You may think that both Portal and Left 4 Dead are recent games, developed for contemporary game machines. Nope. Both are actually remakes of games from the 1980s!
Or, that's what these great fake ads would have you believe, which get both the hammy acting and grainy VHS-o-rama effect down perfectly.
Retro Game Ad Discovery [Gamervision]
Before Valve roped the gang at Turtle Rock to come on over and make Left 4 Dead, the Half-Life developer was working on something else. Something with...fairies.
Yup. Not aliens, or cops, or super-soldiers, or valiant knights, or space marines. A game about fairies. Valve's Erik Johnson tells PC Gamer that the game, a "weird prototype" of a thing "based on movement and mouse gestures", never got close to being a serious project (and was likely one of many prototypes kicking around the offices), but was still useful for what it did and didn't do right.
"That was a useful failure to us," adds Valve boss Gabe Newell, "because it was so clearly dumb that it made us say, ‘OK, what are we actually good at that we can do instead?'"
They could do Left 4 Dead. So did Left 4 Dead. And we're all better off because of it.
Valve were making a fairy RPG before Left 4 Dead [PC Gamer]
Using sparse backgrounds, 3DS Max and the power of C&C Music Factory, Lionhead animator James Benson has for the last month been taking some of Valve's best characters and breathing a little extra life into them.
In the clip above, Left 4 Dead's Zoey breaks free from the confines of a first-person perspective and figures out a way to bring down a Tank without wasting bullets, while in the clip below, Team Fortress 2's Engineer figures out a way to go left to right (groove) and work you all night, before finally letting the music take control.
Those two are just to get you started; to see the rest (the dance clips are part of a bigger project), head to Benson's YouTube page.
Valve will be injecting life into Left 4 Dead 2 in the form of featured community maps for the PC. The developer says it plans to begin hosting bi-weekly community campaigns on its own servers, starting with "Two Evil Eyes."
Valve's Chet Faliszek writes on the official Left 4 Dead blog that the company will provide official dedicated server support for select fan-made maps, making it easier for players of the PC version to get their hands on some fresher content. And while that's great, what about the company's plans for giving Left 4 Dead players new content developed by Valve itself?
We'll have to wait until next week, when Valve will address the (very) late downloadable content for the original Left 4 Dead, future plans for Left 4 Dead 2 and the still-missing Mac version of the zombie shooter.
Next Friday, August 20th, we'll know, thanks to Spike's GameTrailers TV.
Here's Looking at You [L4D Blog]
My obsessive-compulsive tics suggest less of a "personality" disorder and more of a "She's probably just crazy" disorder.
I systematically eat fries and small candies two at a time as if programmed from birth, regularly disinfect my DS despite being the only who uses it, and, about every two minutes, check to make sure no one is behind me.
It also took me three years to read the Lord of the Rings trilogy – not because I lack the mental competence to read quickly, but because I refused to miss any details and frequently paused to imagine myself in the middle of the action. Tolkien gave me a masterpiece. I wanted to make it last.
I do the same with many video games, spending weeks, even months playing through story and character-driven titles. Hey, I paid good money for these games and the developers spent a lot of time creating these worlds for my enjoyment. I want to get the full experience.
Similarly, hunting down all of the logs in Bioshock, Dead Space, and Batman: Arkham Asylum not only extends gameplay, but provides a much more extensive understanding of these virtual worlds and the characters inhabiting them. Same with the interoffice messages in F.E.A.R., the funny scribbles on the walls in Left4Dead, and the manuscript pages in Alan Wake.
However, many GameStop customers I encountered during my time as a retail register monkey did not feel the same way. I remember one guy buying Shadow of the Colossus off my recommendation, then returning it six hours later saying, "It was okay I guess, but way too short." My boss stepped in after I accused the customer of probably watching Memento with the sound off.
Obviously you can't instruct people on how to enjoy art. Everyone sees it differently. But with many of today's video games proving to be incredible storytelling vessels, how much of our time should we give them?
Many games contain hidden story information that takes time to be sought out. That's evident in Borderlands. "The most interesting story in the game, to me, was the Patricia Tannis logs," Borderlands' creative director with great hair, Mikey Neumann, when I asked about his game's best-kept secrets, the stuff that made the game worth taking in a little more slowly. "From the moment she steals a dead man's more-comfortable chair to the death of Chimay and onward to her break up and reconciliation with the tape recorder, she told a great story on the edges of a totally crazy game. Then the level designers went off and hid all the echo recordings really well. Bastards."
Even waiting through ending credits often rewards patient players with epilogue scenes. Ico is one example of having post-credits content that fills a pretty important plot hole.
Despite all of the extras and side-quests provided in many titles, some people still speed through them. Is this the result of impatient gamers in an instant-gratification world or the fault of developers for not making games on which people want to spend time?
Perhaps some of it is due to developers becoming victims of their own creativity. The more you offer a gamer, the more they're going to expect.
For the most part, games on early consoles were more focused on challenging the player's dexterity as opposed to telling a story, i.e. Contra, Mega Man, and Battletoads. The goal was to get from beginning to end swiftly and skillfully while racking up as many points as possible. Players rarely cared about game length, because length wasn't figured into quality – if it was a good game, it was a good game. If it was bad, it was bad. You never hear anyone complain that Super Mario Bros. 3 was too short.
