The PC Centric Extravaganza 11.11.08

Posted by Chris Evans on 11.11.2008

Loads of Left 4 Dead coverage and more besides!

The PC Centric Extravaganza 11th November 2008

I would like everyone to take a moment today to remember all those soldiers who have fought and died for their countries. It is 90 years ago today that the armistice was signed to bring an end to World War One.

So I have had a week away from uni, but alas I am back in there now. It sucks and working on my literature review for my dissertation sucks even more. However in some good news I am now involved in a new PC gaming website known as The Reticule and I would greatly appreciate it if you would all kindly check it out as there are some really promising young writers on there, it ain't just me!

Shortish column this week due to all the uni work and setting up the new webby, read on regardless.

Left 4 Dead – Loads of stuff

My initial impressions of the Left 4 Dead demo

First off the bat, Left 4 Dead is beyond awesome. I have just spent the best part of two hours with three of the guys from the RPS Steam Group playing through the demo levels on the Expert mode. It wasn't until we finally managed to get to the safe room at the end of the second demo level that I realised how long we had been playing.

I was too busy playing and getting sucked into the game to take many screenshots, but those guys at Rock, Paper, Shotgun have some galleries of the game from their trip to Valve.

This game is just amazing in co-op mode, singleplayer is ok, but it has nothing on blasting through the hordes of zombies with three friends. They seriously are hordes, at times the AI Director will send what seems like thousands of zombies at you and will then throw in some Boss characters like the Boomer or Hunter.

When we were playing it was the Director that we talked about most, this thing is magnificent. It can build the tension so much just by keeping the opening areas of a level relatively clear of zombies. After the onslaught that we battled against so often in the opening rooms of the second demo level, to fail and start again in near total silence in freaky.

I won't forget the moment when we entered the last but one chambers and heard the sobs of the Witch, we saw he sitting in the doorway blocking our path to the final battle. With three of us on very little health we decided to that the person with the most health would instigate the fight. It was quick and brutal, only two of us were left standing with 1 health a piece, we managed to force the Witch to retreat away from the level.

That was intense, and it was pure awesome. I can't wait to get back to play this again tonight.

RPS Left 4 Dead Hands On

Those wonderful fellas over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun have gona hands on with Left 4 Dead and, in the process they claim to have killed over 11,000 zombies. That is a lot of zombies. A hell of a lot of zombies.

Each of the four writers have posted their thoughts on their massive play test during their trip to Valve and they make for some very exciting reading.

RPS play the Dead Air campaign



Those loveable rogues at Rock, Paper, Shotgun have an exclusive look at the Dead Air campaign from Left 4 Dead.

They have a whole host of images from the various stages of the campaign and they talk up the best bits of each section while taking pot-shots at each others playing abilities, or lack of. For example:

Kieron: My favourite thing about Alec's Witch-problem was that it was a classic example of a negative feedback loop. He wakes one up, and then every single time we come across one, he wants to have a crack. Because this time - oh, yes, this time - he'll finish them off. Except he never did.

I just stayed well clear of the crazy bints.

A great read.

Jeremy Clarkson Game

For those of you who watched the new series of Top Gear last Sunday you may have been amused by some comments that Jeremy Clarkson made during the lorry driving segments. Some people were not so amused.

For those of you who didn't see the episode, or haven't heard the uproar since, this is the comment Clarkson made:

"This is a hard job, and I'm not just saying this to win favour with lorry drivers. It's a hard job - change gear, change gear, change gear, check your mirrors, murder a prostitute, change gear, change gear, murder. That's a lot of effort in a day."

However the people over at t-enterprise decided to make a game out of his comments.

The game sees you take control of Clarkson as you must evade the rampaging truckers intent on killing you for your comments while collecting as much money as you can.

It isn't high quality, but it is certainly amusing.

Galactic Civlizations II Update

Galactic Civilizations II has reached version 2.0, a free mega-update for the awesome turn-based space strategy game. Continuing with the ethos of Stardock you can only get the update if you register your copy of the game via Stardock's digital distribution platform, Impulse.

The update applies in large part to the latest expansion, Twilight of the Arnor and it will help link all the expansions together. Some of the major parts of the update area as follows:

* Players can now design new starships from the main game menu
* All game campaigns have been updated to be playable within Twilight of the Arnor
* New user manual
* Numerous new game setup options
* Updated diplomatic options
* New planetary governors for automating the building of planets
* Revamped espionage system
* Auto-building for starbases
* Balance updating
* Improved graphics

More information here.

Tally Ho!

That is it folks, back in next week.