Valve

Finished The Longest Journey last night, and it was fantastic, if not a bit awkward at times. The "battles" are strange in that since I can't fail, I can stand completely still and do nothing while the monster just looks at me and waves its arms. I'm aware that Dreamfall has a combat mechanic but my friends tell me that it isn't very well done. I'm curious if something akin to Shadow of the Colossus (which I haven't played) or the new Prince of Persia would work here.

Team Fortress 2's "classless" update dropped recently, adding the new King of the Hill game mode, several new maps and some pretty significant class changes (despite being classless), the most prominent of which are the return of the Scout's double jump while using the Sandman (at the expense of 30 health) and allowing the Engineer to repair one end of a teleporter (including removing Spy sappers) by repairing the other.

I very much enjoy Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress 2. I have over 100 hours logged both games and I continue to play today. So, when I first heard the announcement of Left 4 Dead 2 less than a year after the release of the original, my thoughts were of the skeptical variety. A sequel? Really? They hadn’t even released the map tools for the first game at the time. And where the hell is all the DLC Valve promised?

With all of the E3 craziness this week, I somehow forgot to post this footage of Left 4 Dead 2’s multiplayer in action.

If you haven’t seen it yet, check it out below.

Good news for gamers who love the zombie apocalypse. Valve has announced that Left 4 Dead 2 will be available on the Xbox 360 and PC on November 17th.

The sequel ups the ante from the original game, moving to a new locale with a new cast of survivors and features melee combat (the chainsaws look fun…), boss zombies, and like all sequels, is said to be bigger than the game that started it all.

"Gettin' good players is easy.  Gettin' 'em to play together is the hard part." -Casey Stengel

HIGH The frenzy of a tank battle in versus mode.

LOW When players quit in the middle of a match and I'm forced to deal with the CPU players.

WTF Since when is it healthy to chug an entire bottle of pills?

Romero's heroes

HIGH It might have taken fifteen years for someone to figure out that a zombie-killing FPS was a good idea, but at least the wait is finally over.

LOW Other than the fact that you actually get to kill zombies in it, there is nothing to recommend this game.

WTF Bombs that make loud beeping sounds make zombies attack the bombs. Car alarms that make loud beeping sounds make zombies attack me. What?

Generally speaking, I'm not a big fan of game previews or watching pre-release footage online. I guess, as a reviewer, I've always felt it was better to come into a game cold and experience it fresh on my first playthrough. Even when I'd attend E3 in years past, I was hesitant to spend too much time playing pre-release builds of games because I didn't want anything to spoil my experience with the full version.

That being said, I've broken my rule (albeit slightly) with Valve's Left 4 Dead. I don't think I've been this excited for a zombie game since Resident Evil 2—so when the intro movie appeared online on Halloween, I fought the urge to watch it. I made it through the weekend before finally caving. So, here it is—a few days late, but still very cool—the opening cinematic for Left 4 Dead.

Start practicing your headshots—the game hits retailers on November 18th.

Game Description: The Orange Box includes all the content of The Black Box for PC, plus the original Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode One. Innovative games featured in The Orange Box include Half-Life 2: Episode Two, the second installment in Valve's episodic trilogy advances the award-winning story, leading the player to new locations outside of City 17, as well as the pioneering type of single-player action game Portal, which rewrites the rules for how players approach and manipulate their environment, and Team Fortress 2—an all-new version of the legendary title that spawned team based multiplayer action games with a daring new art style features the most advanced graphics of any Source-based game released to date.