It's a different mindset to consider yourself responsible not only for skill, but for everything your character does. In the Uncharted series, story practically takes precedence over gameplay, giving us the perfect example of a video game rivaling a motion picture. This further proves that games are no longer simply about creating a challenge; they're about creating a whole new, immersive universe. This transition from simple to expansive should alter the way we play – it's the difference of seeing your game as a toy and seeing it as a piece of fiction you can get lost in.
I always joke that true gamers see on their map where they're supposed to go, and then go the opposite way. Be it RPG, FPS, RTS, or any other genre, attention to detail and a desire to absorb everything a game has to offer is a commendable mentality – not to mention a great way to get the most bang for your buck.
Two of my favorite achievements/trophies of all time are from Prince of Persia 4 for locating the Assassin and Titanic viewpoints. These awards are not given for skill, but for simply taking time to gaze upon the breathtaking scenery. I consider this a great reminder that no matter how good or bad the game, I should always take time to stop and smell the virtual roses.
Lisa Foiles is best known as the former star of Nickelodeon's award-winning comedy show, All That. She currently works as a graphic designer and writes for her game site, Save Point. For more info, visit Lisa's official website.
After teasing the first statue in their Left 4 Dead 2 line on Wednesday, Gaming Heads sends us detailed pictures of their grotesque Tank statue, along with a $300 price tag, and that's the cheap version.
The blurry picture released earlier this week did not do Gaming Heads' rendition of Left 4 Dead 2's Tank any justice at all. Now that we see it in its full 15-inch glory, we can easily see how a hardcore fan might lay out the $299.99 asking price for one of these terrible beauties.
Of course a truly dedicated fan would spend an extra $25 on the exclusive version. Limited to 300 pieces worldwide (the standard version is limited to 750), an extra $25 scores you a pump-action shotgun and slightly rarer giant zombie statue.
Wouldn't this look lovely on your mantle, covered by some sort of velvet cloth?
Valve is making some noteworthy changes to the way Left 4 Dead 2 plays, the way it scores and the way it can sometimes infuriate players. When Valve polled zombie apocalypse enthusiasts on their rage quitting reasons, this was why.
The official Left 4 Dead site outlines some, but not all, of those impending changes to the Charger, the Tank and how friendly fire between Survivors is handled. In short, the Charger will be better rewarded for utilizing his special skills to take down humans, some friendly fire will be ignore, and you'll be switched to an already flaming Tank a lot less.
Here are some of the specifics.
The Charger
Friendly Fire
The Tank
The Invisible Tank [L4D Blog]
To go with Team Fortress 2's Heavy, due out later this year, collectible company Gamingheads will be relasing another Valve-inspired statue. Only this one's a zombie.
It's Left 4 Dead 2's formidable Tank, and while you can't make much out in this frustratingly blurry teaser shot, what you can see looks suitably detailed (and decomposed).
Preorders will kick off on July 30, and while no further details have been revealed, TF2's Heavy had a price tag that said "$250".
Were you wrongfully accused of cheating and summarily banned from the PC version of Modern Warfare 2 recently? You weren't the only one. Valve's anti-cheat software goofed and they're offering free copies of Left 4 Dead 2 as an apology.
Many players of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 were surprised to find their Steam accounts banned this past weekend by Valve's anti-cheat software, more succinctly known as VAC. Valve president Gabe Newell says that was mass banning a mistake and offered an apology to those affected.
In addition to restoring players' access to the game, Valve is giving players a copy of Left 4 Dead 2 and one to gift to a friend, along with an explanation of how even players exhibiting good behavior were hit with the banhammer.
Read Newell's message to Modern Warfare 2 players below and take comfort in the fact that you totally did nothing wrong and you're not crazy.
Hello,Recently, your Steam account was erroneously banned from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
This was our mistake, and I apologize for any frustration or angst it may have caused you.
The problem was that Steam would fail a signature check between the disk version of a DLL and a latent memory version. This was caused by a combination of conditions occurring while Steam was updating the disk image of a game. This wasn't a game-specific mistake. Steam allows us to manage and reverse these erroneous bans (about 12,000 erroneous bans over two weeks).
We have reversed the ban, restoring your access to the game. In addition, we have given you a free copy of Left 4 Dead 2 to give as a gift on Steam, plus a free copy for yourself if you didn't already own the game.
To share your extra copy of Left 4 Dead 2 with a friend, you can 'Manage Gifts and Guest Passes' from the 'Games' Menu in Steam, or visit this article on the Steam Support site for detailed instructions: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=4502-TPJL-2656.
To access your own copy of Left 4 Dead 2, visit your library of games in Steam. If you didn't already own the game, it will now be listed among your others there, and is available for download immediately.
Regards,
Gabe Newell
President, Valve
Thanks to everyone who flooded the tips@ inbox this weekend with their banning story.
The latest playlist in Left 4 Dead 2's mutation mode breaks out the katanas - "Four Swordsmen of the Apocalypse" is easy to figure out from the title alone: swords only, versus the horde.
The Left 4 Dead blog says the mode pits survivors against "near continuous streams of Special Infected ready to be sliced and diced." And look, it still cuts a tomato like this!
The update teases next week's change - something called "Hard Eight." Is that a spiteful response to the last poll, which found the Hard Rain boat wait as the least favorite finale of the game? Who knows.
Week 12 [Left 4 Dead Blog]
