake pace anyway). Left4Deads horde does seem to have an interesting state where at some points they seem to be in a catatonic/classic zombie state until the get triggered off into their rage.
Except of course it's no fun as a human to play that kind of zombie, you very rarely get the feeling you're making any difference as your lifespan is so sort.
So Boss zombies - again limited to 4 for balance/consistent design reasons. However since the focus is still strongly on the survivors experience the bosses can't be too strong/one-on-one. So where does that leave them? Basically to cause a ruckus and add interest to the survivor combat with abilities that are fun for humans to play.

And of course there's the split of the two game modes.
One: where there's just humans on survivors, boss infected are controlled by ai, - it's for a nice, consistent/managed experience for the survivors with their buddies.
Two: the vs mode (or what ever it's called) - with humans on boss infected - is more competitive, humans playing bosses are of course going to cause as much havoc as possible, survivors 'experience' be damned - and balanced to a degree with each play through of map (or is it campaign?) repeating with swapped teams.

With a little more people (12-16 players in mp) you could make a "last survivor" mod-like.
Something very similar to one of the AVP mode, where at start, there is only 1 zombie, this one must infect other players and has infinite respawn. then "infected" become zombies too, etc. The goal is to be the last survivor as long as possible to gain points.
Then (when the last one die), another round start where this last survivor become the first zombie.

This AVP mode was really great, i played it all a weekend in a lan party long time ago (in a far galaxy).

TinMan wrote:

Heh, that's they way my own mod is heading.

you mean that you're making a doom3 zombie survival mod? if so cool! I had some ideas for a zombie survival mod:

1. you could have a welder tool that allows player to pick up objects and create things with them (sort of like Gary's mod) e.g. weld armour and spikes onto a minibus (like in dawn of the dead), boarder up a house and make a sniper nest on the roof. Make players rely on their ingenuity to survive.

2. loads of weapons: Practically everything can be picked up and used as a weapon making the game frantic but also comical.

3. zombie brutality! were raging zombies can grab you by the head/screen and smash you against a wall or bite you right in the neck.

4. counter attacks: like in resident evil 4, if you are grappling with a zombie and you press a button a load of times, then it goes into 3rd person mode and your character kicks the zombies head off or something equally as cool!

6th Venom wrote:

With a little more people (12-16 players in mp) you could make a "last survivor" mod-like.

I did protoype those rules a while ago but decided I didn't want to split my focus between two game modes.
There's a few mods for various games like that, Zombie Panic for Source comes to mind.
Though the downside of that mod is doors and some objects are indestructible, so for some maps it just devolves to camping a spot with fewest entrances, and wedging indestructible stuff in the entrances while picking off zombies as they clumsily try and move over physics objects - if you've played hl2 then you know how awkward moving on top of physics objects can be, combine that with slow zombie speed and bullet hits that push you back and you can imagine how bad it can be - basically it just gets tedious for both sides, though I suppose that's partly map design shortcomings.
left4deads destructible doors seem like a nice addition, either lock them and push on relying on the door to delay, or take a short breather and kill zombies through the hole in the door as they attack it. Well in theory since they game isn't out yet heh.
Ideally for a plain survival type of game (and like the final section of a l4dead campaign from what I hear) I think you want to give humans some set up time for barricading, and the map should promote being able to have several levels of fall back once one area is overcome.

mavrik65 wrote:

you mean that you're making a doom3 zombie survival mod?

No, a Quake Wars mod : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgeVeT-eaLM&fmt=18 not so much emphasis on survival at the moment.

Quote:

I had some ideas for a zombie survival mod:
1. you could have a welder tool that allows player to pick up objects and create things with them (sort of like Gary's mod) e.g. weld armour and spikes onto a minibus (like in dawn of the dead), boarder up a house and make a sniper nest on the roof. Make players rely on their ingenuity to survive.

Since I've discussed barricading a bit above I'll pick at a couple of things.
Garrys mod does seem to do a good job at an interface for interacting with physics objects - 'look mah no hands' aside, when it comes down to it keyboard/mouse are pretty limited/clumsy when workings with manipulating 3d objects from a restricted point of view.
Another downside of physics objects like in source engine is they require a lot more bandwidth and are hell to interact with when things get laggy.

Quote:

2. loads of weapons: Practically everything can be picked up and used as a weapon making the game frantic but also comical.

Zombie Panic is a bit like that with fry pans and golf clubs, but let down by the normal, high-to-low, only slight diagonal, melee attack - it seems to the basic one hit trace type of melee attack too instead of hit throughout path of swing - that means you usually miss 9 times out of 10, plus you want more of a baseball style horizontal swing

It doesn't seem to have a effective throw action either for objects.

Quote:

3. zombie brutality! were raging zombies can grab you by the head/screen and smash you against a wall or bite you right in the neck.

That would be nice, a few more visceral and connected attacks than the usual zombie flails we've seen in the past. l4dead has a couple for the different boss zombies, not so melee/direct as your suggestion, like the one with the lasso tongue that drags the humans, or the pounce strike that knocks and pins down the human.

Quote:

4. counter attacks: like in resident evil 4, if you are grappling with a zombie and you press a button a load of times, then it goes into 3rd person mode and your character kicks the zombies head off or something equally as cool!

I think you'd have to have a big variety of animations and they'd have to be pretty 'cool' to justify taking both direct control and viewpoint from the player.
Better than just mashing buttons would be to use mouselook and movement to try and break out of the grapple.

I guess those last two ideas kind of fall into more-in-depth-melee/more physical character interactions.

Another thing Left4dead seems to be having a good attempt in some respect there - not only the melee causing zombie stumble (with chain reactions within a crowd) but weapons and explosions contributing too.

left 4 dead: I have to admit left for dead looks pretty realistic, the most realistic fps i've seen, i mean crysis has great graphics, but it's the intricate detail (proper arm animations, level design, clever AI) in left 4 dead that make it look so natural.

Tinman: nice mod by the way, but hasn't the model format been updated? how are you going to make your own zombie models?