Left 4 Dead is absolutely awesome. That’s really all that needs to be said but I suppose I should elaborate.

Left 4 Dead - Coop Zombie Survival Horror. nuff said.

They only had the 360 version setup so I wasn’t very good at it but I got the hang of it. The controls worked pretty similar to just about any other 360 FPS I’ve player with the addition of the left shoulder button making you do a quick 180 degree turn. The thing I really noticed was the team dynamics. This definitely isn’t a game where you can run off like a commando and kill everything without your team. At one point I attempted to rush into a room only to find myself overwhelmed with zombies. The neat thing is you can keep track of your teammates easily. Their outline lights up on your screen when they’re in a different room or behind object. White means they’re ok, and red means they’re under attack. Reading the previews I thought that might be a weird and hard to get use to it but in reality it’s just really useful.

Instead of just dying you fall to the ground and pull out your pistol. You can still shoot zombies but can no longer move. Assuming you and your team manage to kill off all the zombies, another player can come over and help you up. They can also optionally heal you if they’ve picked up a first aid kit and are feeling generous. Of course, if you don’t manage to kill the zombies, they’ll swarm you and rip you to shreds. That effect was pretty cool aside from the being dead part. Respawning works differently too. Once you die you go into a spectator view similar to how it works in CS. As your team moves forward they’ll eventually see your aura appear ahead of them. To get back in the game your team needs to find the room you’re in and rescue you. This basically boils down to getting one of your teammates to open the door and let you out.

I only remember 3 different types of enemies: zombies, an exploding fat zombie and a big muscle-y thing that showed up right before I got ripped into a million pieces by about 20 zombies. The random spawning system Valve created keeps things tense. Sometime you won’t see anything for a minute then you’ll run into a group of 4 or 5, or out of nowhere 20 zombies are swarming all around you and it’s all you can do to beat them off. One particular creepy instance came while rescuing one of the previously killed players. While my team was letting him out of the closet, I turned around to see a single zombie running towards. I started shooting at it but it jumped to the side and clung to the side of an information booth. Of course then the four of us blew it to bits. I don’t recall any of the Zombies randomly spawning behind us like they did in System Shock 2 which is nice in a I can catch my breath way. Another really neat thing I witnesses as a group of guy who were on a street, at first there was a group of like 4 or 5 zombies ahead of them. Then one of players somehow to set off a car alarm which caused a shit ton of zombies to come running in from all directions.

I think I can safely say this is will be the best co-op zombie game ever. In just 20 minutes of play time I had 2 or 3 “oh shit moments” and while watching other people play it was apparent they were having the same experience. My only concern is Valve’s recent announcement that the free updates for TF2 on the PC are going to be Pay DLC for the 360 version. I know both my laptop and PC aren’t capable of running L4D is a playable manner but I’m hesitant to get the 360 version only to miss out on extra content later on down the line. I may end up having to finally upgrade my PC to play this game.

I ended up arriving late and had to wait for over an hour in the will call line to pick up my pre-ordered
badge. Which was mildly annoying since it was only a two minute wait to buy a badge. Right after I got out of the badge line I got in line for the keynote, there were a lot of lines at PAX.

Ken Levine’s keynote was entertaining. He gave a brief overview of his history as a nerd. From his early days of wanting to fuck the scarlet witch and his first awkward experiences with D&D all the way to his failed screenwriting career and his decision to go get into the game industry and join Looking Glass Studios. The theme of the whole boiled down to “We’re all geeks, love it, embrace it and go have fun together”.

I skipped the Q&A panel to hit the exhibit floor. After a quick walk around I stopped and checked out Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero: World Tour . I discovered that Brawndo The Thirst Mutilator, did indeed have what I (and plants) crave. It’s pretty tasty but oddly not got sale. (I’ve since learned that it wasn’t for sale because the convention center doesn’t allow non-convention vendors to sell food or drink)

Nintendo was nearby so I checked out some of their stuff. WarioLand: Shake It seems like a decent platformer although depending on how much it’s used; constantly shaking the controller could get annoying. Kirby Superstar Ultra was fun but there really isn’t much new about it. After that, I had some fun creating a creature in Spore Creature Creator for the DS. I couldn’t do anything more than walk around with it once it was created which makes me what the game play would be like in that game. I finished off my day in the exhibit hall with Left 4 Dead which was amazing.

