You know what to do…. click the play button. Bill!

Valve is a rare beast. As a development house they’ve turned out some of the definitive works in the first person genre. Half Life 2, Team Fortress 2, Portal — The Orange Box alone plays out like a who’s who of modern first person gaming. When they announced their latest project would take the form of a zombie apocalypse, we all waited anxiously to see if the Valve hit factory would be able to bat another one out of the park. Would their perfect track record remain unscathed in the face of a zombie invasion? 

Left4Dead places you in the shoes of one of four survivors of a recent zombie apocalypse. Together you and your three squadmates will form a tightknit group and attempt to gun down thousands upon thousands of living dead. The catch? Your squadmates are going to be other gamers, just like yourself. Left4Dead is more than Valve’s attempt to tackle a classic B-movie sub-genre; it’s their attempt to create a co-op game that redefines what a co-op game can be.

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While attempting to leave the Team Fortress 2 merchandise page up “accidentally” so my wife might get some Christmas shopping ideas, I came across the game-junkie gift of the year: Left 4 Dead movie posters.  For those of you scaredy-cats who haven’t played the game, let me get you up to speed.  Each campaign plays out like a film with you as one of the four stars.  When the level loads up you’re shown a poster for the film with credits letting you know who is playing as whom.  Now you can own each poster for $6.99, or all four for $14.99!

Get your terror on people!  Break out the capitalism and good will at the Valve Store now!

Some people have been complaining about the lack of narrative in Valve’s absolutely brilliant Left 4 Dead. First, that’s a bunch of crazy talk. I’m not saying there is a deep narrative there I’m just saying that you don’t need to know more than there’s a bunch of zombies that are trying to eat you so don’t fucking die. You probably shouldn’t go off by yourself either. That Bill…he’s a weird fella.

So Left 4 Dead drops today and is already playable in Steam. Being that it’s one of the best co-op games I ever played it’s natural to want to connect with you all while I’m balls-deep in wreckin’ some fool zombies. Luckily Steam provides a great way to connect with people through their community groups and I wanted to let you know that we have our very own on Steam. It’s a public group so there’s no invite needed and this will be a great way to be able to connect while getting your Steam gaming on.

Check out the group here.

I also wanted to take the time to publicly thank loyal reader Guruthos for letting me start a new BBPS Steam group. He had started one a long time ago and was gracious enough to let me take over the reigns. If you’re already a member of the old BBPS group you should already have an invite to the new group waiting for you.

On this week’s BitCast you can listen to me verbally SPOOGE all over this demo or you can go back and read how I can verbosely SPOOGE all up in it. Now you can see for yourself what I’m so hot and bothered over since you can now download the demo on both the PC and the 360. DO IT NOW and meet me on Steam or on Live and we’ll blow the heads off some friggin’ zombies together.

As I was first writing this post the entire thing consisted of one word written as big as this column width would allow:

Though that is entirely accurate of my feelings toward the game I have a conscience nagging at me saying that I should probably elaborate a little bit for you all. Besides, this game has been so damn high on my list of WANT NOW that it deserves more than just a single, perfect word. Read on to find out how the demo plays. Continue Reading »