1P Start

So after the cool news at E3 that there would be a Left 4 Dead sequel (which we all figured was going to happen anyway), a bunch of whiners that have no lives complained about it and even put up a petition. Valve has now responded to the petition by saying:

“Doing a sequel in one year is new for Valve. But providing ongoing support for our titles after the initial launch isn’t - it has been part of our philosophy since Half-Life was released ten and half years ago,” said Valve president Gabe Newell in a statement to Kotaku. “We see no reason to change that and will continue to support the over three million customers in the L4D community.”

Now, one of the concerns is that the sequel will split the community. So? Doesn’t that happen to every online game? Some people play Call of Duty Modern Warfare and some play Call of Duty World At War, but you can always switch discs if you want. And is the Left 4 Dead community to tightly knit that they can’t play other games? No, it’s just a bunch of other people who will annoying you 9 times out of 10. My advice to the petition makers is to relax and think about other things. Your petition isn’t going to stop a company from releasing a game.

Thanks to: Kotaku

I suppose as someone who was completely obsessed with the original Left 4 Dead that I should put forward my thoughts on the sequel, apply named at the moment Left 4 Dead 2.

While I am excited overall, the news from E3 that the sequel was coming so soon after we got the first installment has caused some mixed feelings for me. The first is that I’m really going to miss the original survivors. I’ve played through the four episodes so many times that I became attached to them, as silly as that may sound.

I’m also a little iffy on how much they’ll add. My biggest complaint about the first game was that it was a 40 dollar game at 60 bucks. Sure it had a lot of fun packed into it, but it certainly was a fairly bare bones game. But what worked about it was that the limited options made it more of a pure experience. If there were dozens of different weapons and lots of different enemy types, it might have severely watered down the zombie killing purity of the game.

No matter what though, I have a feeling that I’ll get the game and I’ll love it. I have faith that Valve knows what they are doing and will add just enough to the game without diluting the experience. I’ve read that people are petitioning the game and that’s just stupid. Have some faith that Left 4 Dead 2 will be a great experience and don’t be a whiny crybaby for once in your life.

I was a huge Wallace and Gromit fan from back in the day, but I kind of fell behind the ball on their adventures. Still, they have a soft spot in my heart so when the opportunity came for me to review the first downloadable installment of the Wallace and Gromit game on Xbox Live by Telltale Games, I jumped on it.

Wallace and Gromit: Fright of the Bumblees starts out suitably wacky. Wallace, the goofy inventor, and Gromit, his faithful canine friend, need 50 gallons of honey in one night, but that’s far more than their bees can possibly produce. Their efforts to get more honey gets the ball rolling for their adventure. The story itself is reminiscent of other Wallace and Gromit adventures and the dialog truly captures the humor found in their previous outings.

All the action is the fairly simple “point and click” action found in adventure games. If you’ve never played an adventure game you basically have to click around in the environment until you activate something, pick something up, or use an item on something to make it work. It may not sound very fun from my pathetic description, but there’s nothing better than solving a puzzle in an adventure game. In Fright of the Bumble Bees, the puzzles aren’t overly difficult, yet they should offer enough challenge to be rewarding. There was enough variety to keep me from getting bored as well. I particularly liked the end sequence where… well I don’t want to spoil it.

One thing that I really liked was that you took turns playing both Wallace and Gromit. I wasn’t particularly interested in playing as Wallace, because let’s face it I’m here for Gromit, but his reactions to events and his dialogue really turned me around. And playing as Gromit? Awesome!

The controls themselves are a little clunky at times. I’ll blame this on the fact that “point and clicking” is best with a mouse and not on an Xbox 360 controller. Still, the inventory management was effective and it was very easy to use items with elements in the environments. My only other issue with the game is that I encountered a few audio bugs that took me out of the game play, but nothing that impeded my progress. There was also a few video stuttering issues at times. Hopefully a patch can take care of these sorts of issues.

