left-4-dead posts

A number of fans express their displeasure over the fact that Valve had decided to release a sequel to their 2008 shooter Left 4 Dead less than a year after the original. But does Valve have something up their sleeve that could merge the two games in some way?

In a new chat with Valve marketing head Doug Lombardi at our sister site Joystiq, he states, " . . .it's definitely a goal of ours to have cross-operability for those who own both games." He points out that mod makers who are currently making levels for Left 4 Dead will have little trouble making those levels work for the sequel when it comes out. He added, " . . . that's stuff we're still really working out and we're not prepared to disclose just yet. We understand that the best possible scenario is to keep everyone together in the same community and treat it as a platform . . . "

Meanwhile despite the Internet furor over Left 4 Dead 2, Lombardi tells Eurogamer that the sequel is already secured twice as many pre-order copies as the first game did at this time last year.

The retail gaming web site GoGamer.com is at it again with its latest price cut sale. This particular one lasts until 3 am Tuesday and is filled with lots of PC games, both new and old. Perhaps the one that will generate the most interest is Left 4 Dead which can be picked up for $29.90 during the sale.

Other games on sale at GoGamer include the just released Overlord 2 for $34.90, The Sims 3 for $37.90 and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen for $19.90. You can also grab some older games at rock bottom prices including Rainbow Six Vegas 2 for just $5.90 and the original Call of Juarez for a mere $4.90.

It took much longer than previously announced but today Valve revealed that they have added support via Steam for the Novint Falcon PC game controller to all of the games in Valve's Orange Box collection. That includes Half-Life 2: Episodes 1 and 2 along with Portal and Team Fortress 2 (the original Half-Life 2 already supports the Falcon controller via a patch from Novint).

The controller allows gamers to "feel" effects like weapon fire recoil, the weight of holding objects like barrels and even feel textures in the game world. Valve has promised that they will add Falcon support to their other games including Left 4 Dead.

Valve's head man Gabe Newell mentioned earlier this year that sales of their games tend to spike when they have price cuts on Steam. Now a new study seems to confirm that player activity for their zombie shooter Left 4 Dead has gone up for the PC version compared to the Xbox 360 port of the game.

Gamasutra reports that a new study from DFC Intelligence and the social networking site GamerDNA shows that player activity for both versions of the game were more or less the same until Valve held a 50 percent sale of the PC version on Steam in February. PC player activity went up and then leveled off but still was somewhat higher than the Xbox 360 version.

In late April the free Survival Pack was released for both platforms and while both the PC and Xbox 360 experienced spikes in player activities, the PC version went even higher thanks to a "Free to play" weekend that the Xbox 360 version could not duplicate. Since then the PC version has continued to be much higher in terms of player activity than the Xbox 360 port.

Valve is getting ready to release a major update to its zombie co-op shooter Left 4 Dead and this week the game's official blog site posted up some details. The update, to be released automatically via Steam sometime next week, will concentrate on supporting new campaign add-ons made by third parties.

The update will include the official release of the game's SDK editing tools (the SDK has been in open beta for some time) with a few changes and fixes. The mod tools will allow players to make their own campaigns for Left 4 Dead. The update will also have some UI changes to support add-ons as will as matchmaking for any new third party campaigns.

According to the note, "Content authors will be able to package up their new maps, along with new posters, models, and textures, into a single .VPK file." They can then be placed in an addons folder in the game where they will be accessed via the game's Extras menu as seen above.

We are not sure if Valve is just pulling our finger (pun intended) but in their latest blog post on the Left 4 Dead site they talk about how they created the image of the four fingered hand for the box cover to their zombie co-op shooter. Valve didn't want to use Photoshop so they got one of their artists, Andrea Wicklund, to bite her thumb for reference pictures.

