left-4-dead-2 posts

As you prepare for next week's long (for some of you) Thanksgiving weekend, some of you may want to play some games in between turkey and watching football on TV. But wouldn't that turkey go down smoother if you had a FREE GAME to play? We think it would which is why we are giving you the chance to win a free game; the just released Left 4 Dead 2 in fact.

Our giveaway contest is giving out five free Steam codes for the Valve-developed zombie shooter to someone; so it might as well be you, right?. If you want your shot at one of them and are eligible to win (always important to find out) head over to our contest site to enter now. You still have plenty of time as the contest ends on Monday night.

Earlier this week we reported that the web site address seen in Left 4 Dead 2's Dark Carnival campaign for the Midnight Riders band was in fact an actual (and Valve owned) site in the real world. Today that site just got more interesting with lots more info about the fictitious Southern Rock musical group. For one thing we now know the names of the four bandmates (Ox on drums, Smitty on vocals and rhythm guitar, Jake on bass and keyboards and Dusty on lead guitar).

We also learn some of the history of the band and their last blog entry indicates that despite the "Green Flu" they still had plans to play a set at the Whispering Oaks Fairgrounds (now identified as being in Griffin, GA). There's also a link to a You Tube channel where two music tracks from the band can be checked out. While you can't buy their latest album, you can get the next best thing; the official Midnight Riders tour t-shirt (via a Valve store link). All of this makes us think even more that we may be getting a new Left 4 Dead 2 campaign before too long.

Valve has yet to release the mod tools for Left 4 Dead 2 (we assume they are coming soon-ish) but in the meantime that hasn't stopped some enterprising mod creators from shoehorning the characters, new zombie bosses and items from the just released shooter sequel into the original Left 4 Dead campaigns.

The L4DMods.com site has the full instructions on how to make this happen. The site puts up plenty of warnings that this kind of thing is not for folks who are unfamiliar with opening up and altering a PAK file but as you can see from the above screenshot it is possible to get Coach, Nick, Noelle and Ellis up north to battle the infected.

[Via Kotaku]

It's just over a week until Black Friday 2009 hits and tons of retailers are cutting prices to the bone for the biggest sales day of the year. If you happen to find yourself at a GameStop store on that day you will be able to get a few PC game bargains. The biggest one has to be for the just released Left 4 Dead 2. Valve's zombie shooter sequel will be on sale during Black Friday for just $29.99. That's a massive $20 price cut on a game that was just released this week.

The entire GameStop Black Friday PC game sales list, as provided by bfads.net, is as follows. Keep in mind that GameStop's stores open at 6 am on that day and the sales are for just two days only.

Guild Wars Trilogy - $24.99
Left 4 Dead 2 PC - $29.99
World of Warcraft - $4.99
World of Warcraft Battle Chest - $19.99
The Sims 3 World Adventures - $29.99

It's been just a few days since we have given anything away. So let's do this thing. Today the folks at Electronic Arts and Valve have given Big Download five Steam codes that can be used to download the full version of Left 4 Dead 2. Are you ready to shoot some zombies with your friends? You had better be if you are one of the folks picked to win this very cool prize.

As with most of our contests, entering the giveaway is simple:

• To enter, post a comment on this contest page.
• The comment must be left before 11:59 pm Eastern Time on November 23
  
• You may enter only once.
• Five winners will be selected in a random drawing.
• Those five winners will be sent a Steam code that can be used to download a full copy of Left 4 Dead 2 (valued at $49.99 each)
  
• Click Here for complete Official Rules. You must be a resident of the US or Canada (excluding Quebec) who is 18 years or older to enter this contest.

Our thanks to EA and Valve for the donation of the prizes. Good luck.

The largest game retailer in the US, GameStop, reported its latest financial results today and they are mostly on the higher side. For its third fiscal quarter that ended on October 31, the retailer had $1.83 billion in revenues, up from $1.70 billion from the same period a year ago. Profits were $52.2 million, up from $46.7 million from the same period a year ago.

Of course those numbers don't include game sales from this month where some of the biggest releases of the year like Dragon Age Origins, Modern Warfare 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 will surely increase sales even more at the retailer. Indeed GameStop states in its press release, " . . . we expect a solid fourth quarter in sales and earnings." We would think so, too.

If you haven't gone through the entire campaign for Left 4 Dead 2 you might want to avoid reading the rest of this post . . . . ok, for the rest of you, you likely know that in the Dark Carnival campaign for Valve's just released zombie shooter sequel, there are mentions of the Midnight Riders, a fictional Southern rock band that was set to play at the amusement park at the center of the campaign before the infected apocalypse hit. Indeed the final campaign level has the four survivors facing off against the zombies on the Midnight Riders' stage.

The campaign level has posters for the group which showed a web page. Checking out the web page in the real world shows the image you see above. The big question: Is this just some viral fun from Valve or a hint that we could see a Left 4 Dead 2 DLC campaign featuring players controlling the rock group? Hey, there are four members there.

Let's admit it, this whole "zombie" thing in pop culture has pretty much run its limits. Not only do we have tons of zombie based games come out, but movies, TV shows and novels seem to be in love with the undead. However, the phenomenon doesn't appear to be slowing down anytime soon.

With that in mind, playing Valve's zombie co-op shooter Left 4 Dead 2 feels a lot of the like a retread of the original game that came out a year ago. Like before, the is designed for four players to come together and shoot fast moving "Dawn of the Dead remake/28 Days Later" infected humans alongside special infected sporting extra abilities. However, even though it's generally a well-made game, it's hard to not think of Left 4 Dead 2 as a glorified expansion pack.

Like it or not, Spike TV's annual telecast of the Video Game Awards is the highest profile award ceremony that the games industry has. Today the cable TV network revealed the nominees for the 2009 edition of the awards with the winners, as voted by the fans on the show's official web site, to be named as part of their live ceremony on Saturday, December 12.

The "Best PC Game" category has four choices this year; EA's people sim sequel The Sims 3, BioWare's RPG Dragon Age: Origins, Valve's zombie shooter Left 4 Dead 2 and . . . Popcap's casual tower defense game Plants vs Zombies which we think is a good if somewhat out of the box choice. Left 4 Dead 2 is also one of the nominees for Game of the Year along with other games released for the PC like Batman: Arkham Asylum and Modern Warfare 2. Assassin's Creed 2 was also nominated in that category but won't be released for the PC until 2010. You can check out all the nominees in the various categories and vote for your picks now (and by the way, we were scratching our heads about Borderlands being put into the "Best RPG" category, too).

While many of us can go our local game retailer right now to get a boxed copy of the zombie co-op shooter sequel Left 4 Dead 2, the folks over the pond in the UK are apparently going to have to wait to get their chance to shoot some undead in the head.

Valve's official Left 4 Dead blog site states that in that country "copies of the game are still arriving". They hope that by Friday morning everyone in the land of Monty Python and Doctor Who will be able to throw some pipe bombs at virtual zombies. The good news is that if you pre-ordered the PC game via Steam you can play the game in the UK right now. And now for something completely different . . .