Since this is an episodic game, it ends before the entire story is truly over. Thankfully, it gave me enough to feel satisfied while making me want to play the next episode to find out what happens next.

My verdict is that Wallace and Gromit: Fright of the Bumblebees first installment is a great purchase for anyone who loves Wallace and Gromit or enjoys an adventure game.

Telltale games recently wrote in to let me know that the Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures demo is available on PC. If you’re curious as to what the game looks like you can see a clip here:

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Since I’m still officially obsessed with Left 4 Dead, here’s some videos of the new Left 4 Dead DLC that is supposed to hit this Spring.

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Being a huge nerd, I love comic book conventions. I’m not really down with all the smelly nerds and the awkward conversations that arise when weirdos seem to want to talk to me for no reason, but I totally dig finding bargains and learning about new stuff. I had to video game related items come up during the convention that I thought I’d share here:

Sam and Max:

It’s strange that just after I nerded out over the Sam and Max episodic games coming to Xbox Live Arcade that I actually managed to talk to the good folks at Telltale games about it. They didn’t give me a release date, but I will be reviewing the game here in the future.

They also asked me if I was interested in reviewing their Wallace and Gromit game coming out in Spring and I said yes. I love those guys, maybe not in the same way that I love Sam and Max, but Wallace and Gromit rule.

Fun Fact: I had a mouse named after Gromit.

Not so Fun Fact: The mouse died of mouse cancer.

Cyborg Mice

Speaking of mice, the creator of Cyborg Mice was there. Cyborg Mice is a game coming out for Xbox Live Arcade and was programed with XNA. The game seemed fun for the five seconds I played it, but really interested me was the artwork of the mice they had on display. They had a cool shirt based on this image, so I bought it.

I’d encourage you to buy the game when it’s available. As a side note, I can’t imagine that the game would give them that much more profit over the t-shirt. I think this is a scheme just to get me to buy t-shirts. If so, it worked.

One my favorite PC adventure games of all times was Sam and Max Hit the Road. Not only did it fit right into the perfect definition of an amazing adventure game, but the adventures of the detective dog and rabbit were unbelievably hilarious. That’s why I was super excited about the idea of Sam and Max returning to games. The only problem is that I have the world’s worst PC and if I even think about wanting to play a PC based game, the computer punishes me in the most unspeakable ways. Well, my problem is now solved. Sam and Max are coming out on the Xbox 360, more specifcally, they will be on Xbox Live in the form of downloadable games.

The two “seasons” of the game developed by Telltale will be bundled together. The first will be under the name Sam and Max Save the World and the other is Sam and Max Beyond Time and Space. There’s no word on pricing or an actual release date, but hopefully they will be cheap and coming out soon.

Hot damn, this makes me wish I’d never sold my original copy of the game back in high school. I’ve got to somehow play it again. Someone know where I can get a legal copy? Oh crap, the computer is starting getting angry at my desire to play a game on it again, even one as old as Sam and Max.

Thanks to: Kotaku

So you’re trying to kill loads of zombies on Left 4 Dead, most likely you’re looking to kill 53,595 to get the Zombie Genocidest Achievement. Well, we’ve got a few tips to help you out.

1. Play the Game All the Time: You must give up your life as you know it. Quit your job, dump your girlfriend, boyfriend, or spouse and get to work. You’re never going to make anything of yourself with such dead weights as a regular job and a loved one to bring you down.

2. Play the Through the Levels on Easy. One pistol hit kills a regular zombie and if you spray a room full of zombies with a machine gun you’re sitting on a lot of easy zombie kills.

3. Kill all the Zombies: This may sound easy, but this means having to go through ever single nook and cranny found in the level to root out those even undead bastards.

4. Let the Boomer Puke on You: While it’s unpleasant, any time the Boomer pukes on you there’s bonus zombies that can’t wait for you to kill them.

