Learn the Little Tips and Tricks

Left 4 Dead has tons of little tips and tricks that can be seen through simple observation. These tricks will smooth out your game, making your quest to the rendezvous a lot less painful for all involved. Such tips and tricks include:

*Molotovs and pipe bombs have situations that they are best used in. Molotovs are great for laying traps, as zombies that run through the flames quickly burn to death. Pipe bombs only deal damage once, but attract all nearby zombies towards it, making it a veritable "Get Out of Horde Free" card.

*There are two interactive objects that act like the grenades, with the exception of the crowd-drawing ability. The counterparts to the Molotov and pipe bomb are the petrol can and propane tank, respectively.

*Objects which set off alarms or make loud noises will always attract a horde. These things include metal detectors, cherry pickers, generators, and car alarms. Always be prepared. Some things tell you they will trigger a horde, and others will not.

*Save your first aid kits until they are absolutely needed. If you are playing on the more difficult scenarios, you will run out of them quickly if you apply them every time somebody drops to the red. Use pain pills when somebody is in the red instead. Only use first aid kits if somebody is on their last life, which means that the next knockdown is death. This is indicated by the player's vision going red as well as an indicator on teammate HUDs that tells to use first aid on them.

*There are first aid boxes scattered throughout the environment that will always have pain pills and/or first aid kits inside them. However, pills and kits don't always spawn in these boxes, so make sure to examine each room carefully.

*If you switch weapons immediately after hitting with a bash, you can bash again and switch, turning yourself into a melee whirlwind of death. This is a great advanced technique that can get you out of hordes relatively unscathed. It requires a lot of practice, though.

*You can sneak up on common infected. They hunt by sound and sight, not smell. If you get behind a common infected and walk up to them, you can bash them in the back for an instant kill. This also nets you an achievements.

*Dead players spawn in closets. However, different closets have different respawn times. The closet a player respawns in is normally the last one that was passed by the group as they go through the level. Respawn times are also dictated by when the player died, so two players that died together will pop up at the same time.

*Shotguns reload faster if there is still ammo in the shotgun. The animation is faster and there is no cocking animation at the end. Therefore, it is best to keep track of how many shells you have and reload at 1 shell.