Left 4 Dead Message Board older than one year ago

The handsome writer clicks on the Steam Store and types the word ‘zombie into the search bar’. Too many. He reorganises them by game only. Still too many. They’re everywhere. Surrounding us. An outbreak. It’s only a matter of time before — wait, what’s that groaning? Where is it coming from? He moves to his browser and checks his tabs. That wasn’t there before. He starts closing tabs down, isolating the infected tab: move Gmail, get away Reddit Aww, flee Katy Perry vs Aha. Just one more tab sits, keeping the outbreak from spreading. Slowly, uncertainly he clicks the ‘x’ on the Apple store tab and reveals the source: it’s the Contagian GDC trailer.(more…)

Dear me, I wasn’t paying attention yesterday. Remember that we told you about the excellent trailer for a Left 4 Dead fan-made film, that to my eyes at least look Hollywood scale? The full 10 minute version is now there for you to see. And by “there”, I mean, “just below these words”. It really is remarkably good.

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Teased last week, the full Airsoft GI-sponsored Left 4 Dead fan-film has been posted on YouTube and it's well worth a few minutes of your life. The Northern Five Entertainment-produced film follows Zoey, Louis and Francis as they make their way to the boathouse outside of Riverside to board the Slater's fishing vessel.

The acting's pretty solid all around, though Francis is depicted as less of a curmudgeon than we remember. We just need help on one thing: We know it's been a while since we played Left 4 Dead, but Scorpion from Mortal Kombat wasn't, like, an unlockable character, right? We're pretty sure he wasn't in the game.

#left4dead Last week, a very slick-looking trailer for a Left 4 Dead fan flick appeared online. It set a very sombre, serious tone. More »

You know who we'd like to see featured in the hit television program Dirty Jobs? The guy who's responsible for making this Left 4 Dead Boomer action figure. Just think: Some poor soul at NECA not only had to mold this fully articulated, pustule-covered monster -- they had to paint on his every blemish, scab and scar. There is no amount of money high enough to merit such attention to nastiness.

We won't be able to get our hands on this figure (and others from the zombie-centric hit) until next Spring, but you can be sure that when we do, our hands will be safely enveloped by gloves. Check him out in all his oozing glory after the jump.

#toys Valve action figures. Based on Half-life, Team Fortress, Portal and Left 4 Dead. It was amazing news back in June, but since then, all we've seen is teases. Nothing final. That changes today. More »

#left4dead Left 4 Dead isn't exactly the most romantic game. It's not romantic at all. But that doesn't mean it isn't a wonderful place to ask for a lady's hand in marriage. More »

Our modern zombie-centric television dramas have been decidedly not filled with zombies recently and the gore of 28 Days Later, Dawn of the Dead, 28 Weeks Later and Shaun of the Dead is as tired as this cat -- but there is hope on the horizon. The above teaser for a fanmade Left 4 Dead film has some serious potential, and it was filmed in just one weekend. Produced by Northern Five Entertainment and Sponsored by Airsoft GI, the full film will be released "soon," and personally, we can't wait.

You know who can wait? Bill. Bill can stay in one place and wait with the best of them. Cheers, buddy.

#left4dead Blood. Zombies. Despair. Cigarette smoke. Guns. They're about all the buttons that need pushing from a Left 4 Dead movie, and this fan-made trailer - for a flick shot in a weekend - gets 'em all. More »

It’s official – I can no longer tell the difference between fan film trailers and Hollywood trailers. The extraordinary snippet of film below is a teaser for a soon-to-be-released fan movie of Left 4 Dead. But I challenge you to spot the joins here. I mean, unless they’ve a person stood on someone else’s shoulders, holding a third man upside down by his trouser legs, it seems like they have a crane. Are you still a fan film if you’ve got a crane? Surely you’re just a film at that point? In other words: wow.

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Updates to Left 4 Dead have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

- Fixed off by one bug when processing entity packets

Edge has an extensive and rather interesting look back at the development of Left 4 Dead that touches on design philosophy and how people behave while playing.

"Some people would declare themselves the leader and bark instructions, whether they were qualified to or not," said Mike Booth, then CEO of Turtle Rock Studios, where the game originally began development. "Other guys just wanted to help out and make sure everyone had health kits. A few would just wait for the moment to stab you in the back." Other interesting anecdotes include a foursome who decided to just end it all by jumping off the rooftop at the opening of "No Mercy," and the Counter-Strike veterans who protected a gaming-illiterate father.

The article also looks at how Turtle Rock and Valve initially got together, the technology that produces the 30 zombies populating the game world at any given time and, our personal favorite, the evolution of Louis from "a religious nutjob" to the likeable office worker based on Faliszek and Wolpaw's pal from Cleveland. "I remember helping him move house," said Faliszek. "He dropped something, ruined it and still made a joke about it. That's the perfect guy you want in the zombie apocalypse." Who else is going to help you find all those pipe bombs?

