First and foremost, deaf gamers should experience few, if any, difficulties with Left 4 Dead. There are three subtitle options – none, subtitle and full caption. The full caption option seems to include every single bit of audio in the game, even if the text occasionally doesn’t match what a character actually says. However, on those rare occasions, the difference between what the character says and the subtitle is purely cosmetic – it’s ambient chatter, not something that’s specific to a mission.

Furthermore, the subtitles identify which character is speaking, they are in a legible and readable font, they are letterboxed, and they appear in different colors to indicate different events, such as a Hunter warning, a Hunter attack and a Hunter being killed. When the survivors kill a Smoker, as one example, the subtitles will note which character coughs in the cloud of smoke that a Smoker leaves behind when it dies. Left 4 Dead provides a very fine level of detail in its subtitles and, simply put, they are the best subtitles in any game that I’ve seen.

However, as a result of using different colors in the subtitles which is helpful to deaf gamers, Left 4 Dead actually creates an accessibility issue for gamers with a form of color blindness by using both red and green text.

This is a case of a game offering too much of a good thing.

In addition, gamers with a form of color blindness need to be aware that the game uses a bar and a numeric value to indicate remaining health. Both the number and bar start off green to indicate good health, but gradually turn to orange and then red as a player loses health. It’s possible to get an alternate view of health by pressing the back button on the Xbox 360 controller, which will display a view of all four Survivors and their relative health in white.

Gamers with use of only one hand will likely experience some difficulty with this game. Controller configuration three uses the right trigger to fire a weapon, the right bumper for a melee attack and, consistent with all other controller layouts, the right stick to look around. Gamers with use of only one hand may find this layout to be the most accessible, even if it does present problems with moving and fighting at the same time.

Like any other first-person shooter, Left 4 Dead requires some precision, although perhaps less than other shooters. Players can dual-wield pistols (which have unlimited ammunition) and use the right and left triggers to offset the need for precision by simply firing until the guns are empty and then holding down the melee button to keep enemies away while reloading. Shotguns are also a good option to offset the need for precision – they work best at short to medium ranges, but are very powerful and don’t require precise targeting to kill an enemy.

All things considered, Left 4 Dead is fairly accessible for all gamers, and especially accessible for gamers who are deaf or need subtitles.

At A Glance

Precision: “Left 4 Dead,” like other first-person shooters, requires some amount of precision. Dual-wielding pistols (which have unlimited ammunition) offsets some of the need for precision by simply saturating a mob of enemies with bullets. The scoped hunting rifle allows you to shoot enemies at long range, often allowing a generous amount of time to aim at the target. Recommend rating of 7 out 10 for single-player campaign.

Deaf Gamers: Left 4 Dead has the most exceptional captioning system I’ve seen in a game, including identifying speakers, subtitling audio alerts for enemies, using letterboxed text and using a readable font. Recommend rating of 10 out of 10.

One-handed: As always, gamers with use of one hand are likely to experience difficulties with this game. Configuration option three seems to be best suited for gamers with use of one hand because it assigns the right trigger to fire the equipped weapon and the right bumper to melee attacks. Since the right stick controls the camera, it’s possible to use that configuration for combat, even thought it requires sacrificing movement during combat. Recommend rating of 5 out of 10.

Subtitled: The subtitles identify speakers, subtitle audio alerts for enemies, use letterboxed text and a readable font. Furthermore, the subtitles include ambient chatter. Recommend rating of 10 out of 10.

Color Blind: Oddly, the subtitles create an accessibility issue with using different colored text – including red and green – to identify events and speakers. The game also uses the color green on health bars to indicate good health and red to indicate poor health. It also provides a numeric value (which also changes colors as health declines). It is possible to get another view of a player’s health by pressing the Back button on the Xbox 360 controller which displays all team members’ health bars in white. Recommend rating of 5 out of 10 due to using red and green text, and red and green to indicate health when other colors would have worked just as well.