Left 4 Dead 2 DLC  ‘The Passing’ releases this week, free on PC!  If it’s free it’s for me!

Byte Sized News Stories

• X-Com was announced in a previous news post, being revived by 2K Marin.  Two independent developers have taken the opportunity to uncloak their games, made in the vein of the original strategy classic, X-Com.  Goldhawk Interactive, makers of Xenonauts and Chaos Concept, makers of UFO2 Extraterrestrials : Shadows Over Earth will be releasing their titles Q4 2010.  We will be seeing much more on these games, stay tuned here and on my X-Com blog here.
• More good news for Retro fans, Might and Delight Studios has been formed by the former GRIN team, responsible for Bionic Commando : Rearmed.  Let’s not forget that BC:R was the retro remake, not the next-gen continuation of the BC saga.  The studio also handled Wated:Weapons of Fate, Bionic Commando and Terminator:Salvation.  Would it be wrong of me to state that they are wise to go with their strengths?  They were quoted as saying :
  

  “Our ambition is to continue doing what we started with Rearmed. Small, fresh games with strong old school flavor.”

• Crytek CEO, Cevat Yerli, is not making any friends with his current statements.  The father of the nanosuit has said that free game demos are an “antiquated luxury” and have become “prohibitively expensive to produce”.  He went on to say that paid demos may be the wave of the future, a wave EA surprising embraced and has talked about as “pre-release DLC”.  Yerli seems to think this would be “fair for the gamer” while the company would recoup it’s production cost for the demo.  Thankfully, it does not seem the Crysis 2 will be the horseman of this apocolypse, as Crytek has yet to decide if a demo will be available.  His one positive statement was to say that should paid demos become the norm, his feeling is that it should contain considerably more material than what is currently offered.

Deals

• Week 2 of the Direct2Drive Spring Sale has begun!  Highlights are Star Wars Force Unleashed Sith Edition for $14.95, Infernal Uncensored Edition for $7.95, Grand Theft Auto IV, Medievil 2:Total War or Supreme Commander Gold for $7.50 each,  ArmA II for $24.95, and Manhunt 2 or Knights Of The Old Republic for $4.95 each
• Equally tempting is a sale of unknown length on Steam, with Trine available for 75% off.  The game will cost $5.00, and includes the new ‘Path To New Dawn’ level, unlocked if you complete the game.

Geared Up

My apologies, I have been all over tons of things I am working on for the site, and I was not able to find anything for this section this week.  Please, send your entries to ‘chris@everydaygamers.com, with ‘Geared Up’ in the subject heading if you have seen anything or made anything that you would like to see featured in this section.  Thanks!

Left 4 Dead in Johnstown – Act 2 – Old Mills

February 11, 2009 — The recently announced Left 4 Dead Downloadable Content (L4D DLC) will be delivered to Xbox 360 and PC gamers free of charge.

Due for release this spring, the DLC for 2008′s best-selling new game property on the PC and Xbox 360, is dubbed the L4D Survival Pack and introduces a new multiplayer game mode entitled, Survival, plus two complete campaigns for Versus Mode (Death Toll, Dead Air). A Critic’s Choice Edition of the game will be heading to retail stores this spring, and will include access to all the content introduced in the L4D: Survival Pack.

Left 4 Dead is a survival action game from Valve that blends the social entertainment experience of multiplayer games such as Counter-Strike and Team Fortress with the dramatic, narrative experience made popular in single player action game classics such as the Half-Life series of games. Released in November of 2008, L4D has earned over 25 industry awards from outlets around the world.

For more information, please visit www.l4d.com

Source

The campaign of this game can be played single player with three A.I. controlled friends or the recommended four person co-op.  You can play as one of four survivors; Francis who is a biker, Zoey is who in college and is into horror movies, Louis who works in his company’s IT department, or Bill who is a former Green Beret.

This game plays a little different than most games I’ve played in that there are four locations and you can play them in any order.  These locations are titled Blood Harvest, No Mercy, Death Toll, and Dead Air.  Your main goal is to get to the rescue spot without getting killed by the “Infected” zombies.  Along the way there are several “safe houses” that you have to work to get to, these allow  you to save and stock up on health and ammo.  These items are also available along the way if you explore your surroundings enough.

The zombies come in a few different forms.  There is the horde, also known as the “normal” zombies and then there are the special “Infected” zombies.  All of the special infected have special attaches that you have to watch out for.  The Boomer is the easiest to spot as he is about as much round as he is tall.  Like the name hints, when you shoot him he blows up and if his blood gets on you it will alert the horde.  Also if he throws up on you before you shoot him, then you will not be able to see and it will also alert the horde.  The next special zombie is known as the Hunter. To me the Hunter is one of the most dangerous because he leaps out of nowhere and pushes you down on the ground.  You can usually spot him as he is always crouching and tends to make a very shrill scream each time he leaps.  The Gene Simmons version of the infected is the Smoker.  This special infected has a frog like tongue that will grab you and pull you towards him.  Unless your facing him, it takes a teammate to shoot him to get you free.  Once killed the Smoker blows up leaving lots of… well, green smoke.  One of the hardest special infected to kill is the Tank.  The hulk/king kong looking infected will usually target one of the survivors.  He will throw things at you like cars and it takes a lot of blast to take him down.  You can easily hear him coming and feel the room or area that you are in shake because of him.  Last but definitely not least is the witch.  You can hear the witch crying before you ever get to her.  If you spot her and don’t shine your flashlight on her, most of the time you can walk around her without disturbing her.  However if you disturb her watch out as she is very fast and strong and will knock you down 99% of the time.

Teamwork is the name of the game in Left 4 Dead.  Staying together and working together are very important if you want to make it past the harder levels.  One nice thing about the game is that your teammates are highlighted so you can always see were they are.  You can even see their outline through walls.  This is great in case you do get separated.  When you go down your outline with flash orange to let your teamates know that you need help but if you go down too much the screen will turn black and white which lets you know that if you get attacked one more time you will die.  If you die early you will likely respawn in a closet and your teammates will have to find you and let you out.  This is a very nice touch and give you some hope that you will return to the game.

Then there is the versus mode.  This mode is 4 vs 4, with 4 people getting to be the survivors and 4 getting to play as the special infected and after the chapter swapping sides.  The survivors get points for how well they do and if they die before reaching the safe house, they will get points for how far they made it.  When playing as the infected you will randomly respawn as different infected but never as the witch.  You will also be alerted when someone is about to take over as the Tank.  When respawing as an infected you get to pick were you want to respawn but you can’t respawn in site of a survivor.  As the infected you can see the survivors through walls every time they move or shoot but if the survivor stays still long enough they will disappear.  This mode can only be played on Blood Harvest and No Mercy.  It can be challenging and the group that works better together will usually win.

With all the great games coming out right now it may be easy to overlook Left 4 Dead but I have to tell you, you would really be missing out.  This is one of the most fun games I’ve played all year.  It has very high replay value and is a must buy.  So go grab three friends and start kicking some zombie butt!

Additional Comments from Patrick Adams:

I agree Left 4 Dead is an amazing game. The replay value is very high and I believe that because there are so many different combinations of playing L4D this will cause people to come back to it time and time again. I am also very excited to see Left 4 Dead become part of the Valve family of awesome games and I hope we will see some DLC for L4D sometime in the near future. This is a franchise that can easily be expanded and I don’t think they will have a hard time making a sequal out of it as well. I can’t wait for some L4D2!