Everyone has their videogame story. You know the one. The time when you did something incredibly badass or everything went to tits in a spectacular way. So come, gather round the water cooler and regale us with your wonderful tales.
I was playing the second to last map of the "Blood harvest" harvest campaign in the original L4D. We were playing on normal difficulty, and were kicking huge amounts of zombified ass. About fifty feet from the safe house (which was at the end of a railroad bridge) Francis decides to turn around and head back from the house we had just cleared. It was weird, but the rest of the team assumed that he was scavenging for molotovs or something like that. After a minute or so, the guy goes even futher back to a train station about half-way through the stage. It was at this point that he got Smoker-ed (i.e pinned down by a zombie). After an exasperated sigh, Zoey runs over there to save his sorry ass. Now, as we all know, the L4D AI Director is a sadistic bastard, so it was at that precise moment that a tank (i.e Big-ass Hulk Motherfucker) spawned right behind them.
The tank runs them on a merry chase towards Louis and I. As the other two are running and gunning away from the tank, Francis makes his escape by jumping out a nearby window. Zoey, alas, was not so lucky. She was quickly pounded into the pavement before Louis and I could put down the tank. With heavy hearts at the loss of our fallen comrade, we turn to go to the safehouse. Again, when we were about fifty feet from the door, this pops across the text-chat...
"Guys, I'm stuck"
A look of confusion on my face, I wheel around to see Francis sitting in a tree. Upon further inspection, it appeared that when he jumped out the window, the poor sod clipped into a tree and couldn't get out. After about two minutes of melee striking him in a half-baked effort to release our squirrel friend, I announced that we should just kill him so that we can finish this stage. After taking about twenty bullets in the teeth, Francis chickened out at the last second. Annoyed at the lack of progress, I decided to head over to - finally - head over to the safe house. After capping the Boomer inside, I grabbed a sniper rifle and scoped my buddies, determined to provide covering fire for the inevitable horde. And, lo and behold, no sooner had I done so the "horde-incoming" music began playing.
Like a guardian angel of hot lead, I stopped the zombies charging my buddies. All three of them. Well what kind of shit horde was that I thought. The universe must have decided to punish me for my hubris at this point, because the entire rest of the horde decided to flow off the roof of the safe room and pour inside for some tasty brain salad. I barely escaped with my life.
After another minute of useless flailing, we decided to cap Francis and get on to the next bit. So, to summarize, in the span of ten or so minutes, we went from everyone alive with close to full health, to two people dead and one knock knock knockin' on death's door.
*Pours a drink*
Here's to you, guy playing Francis. You crazy, shit-for-brains bastard.