Valve then claims the ESRB ratings board didn't care for that kind of dedication to the art, saying they "cited some fake-sounding legal loophole about it being illegal to take pictures of people biting off parts of their hands." For the upcoming sequel Left 4 Dead 2 Valve says they simply tucked in two fingers for the box design (which you can see after the jump). Valve does say " . . .it took lopping the fingers off two staff members' hands to get the lighting reference perfect, but since those didn't appear on the box, we think we're legally in the clear." We think they are joking.

While we are firmly in June, the NPD Group has gone ahead and set out their top 20 best selling PC games in the US for the month of May. As you can see there's a lot of familar games in the top 20. In fact not one of the games listed was released in May. That will likely change for June with The Sims 3 and possibly other titles.

Blizzard took seven out of the top 20 slots for the May list and three of the top five, including the number one slot for the MMO expansion World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King.

1. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King - Blizzard
2. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe - Electronic Arts
3. World of Warcraft Battle Chest - Blizzard
4. World of Warcraft - Blizzard
5. Empire: Total War - Creative Assembly/Sega
6. Spore - Electronic Arts
7. Left 4 Dead - Valve
8. The Sims 2 Apartment Life - Electronic Arts
9. Fallout Trilogy - Interplay
10. StarCraft: Battle Chest - Blizzard
11. World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade - Blizzard
12. Demigod - Gas Powered Games/Stardock
13. Real Deal Slots Adventure - Phantom EFX
14. The SimCity Box - Electronic Arts
15. Fallout 3 - Bethesda Softworks
16. Diablo Battle Chest - Blizzard
17. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Game of the Year Edition - Bethesda Softworks
18. Warcraft III Battle Chest - Blizzard
19. Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War II - Relic/THQ
20. Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor - Relic/THQ

PC gamers like open world action games just like their console counterparts and that's pretty clear in Steam's latest weekly sales report. The list shows the Radical Entertainment-Activision game Prototype zoom to the top of Steam's sales list (based on revenue for the past seven days and ending on Sunday morning).

The rest of the list includes Railworks, the new train simulation title from RailSimulator.com, in the number 9 position. Also Tripwire Interactive's co-op shooter Killing Floor continues to make a killing; it's at number 3 on the list and has so far remained in the top five since it's release in mid-May

1. Prototype - Activision
2. Left 4 Dead - Valve
3. Killing Floor - Tripwire Interactive
4. Team Fortress 2 - Valve
5. Counter-Strike Source - Valve
6. The Orange Box - Valve
7. Call of Duty 4 - Activision
8. Penubra Collector Pack - Frictional Games
9. Railworks - Railsimulator.com
10. Plants Vs. Zombies - PopCap

Valve revealed their plans for Left 4 Dead 2 at E3 2009 last week and while many fans of the original game are still upset about the move (despite Valve saying many, many times that they still plan to support and update Left 4 Dead 1). But what about Half-Life 2: Episode 3? The third and final chapter in their FPS episodic trilogy is nowhere in sight after the release of Episode 2 as part of The Orange Box collection in October 2007.

Valve head man Gabe Newell chatted with G4TV during E3 and when the subject of Episode 3 came up he stated, "I get a ton of email everyday saying why aren't you talking about Episode 3? And there are very good reasons why we're not talking about Episode 3, which I can't talk about yet, but I will." Meanwhile the concept art piece pictured above, released almost a year ago, is the only real glimpse of what the game will be like.

The NPD Group's latest list of the top 10 best selling PC games in retail stores is, well, boring with little change from the previous week's list. The list below is for the week that ended on May 30. However we expect the next week to see The Sims 3 on top of the list in its debut week:

1. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe - Electronic Arts
2. World Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King - Blizzard
3. Spore - Electronic Arts
4. World Of Warcraft Battle Chest - Blizzard
5. World Of Warcraft - Blizzard
6. Empire: Total War - Creative Assembly/Sega
7. Reel Deal Slots Adventure - Phantom EFX
8. Civilization IV: The Complete Edition - Firaxis/2K Games
9. The Sims 2 Apartment Life - Electronic Arts
10. Left 4 Dead - Valve