Source: videogamesblogger.com

This 10-minute HD video presentation by Gabe Newell will give a sneak peek at the The Making of Left 4 Dead. The survival-horror PC and Xbox 360 co-operative multiplayer action game is due for release on November 18th in America and November 21st in Europe.

Technical details mentioned include: their development goals, the what and why of the AI Director, the monsters and their animation, physics and AI, and all about the world including graphics and lighting technology.

Click the most-right button for the full-screen HD video!

Via L4D411

Source: videogamesblogger.com

It has been confirmed that a demo of Left 4 Dead will be coming to Xbox 360 and PC, although developer Valve’s co-founder Gabe Newell did not confirm whether or not the demos will be released before the game hits stores on November 21st.

The demo will feature both single-player and online cooperative play and will contain the first part of one of the campaigns. “Will probably be Hospital, but I’m not sure”, Newell told VideoGamer.

Left 4 Dead sets out to do for co-op gaming what Counter-Strike did for team combat. It’s an ambitious survival horror game that runs on the Source engine. In the game four armed survivors of a world overrun with zombies must fight their way out to escape an outbreak.

Designed for co-op play, the four players must work together to finish each stage of the game, lending each other artillery support, sharing ammo and rescuing each other when zombies are on top of them. In addition to the standard four players as humans, another four players can be amongst the masses of assaulting zombies, seeking to take down the other players. Zombie players might even find themselves become one of the four mutant “boss” zombies, who have unique powers that can be used to devastate, injure, tie up, mark and track, confuse, or even humiliate the gun-toting human survivors.

Source: videogamesblogger.com

Counter-Strike may come to Xbox Live Arcade for Xbox 360 owners according to a new interview with Valve’s Marketing Director Doug Lombardi.

When asked about whether or not Xbox Live Arcade will classic Valve titles released for the service, so that console gamers can take a crack at them (not to mention so we can earn our Achievements!), Doug had this to say:

Would you think about bringing older Valve games like Counter-Strike to XBLA?
“We’ll certainly consider it. If you look at what we’ve done on Steam, we try to make all our games available and we’re always reviewing the prices to keep them current. We’d love to do that, but this is our first step at doing that beyond the PC.”

Source: videogamesblogger.com

In Left 4 Dead you fight off the epidemic of zombies with up to 4-players in this co-op FPS from Valve. At the E3 2008 Electronics Arts conference Valve boss Gabe Newell shared some new details on the gameplay. He also announced the initial character designs have been changed to match the characters with the new filmic effects being applied to the lighting and set design. Aside from Zoey up here, you can see all redesigns near the end of the video below.

Left 4 dead ships for PC and Xbox 360 on November 4th in America and on November 7th in Europe.

Left 4 Dead fact sheet:
* Co-op, first person horror game.
* Experience a scary action movie with your friends.
* Dynamic shared narrative achieved with procedurally generated character performance, pacing, lighting, and music.
* 1-4 players.
* Infected versus survivor mode.
* Counter-Strike-style weapons and items with melee attacks.
* 2-player split-screen, new matchmaking system.
* Left 4 Dead converges the following: Narrative and emotional impact of Half-Life + Social features of Counter-Strike and Team Fortress 2 + Unique co-op gameplay = The next step in social entertainment.
* The Left 4 Dead Director creates / moderates the drama in real-time like a movie director.

Watch at 2:20 minutes into the following video presentation to see the experience of a Left 4 Dead group all beaten up, playing poorly while being low on health and ammo. The game’s automatic director makes the outcoming situation into a relatively easy encounter with few opponents.

Source: videogamesblogger.com

The goal of Left 4 Dead is for the four survivors (played by you with three friends and/or bots) to help each other make it through a level to safety, while fighting off the infected, which are humans who have been infected with a mutated form of rabies. Alternatively infected players can cooperate to stop them. The 4-player co-op gameplay definitely looks promising in this zombie shooter that takes you through 20 levels — like a hospital, cornfield, airport and countryside — spread out over four scenarios that each last between 45 and 75 minutes.