#deadisland "We hang together, or we *crag*ed." Truer words have never been spoken, in or out of a co-op trailer for Dead Island. More »

#minecraft People make all sorts of weird stuff in Minecraft that I just don't get, but playing Left 4 Dead inside of Minecraft, that's something I can get into. Mine 4 Dead: Blockhawk Down isn't just a Left 4 Dead level in Minecraft a full Left 4 Dead campaign complete with zombies, safehouses, 4-player coop and pills. Modder Bananafone31 brings even more terror to Minecraft with custom textures and sounds to skin the massive zombie-killing survival mod. More »

Over the last few years, Valve have been quietly honing the fine art of viral marketing in an online age, and comics have been a big part of that. A cartel of in-house writers and the excellent pencils of Michael Avon Oeming (and others) have created some rather splendid words’n'pictures. Of course, they were merely digital. HOW DARE YOU INSULT OUR EYEBALLS WITH YOUR CRUMMY JPEGS? Why, that’s for philistines and people too damned lazy to turn paper pages. This horrendous oversight and offence to everything that some angry guy somewhere probably holds dear is about to be corrected, thanks to a hardback compilation of Valve’s various Portal, Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress 2 comics due from august comic publisher Dark Horse later this year.(more…)

You know what always goes well? When Valve offers to release something early if only customers do something for them. That’s something with a solid history. Leaping onto this unwaveringly endorsed theme once more, Valve have announced plans on the Left 4 Dead blog to release Dead Air from community-co-created Cold Stream DLC pack early if enough people bug test the new campaign for them.

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#watchthis Valve's co-op zombie shooter Left 4 Dead is getting the fan film treatment. More »

#undernewmanagement Turtle Rock Studios, the group responsible for the creation and much of the development of Left 4 Dead, has "got the band back together" after shifting away from Valve's ownership and will be releasing its next game for publisher THQ. More »

#left4dead Women love jewelry. Women love large, shambling, goo-filled undead creatures. Combine the two and you've got a one-way ticket to a night of messy romance, thanks to this charming Left 4 Dead Boomer necklace. More »

#instantdeath If the actual Left 4 Dead is a little too frantic for your tastes, why not try this "choose your own adventure" version of the game by web comedy troupe Game Station. More »

#humor People have been messing with road signs for years now, warning people of zombie attacks. It's so much more awesome when it's done to specifically warn people of Left 4 Dead's zombies, though. More »

Valve has updated Left 4 Dead for the Xbox 360, matching the patch the PC version received last October. The better news? Your Xbox Live achievements busted by "The Sacrifice" may have also been restored. Details here. More »

#clips Those plucky survivors in zombie games always make killing zombies look easy. But just how easy is it to nail headshots against a wave of ravenous flesh-eaters when the guns are real? More »

#gameface Left 4 Dead represents at Anime LA 2011 this past weekend. See more at Mr. Muggles' Flickr stream. More »

Today's batch of daily Steam weekend deals is pretty radical, decimating the prices of jams like The Ball, World of Goo and The Orange Box -- however, you shouldn't ignore the other big sale Valve is currently hosting. Dozens of shirts, hats and other pieces of merchandise from the company's titles are currently on sale through The Valve Store. Many pieces of apparel are temporarily marked down to just five bucks; that's some cheap holiday shopping for your more game-savvy acquaintances.

If you can hold off from capitalizing on these offers, you might be interested in two new items which will soon arrive on the Valve Store's virtual shelves -- plushes modeled after Left 4 Dead's gnarliest foes, the Hunter and Tank. You'll be able to place these bad boys next to your equally squeezable (and upsetting) Boomer plush when they go on sale in late December.

Like a little zombie garden for your OSX.

Although its sequel broke down a boarded-up door and burst onto Steam for Mac back on October 5, the original Left 4 Dead was expected sometime before Halloween. Well, that "sometime" equals "today" and it's on sale for $9.99. (Or, be a savvy survivor, and opt for the $14.99 L4D plus L4D2 pack!)

#valve Mac owners can start "grabbin' peels" today with the arrival of the original Left 4 Dead, which Valve has released via Steam. To celebrate the latest Windows-to-Mac port, Left 4 Dead is now 50% off. But wait, there's more! More »

We thought StarCraft 2 was a little confusing before, but imagine how perplexed we were to look inside the BlizzCon program and see descriptions of upcoming maps for the game that include references to Bejeweled, Defense of the Ancients and ... Iron Chef? Here's the text from Shacknews:
Aiur Chef takes you to a remote area of the planet Aiur, where aspiring zealot chefs skilled in the arts of cooking and killing compete for the title of Executor Chef. Test your wits in the puzzler StarJeweled, which challenges you to match jewels according to color to gain energy, train troops and crush your enemy's base. You'll also be able to team up with a friend to fend off a new strain of zerg infestation in Left 2 Die (a new co-op take on the StarCraft II campaign mission "Outbreak"), as well as wage war with the most powerful heroes in the universe in Blizzard All-Stars, an explosive new multiplayer scenario. First Professor Layton and Phoenix Wright team up, and now this? Apologies to Powerman 5000, but this is what it is indeed like when worlds collide.

#art This poster, by Freaking Awesome, contains the title of 978 pieces of zombie fiction, arranged, Left 4 Dead-style, in the shape of a flesh-biter's hand. Can you spot the video games among them? More »