L4D Kicking Ass at PAX 2008 - 8/31/08

Tons of new information, previews, and videos about Left 4 Dead and its Xbox 360 version have come from PAX 2008. We'll list it all out here and tell you what's worth your time. What do you need to know now? Valve will be hosting dedicated servers for the Xbox 360 version and even some for the PC version, the Xbox 360 version looks nearly identical to the PC version, and split-screen on the 360 can be split either horizontal or vertical. Below is a photograph from Flickr user "TheQ!", with the caption "Setting up the booth for Left 4 Dead the night before the show opening at the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX 2008), at the Washington State Convention & Trade Center in Seattle."

The Bad: IGN's hands-on
IGN posted a hands-on of Left 4 Dead filled with more whining than information, so we'll save you the click and summarize it here: Starting with "It's always a good day to shoot zombies, but at this point we had played the same PC demo of Left 4 Dead about three thousand times now.", continuing with "It wasn't until the second level of the demo that Valve finally showed me something new.", and ending with "So the bad news is that Left 4 Dead got bumped back a couple of weeks, but it is coming this November 20 on both platforms. Finally.". Inbetween all that is a couple very vague paragraphs about the experience.

Writer Jason Ocampo sounds more like a 5-year-old girl that didn't get a second lollipop than a professional games journalist, and we only point this out because much of IGN's coverage has been very poor on the Left 4 Dead front. As one of the leading gaming websites, we expect more from them.

1UP Preview and another video
1UP posted a quick preview that broke the news on dedicated L4D servers, split screen options, and the aim assist in the 360 version. 1UP also teased about a flamethrower coming out post-launch. 411 community member Asura envisioned what that would do for the game:

Some of the best video from PAX 2008 also comes from 1UP at GameVideos in their fourth video Farm Fight that shows very chaotic and zombie-apocalypse-like fighting in the cornfield and farmhouse. This is the video to watch to get even more pumped up for L4D 360.

GameSpy Preview
GameSpy posted a three page preview of Left 4 Dead detailing the 360 matchmaking mechanics, 360 controls, achievements, and some other small details:

Left 4 Dead is comprised of four different and distinct campaigns, each of which is presented as a horror movie of sorts. The loading screens will feature movie posters complete with cheesy taglines like "Curing the Infection... One Bullet at a Time" and titles like "No Mercy" and "Blood Harvest".

The hospital in the Hospital campaign is named Mercy Hospital, so 'No Mercy' is a fitting name. 'Blood Harvest' is for the cornfield. We're liking the sounds of these. One change to Blood Harvest: "The level began in an abandoned railway car that was being used as a safehouse", which is different than the former campsite starting area.

Chet Video Interview at GameSpot
GameSpot video interviewed Chet while he was playing the 360 version, showing off his multi-tasking abilities. Chet pointed out new graffiti present on the walls throughout the maps that tell the story of Left 4 Dead, sort of like in Portal. He claims the "only difference is the controller" between 360 and PC after showing the right bumper 'quick turn'. Chet was playing through Mercy Hospital and we caught a glimpse of a Boomer busting through walls Kool-Aid man style which looks tremendously improved from earlier versions, shown below:

Shacknews Interview with Chet
Shacknews, one of our favorite sources for gaming news, posted a great interview cutting the bullshit and getting down to important topics. Asking about dedicated servers:

"The biggest problem with [the console version of TF2] is that we had kids with dial-up connections saying, 'I can host a 16 player server.' We had a little thing that said, 'Oh no you can't.' And they're like, 'Oh yes I can.' And so then people would connect, have a horrible experience, and go, 'This game sucks.'

And so one of the things we're doing is hosting dedicated servers. It's a program Microsoft offers where they'll come in, they've got to certify our data center, they work with us on it, and they let us host the servers, and that way we're able to ramp it up and have a better experience for our users.

Chet said we can expect some coverage on the Infected side in October.

And the Rest..
Kotaku has posted two articles so far, the first providing some details on how the Left 4 Dead story will be told, and the second saying the Xbox 360 version is good.

Robert "Apache" Howarth checked out Left 4 Dead at PAX and came back with his impressions, saying "In a nutshell: 360 controls were fine, graphics were okay, and I think Left 4 Dead has a lot of potential in the console market. Which SKU will sell more copies? If I was a betting man, I'll go with Steam and the PC."

[OC]ModShop brought back pictures of the booth and off-screen pictures of the game, and word that "Left 4 Dead still continues to impress and at the level it is at right now, we have a conteder for game of the year.. and the game isn't even finished yet." Three YouTube videos have been posted (all poor quality), the first showing that they have gotten rid of the small lift outside the gas station and replaced it with a ladder (about the hundredth revision to that area). The other two don't show much interesting, just the beginning of No Mercy and the second map of No Mercy.

Finally, we have news that Left 4 Dead 411 community member Kamikaze recently visited Valve South and had plenty of time with the game, which he posted about here. Kamikaze says "If you are looking for the best game to come out this year and next.. you've found it." He didn't reveal some of the new content he saw, in accordance with Valve's wishes.

And that's it for now. Thank you very much to all of the community members that scavenge for news and share it with the rest of us on the forums. Left 4 Dead will continue its world domination tour and when news comes out, we'll let you know.