In this video interview with Left 4 Dead project lead Mike Booth, the PC and Xbox 360 release date is confirmed as November 4th, 2008. You’ll also find out more on the new procedural enemy placement that offers “endless” replayability and the dynamic post processing (color contrasting) that brings the scares to Left 4 Dead.


Watch new Left 4 Dead painkiller gameplay.

Source: videogamesblogger.com

While Valve insist that Portal 2 won’t be released in 2008 (presumably for PC, Xbox 360 & PS3); casting for voice actors has already begun and recording will start this July.

If you want to avoid Portal 2 storyline and character SPOILERS, do not read beyond this sentence. Me? I couldn’t resist reading it all.

The casting call included a character description for Portal 2’s new character Cave Johnson (pictured above). To quote:

“CAVE JOHNSON (ECCENTRIC DEAD BILLIONAIRE)] Cave Johnson is a character for a new game in the Portal series from Valve Software. Portal is a dark comedy; the role will require comic timing, with occasional dramatic moments. Age: early 60s. He is founder and CEO of a successful applied science company, a self-made billionaire who’s learned to trust his gut and doesn’t sweat the details—is a big picture thinker. He might not know how science works, but he knows how people work. Used to getting what he wants. Extroverted, enthusiastic and opinionated. High energy: life is an adventure he’s happy to be on. A born salesman, a leader, an evangelist. People trust him, even when his plans are clearly dangerous. Speaks with a slight Southern/Western accent (natural, not too broad). He a uses warm, homespun delivery to put people at their ease. He doesn’t accept the responsibility that comes with his power. Either he doesn’t see or chooses not to see the ramifications of his actions. Goes from sidekick to principle antagonist. Sarts to lose his grip on his humanity as the story progresses. As he isolates himself from the people around him, he loses touch with reality…VOICE OVER ONLY [sic]”

A sample of the script was also leaked and includes Cave Johnson dialogue samples that give a better idea of Portal 2’s storyline. To quote:

“(Introducing himself over a loudspeaker to the Player)

Welcome, friend! I hope you enjoyed yer brief detention in the Relaxation Vault. Cave Johnson here, founder and CEO of Aperture Science — the best damn applied sciences company on Earth. How good is the science here? Get a load a’ this: I am dead! Now, yer probably askin’ yourself, “Cave, come on now. How is this possible? Are you some manner of Dracula? Or Frankenstein? Or dependin’ on yer cultural heritage, a Blackula or Latin Frankenstein? No sir! It’s science. As of this mornin’, yer old buddy Cave has been resurrected inside of a computer. And I never felt better!

You may also be askin’, “Cave, where am I? When can I leave? Am I in danger?” Let me answer them questions, with a question. “Who is ready for a science adventure?” Yeah! I hope the answer is you! Because the test starts in three… Two… Go!

(Cave congratulates you on your success)
Masters level testing: Completed! Hell, crushed! You. Are. A. Genius.

(Cave contemplates the afterlife)
I been thinkin. Heck, suspended as I am in this inky purgatorium, I got nothin’ to do but think. What if them engineers didn’t do me no favors pourin’ me into a computer? What if they denied me my final reward? Lemme tell ya about a fella. Lived thousands a years ago. Didn’t want nothin’ but fer folks to be a little bit nicer to each other. And in the end, he sacrificed himself to save us all. You know who I’m talking about: Hercules.

The man battled minotaurs! Medusas! Hell, he put the gods themselves in an arm bar. And for overcomin’ all them trials? He got to go to Olympus. Damn it! I battled my monsters! Where’s my Olympus? Unless… I haven’t killed all my monsters… Anyway, this next test. Whoo… Yeah… Good luck with that…”

You can’t see it, but I’m totally geeking out here! Fantastic stuff. — Credit goes to Kombo.