5. Take Your Time: The longer you take through a level, the more times the game with throw a Horde rush at you.

6. Use all the Pipe Bombs You Can Find: There will be a lot more pipe bombs found throughout the game on easy. If you come across a stash take one, throw it far away and get some easy kills and go back and get another one until their gone.

7. Don’t Get on the Rescue Vehicle: The last thing you want to do is to get on the rescue vehicle. You’re not in this to win, you’re in it to kill! If you can survive during the mad rush after killing the second tank you can rack up a lot of zombie kills.

8. Play by Yourself: The computer doesn’t steal a lot of your kills, but a human player will.

9. Let the Computer Die: It’s actually kind of hard to get the computer players killed on Easy, but if one of them is near death and you can let them die do so. You only need one or two computer teammates to save your butt from a Smoker or a Hunter and with less computer players, the more zombie targets there are for you.

10. Set off Car Alarms: This should be a no-brainer, but you need to shoot every car alarm you come across. The zombies are pretty pathetic, so you don’t have worry much about your safety. Just shoot away!

Now that I’m unemployed I’ve found a lot more time for playing games (when I’m not looking for jobs hun!) and after playing Left 4 Dead multiplayer a lot more, I’ve discovered what many of you already probably have: It’s freaking annoying because of the glitchers.

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Sad news for Aliens fans, Sega has canceled an Aliens RPG that was in the works by California-based developer Obsidian. This is super sad news because about twenty people were laid off at Obsidian. Plus, an Aliens based RPG would be awesome, especially coming from a developer that had experience making a solid RPG. In case you can’t remember, Obsidian made Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II. The title was due out on the PC, Playstation 3, and Xbox 360.

More frightening is that it’s rumored that the Gearbox developed Aliens first person shooter could be in trouble as well.

Don’t lose all hope Aliens fans! Sega has also announced a new Aliens vs. Predator game that’s due out in 2010. When they announced the new game they are quoted as saying, “…strategically updated the release of the other upcoming Aliens titles currently in development within its portfolio” whatever the hell that means.

Now this is all rumor still because neither company has confirmed it, but when has this stopped any kind of gaming blog from reporting it? If this is all true it’s a terrible shame for Sega. They have made crap for so long that when they have a chance to produce games based on some awesome intellectual properties, the economy collapses and they are stuck with no money and no consumer confidence.

Thanks to: Kotaku

Wow, I’m a total piece of crap. After complaining my ass off that the Left 4 Dead DLC, which includes a lot of content that should have came with the game to begin with, was going to be a bit of a huge rip-off, the news hit today that instead the Left 4 Dead DLC being a lame cash grab it will instead be gloriously free for everyone.

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Valve has released the first details on Left 4 Dead’s new Survival mode. The details were revealed on Game Trailers TV and while you could go over there and watch 21 minutes of internet programing for a couple of lousy details, I’ll just save you the time.

- Valve is opening up Death Toll and Dead Air for versus play, like they should have freaking done so we didn’t have to shell out more cash on top of the sixty bucks needed to play the game. How AWESOME!

- What you really will want though is Survival mode where up to four players survive against wave after wave of zombies on twelve different maps. It sounds a lot like Horde mode on Gears of War and if it’s at least a little like that, then I can foresee spending many, many hours on this new survival mode.

- Both these items are going to be available through DLC or by getting a special edition of the game that’s due out later this year.

Look, I love Left 4 Dead, but I’ll agree that the most accurate critique of the game is that it’s very limited for a sixty dollar game. It’s sixty dollars of fun, but it does leave you feeling that there could have been more to it.

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…are not on this blog. Instead, they will be in the March 2009 issue of GamePro. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, “But Paul, nobody reads GamePro!” Well you’d be wrong, GamePro is an amazing magazine (please hire me).

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One talented fellow with the forum name of beavotron on the Penny Arcade forums posted some ultra awesome Valentine’s Day cards that have a Left 4 Dead theme. Since I love that game and I love you just as equally, I decided to “give” them to you via this board. So consider these the first Valentine’s Day cards you’ve received this year (most likely).

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