Developer Turtle Rock Studios had been working for some time on Left 4 Dead before the company was bought out by Valve Software (Turtle Rock helped out on various Valve projects in the past and was using Valve's Source engine for Left 4 Dead). So that means that opportunities to play builds of the game have been fairly frequent in the past year or so. However, shooting zombies never really gets old and at E3 2008 today we got yet another chance to make a lot of blood go on the walls (virtually speaking of course).Along with some human teammates we got to play the first level of Left 4 Dead's first scenario (there are four such scenarios in all, each with five levels). Our goal was to get basically from one point to another without being taken by the zombie horde. After each of our characters loaded up with head, weapons and ammo we left via a rooftop and went down the stairs through the building. It didn't take long for the zombies to start swarming all over the place. They acted like they need a human fix. By the way, these zombies are of the Dawn of the Dead remake variety; they are fast, relentless and hungry for your brains....

The excitement is building to next week's E3 Media and Business Summit in Los Angeles (man does that sound like some kind of soulless seminar at some Holiday Inn but we aren't in charge of the naming of the event) where over 5,000 journalists have been invited to attend the largest single gathering of game publishers in North America. Big Download will be covering the event all next week but this week we are counting down our top 25 most anticipated PC games we hope we will get to see and maybe play at the event. On Monday we went through our 25-21 picks so if its Tuesday it must be time for the 20-16 picks on our list. As we mentioned previously, these are just our predictions on what games will be shown at the event; many of these titles have not been officially confirmed to be at E3 as of this writing. Also, there's no Activision or Vivendi Games/Blizzard titles on this list due to the two publishers bypassing E3 but a press conference by Activision on Tuesday during E3 is highly expected to show some upcoming titles from that publisher (and maybe Vivendi/Blizzard as well). With that out of the way let's look at our picks for the next five games on our list...

Time to revamp your zombie apocalypse plan. After numerous delays the highly anticipated shooter, Left 4 Dead, will release on November 4. From publisher Valve and newly acquired developer Turtle Rock, the announced date confirms earlier statements made by Valve Software's Doug Lombardi who promised the title within the month. Since being announced in the early days of 2007 and first showcasing its flood of zombie enemies, gamers have been clamoring to get their hands on the Source Engine powered title. Shipping on the PC and Xbox 360, Left 4 Dead also allows gamers the opportunity to play as various "boss" zombie characters-- each class with their own special deadly ability. Stockpile your nonperishables and pick your squad ASAP, Left 4 Dead is only a few months away....

It's always a good time to play games with your buddies, whether they are right next to you or if they are online thousands of miles away. Developers Turtle Rock Studios and Valve know this well. They also know that shooting through an army of zombies is fun, too. Thus was born the co-op oriented Left 4 Dead which Turtle Rock and Valve plan to spring on players sometime this fall.Some new screenshots from the game just got released and they show a lot of folks who look like they need to take some baths going up against the flesh eating undead with a truckload of ordinance. Since this is Valve we are talking about here we are betting that even after the game is released there will be some extra content for the game that will find its way via its Steam client. In any case, we can't wait to get some hands-on time with Left 4 Dead very soon...

Valve's co-op zombie shooter Left 4 Dead has generated a ton of press long before its planned release later this fall. Now the residents of Russia will be able to get involved in all of the undead action thanks to a new publishing deal with Russian based Akella. The company, which develops its own games as well, announced that it will handle the distribution of Left 4 Dead in Russia as well as other CIS countries. The game itself is being developed by Turtle Rock Studios which helped Valve on a number of previous projects before Valve decided to acquire them outright several months ago....