Source: videogamesblogger.com

Doug Lombardi, vice president of marketing at Valve, has said that Portal 2 won’t be teleported to a computer or console near you in 2008. To quote him:

“In typical Valve tradition, it won’t be Portal with different colours. I think that when you hit something like that, you have two choices: you can quickly replicate it and stick it out there — do the opportunistic thing and cash in on it; or you can do the crazy thing like we did after Half-Life was so successful and go off and try and say, ‘Okay, that was revolutionary, so its successor has to be equally as revolutionary.’

That’s the spirit I think we’re approaching it in. You won’t see a new Portal at retail this Christmas because of that. That’s the trade off. People want more, but we don’t want to give them more of the same right away because that would just be boring.”

According to Eurogamer the original game (described as an “experiment”) went very well, then, and now developer Valve is doing plenty of research and development to find out what “more” it is going to offer.

Source: videogamesblogger.com

Valve employees were asked “What can we expect in Half-Life 2: Episode 3?” in a recent interview. The Half-Life 2: Episode 2 project lead David Speyrer answered: “We don’t know entirely what’s happening in the next episode, but we’re gonna figure it out!” he laughed.

He then further explained: “There are always things we want to do that we can’t because of the constraints of either the story or the arc we’ve laid out for the gameplay - or just time. So we shelve them and carry on. Ideas fly around here quite a bit, so we have this huge laundry list of things to try [from previous Half-Life 2 games] for the next thing… [Half-Life 2: Episode 3].” — Via PCzone

In case you’re wondering what will happen after Episode 3 is released in either 2008 or 2009. Developer Valve said it will be the last episode in the currently planned story arc, but it will not be the end of the Half-Life franchise, so Half-Life 2: Episode 4 or in a way Half-Life 3 might be entirely possible.

Source: videogamesblogger.com

Valve announced that Steam, their online platform for PC games and digital entertainment downloads, has surpassed 15 million users and realized year-over-year sales growth of 158% through the holiday season. The year also marked the debut of the Steam Community and launch of several best-selling and critically-acclaimed titles such as Call of Duty 4, Bioshock, and The Orange Box. Throughout 2008 more Community features will be introduced to support existing games as well as new titles such as Valve’s Left 4 Dead.

Also new for Steam in 2008 is Steamworks, giving game developers access to game features and services available on Steam ranging from product key authentication and copy protection to auto-updating, social networking and matchmaking. Most importantly, the game features and services available in Steamworks are free of charge and can be used for both electronic and tangible versions of games.

“PC gaming is thriving, and has evolved into an era of constant connectivity,” said Gabe Newell, president of Valve. “That connectivity gives us the ability to have a much better relationship with customers, not just for delivering our games, but across all aspects of our business - including the design, development, and support of our games. Features like Guest Passes, Free Weekends, Gifting, and the Steam Community have been very well received both by customers and the developers who are using Steam. We are accelerating our release of new functionality in the next year as well as finding new ways to work with our partners such as the release of Steamworks, which allows them to bring the many benefits of Steam to their packaged products.”

Source: videogamesblogger.com

Valve has unveiled their Steamworks toolset which will be available free of charge for any aspiring PC game developers. The toolset comprises a “complete suite of publishing tools” and will contain these features:

* Complete real-time stats covering everything from gameplay to sales
* Encryption tied to product activation
* Territory control “to help curb gray market”
* Auto updating to keep your games up-to-date
* Voice chat for online play
* Matchmaking support
* “Social networking services” like achievements, avatars, etc.
* And development tools for QA, play testing, etc.

And in addition to the toolkit allowing you to publish your games on Steam (naturally) you will even be able to use them to release your game through competing digital distribution and retail channels.

The whole point of this is to expand the number of games on the service and people using it to play them, as well as to push the service even further as the de-facto PC gaming service. “By not charging for this, it’s just another way to get more people onto Steam and to enjoy all the games. Our motivations here are pretty clear,” says Jason Holtman, Valve’s award-winning business director.

Sounds pretty good to me! — Valve