Next up I hit the concerts. It was probably the strangest concert I’ve ever been too. No one was really getting into any of the bands mostly everyone was just sort of hanging out listening. The OneUps were kind of neat but it sounded a lot like they were just jamming the whole time and not really playing songs. Freezepop isn’t really my thing but they ended up being pretty good. During their entire set, there was a guy nearby playing Final Fantasy Tactics which was odd. Freezepop’s encore ended up being a cover of The Final Countdown and it was really good.

Finally Jonathan Coulton was up. I wasn’t really looking forward to seeing him but figured it would be cool to see “Still Alive” from Portal performed live. Of course, I was completely wrong and he ended up being the best of them all, I suppose that’s why he was “headlining”. I enjoyed all his songs, my favorite was “re: Your Brains” there is nothing cooler than a room of people out of sync and groaning “All we want to do is eat your brains”. He also managed to Rick Roll the whole audience twice. The first time the video played over the projectors and most of the crowd started singing along. The second time was mixed in the middle of “Mr. Fancy Pants”. For “Still Alive” Felicia Day, who is like geek goddess, came out and sang with him. He ended the night with a sing along cover of Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” which was unexpected and really cool. Over all, Day One was amazing.

Pictures still to come.

Last week was the E3 Media and Business Summit, formerly known as Electronic Entertainment Expo also known as E3. I thought I’d post my take on the show this year and give an overview of the major announcements.

MS definitely won E3 this year. Hands down. First they announces a refresh for the Xbox 360 dashboard interface. The new look is similar to that of Vista’s Flip3d and the new Media Center. I can’t wait to play with the interface when it is released. Along with they new interface they’re also allowing 8 person voice chat and the ability to copy game discs to the HD to speed up load times. Microsoft is also adding avatars, which are basically Miis for the 360, and along with them a casual games section for XBL called Primetime. Not extremely exciting but kind of neat. Two other things that don’t really interest me are Lips and Netflix. Lips is a karaoke game and Netflix is partnering with MS to allow movie downloads. The big reveal for MS was Final Fantasy 13 was going to be available for the 360 (everywhere but Japan). That’s a pretty big blow for Sony since the Final Fantasy series has always been a huge exclusive for Sony.

Harmonix also announced the entire set list for Rock Band 2 and it is chock full of awesome. One of the coolest parts of the announcement was that for $5 you can unlock get most of the RB1 content as DLC for RB2 which will go nicely with the ability to use any RB1 DLC in RB2. Activision also annouced that the Rock Band guitars and drum set will work with Guitar Hero 4 which means there is actually a chance of me buying GH4 now, depending on the set list.

The Nintendo conference was just weak. Wii Music was announced and looks pretty useless, basically it amounts to a video game version of the toy instrument they make for kids. Other than a generic statement about more Mario and Zelda coming they didn’t really say anything about any games I actually care about. They did announce Animal Crossing: City folk and eventually Pikmin 3. Neither of which I’ve play or have much interest in right now (although I did order Animal Crossing: Wild World for the DS). I was hoping for a new Kirby, Kid Icarus, or a new IP. Of course they did announce two new periperals for the Wii, WiiSpeak and the Wiimotion+. Wiimotion plus comes bundles with WiiSport: Resort looks and interesting but it would have been nice if it was built in to the Wiimotes to begin with. Apparently WiiSpeak, which comes with Animal Crossing, works pretty well but I think I’d just prefer a headset.

OK, So there was some good news for Nintendo on the DS side. Chrono Trigger (aka the best RPG ever) and Kirby Superstar are being remade for the DS.

As for Sony, they didn’t have much that interested me. probably since I don’t own a PS3. They some new PSN games and a video download service. They also showed a trailer for a game called MAG which is supposed to feature 256 players at once.

Some other stuff worth mentioning:

• PC/360: Left 4 Dead
• PC/360/PS3: Return to Castle Wolfenstein 2
• 360: Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts
• 360: No Bungie announcement
• Wii: Dead Rising is coming to the Wii
• Wii: Mad World
• Wii/360/PS3: MegaMan 9
• DS: Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars
• DS: Puzzle Quest: Galactrix

In the end, I think this sums it up the entire conference pretty well.