While Turtle Rock Studios may be all done with Evolve and moving on to other things, they still haven't forgotten their original zombie baby, Left 4 Dead. Eight years after the game's initial release, the final campaign was released this past weekend for the PC version.
More Left 4 Dead is never a bad thing, but whilst rumors begin to bubble up about a Left 4 Dead 3, the more level headed of us will have to stick to information about the already announced Left 4 Dead: Survivors, a version of the first game designed for Japanese arcades.
Sure Left 4 Dead has been out on Steam and PC now for years. But for some reason Taito has decided to partner with Valve to bring the game to arcade machines in Japan. Yes, believe it or not, arcades still exist in Japan. The game is called Left 4 Dead: Survivors - but it doesn't look like a new entry into the series, rather a combination of content.
The Left 4 Dead fan film we told you about is out now and it's completely insane. It's called Left 4 Dead: Impulse 76 and it starts with three characters from the first Left 4 Dead - Zoey, Francis and Louis. They only have to make it three blocks to their target...but as you know, those three blocks are the longest of their lives. There's no downtime here as this video is all action.
Fan films are all the rage these days, but most can't seem to actually hold a visual candle to the source material. While their hearts are usually in the right place, these films lack the financial backing to turn their creator's true vision into a reality. That's what makes the Left 4 Dead fan film so unique - it's being created by several folks from Airsoft GI, manufacturers of Airsoft guns. They also seem to have a few sponsors on board helping fill the coffers and creating something that looks like Left 4 Dead..
Left 4 Dead did a lot of things very right. One of those things is creating a campaign of movie posters to represent each scenario the four survivors, Zoey, Bill, Frances and Lewis had to endure. The movie posters were also applied to DLC that came later, and the sequel - Left 4 Dead 2. Some of the original concept posters have surfaced for the original survivors, and some of the art or situations may look familiar.
This is a patch that's a long time coming, as it applies to the original Left 4 Dead on the Xbox 360. For those that purchased the Sacrifice DLC for the game, they may have found that it not only erased the progress of some other achievements - namely the Zombie Genocidist - but that certain achievements were unobtainable like one called Sacrifizzle. Thankfully, Valve have stood by their product and released a patch that fixes these glitches, restores the achievement progress for most people, and introduces a host of other tweaks and fixes.
Microsoft's Xbox Live Gold deals this week are focused on zombies and that means plenty of co-op DLC and games for us to love. Zombie Apocalypse, Dishwasher Dead Samurai, Borderlands DLC, and Left 4 Dead DLC are all discounted for your gaming pleasure.
When gamers look at a game, one of the things they may overlook is the basics of design - the game's mechanics. Though we notice the potential of how a great game is great, we may not know exactly why a great game works so well. A full analysis of the gameplay mechanics for Left 4 Dead by Full Sail grad student Paul Goodman and course director Adam Greenwood-Eriksen brings to the surface the key design elements. A comprehensive look from Left 4 Dead creators give a solid nod to Co-Op being key to the games success a bit closer to the surface.
A modder with too much time on his hands has lovingly created a Left 4 Dead Survival mode map that allows the Survivors to defend Helm's Deep - as seen in Peter Jackson's film The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
The original Left 4 Dead is now available for the Mac via Steam, this follows news a few weeks ago that Left 4 Dead 2 was also on the platform. The game is part of the Steam Play series, which means if you own it on one platform you own it on both.
A few days ago we brought you details and box art from the new Left 4 Dead DLC, The Sacrifice. The original survivors return in this prequel to Left 4 Dead 2's The Passing, which was released earlier this year. The trailer is out now, and it looks like The Sacrifice will be serious business indeed.
