valve 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 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.

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.

You might think that big temporary price cuts on games via download services could hurt revenues when they go back up to their regular prices. However, Valve has some evidence that the reverse is actually true and that temporary price cuts on games could serve to actually improve revenues in the long run.

Gamasutra reports that during a speech at the Montreal International Game Summit, Valve's director of business development Jason Holtman stated that, "in a connected market, you can shift prices up and down, and people don't care." As evidence he cited the quick two hour sale they held last month for the multiplayer shooter Team Fortress 2 via Steam, which got its price cut down to just $2.49. Sales went way up during those brief time periods, they also stayed at higher levels after it was over.

Furthermore, retail sales for games are unaffected with the digital download prices. Holtman states that there was a price cut on Steam for Left 4 Dead back in February and, "retail [sales] were unaffected."

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 . . .

It actually was a little later than what Valve had scheduled but a few hours ago the PC version of Left 4 Dead 2 did indeed go live on Steam. As expected the free demo for Valve's zombie shooter sequel has now shut down. It is no longer available to download via Steam and cannot be played anymore.

You might have seen a ton of reviews of the game pop up on the Internet already but nearly all of them are for the Xbox 360 version which was sent out to game journalists early. But what about the PC version of the game? We plan to post our thoughts later this week.

While folks are waiting on their PCs tonight to unlock Left 4 Dead 2 on Steam (that should happen at midnight Eastern time tonight) another developer is working on his own version of the original game. The difference? He's making it as a 8-bit NES-style title. Yep, it's supposed to be a fully playable version of the game with support for just a few pixels and support for just one or two players (sorry no four player co-op in NES's timeline).

The game's creator is budding game designer Eric Ruth and while he has created a number of original NES-style games this is apparently his first attempt to port an existing franchise to his game design style. As you can see from the video above he's got the general idea behind Valve original game down patch. Thankfully you won't have to have a modded NES to play the full version; Ruth says he will release the game for free for the PC in early January. Big Download got Ruth to answer some questions about his upcoming reimagining of Left 4 Dead.