Left 4 Dead - First Thoughts

13. November 2008 - Curt C
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I got the demo/trial copy of the new zombie thriller Left 4 Dead the other day. The pull down from Steam was easy enough and all that so I went in and launched the game. It defaulted into multiplayer-online and I was immediately dropped in with 3 others (it's a 4 player game). Almost from the second the game started the action kicked in and it was wild. The gameplay is completely insane (in a good way). You often find yourself running for your life or barricading yourself into a corner to try to fight off the horde charging in on your location like a pack of wild dogs. Then two minutes later you find yourself trying to sneak quietly with your lights off to get past an uber zombie hoping she never sees you... and if she does go back to the running for your life.

The game play is amazing. The zombie AI is great. The environments are pretty good...slightly lacking in a little detail but really doesn't seem to factor in. I just started the Single Player mode so I can't respond to that much yet nor can I say anything about playing the zombie side of things (although I'm really looking forward to it) but if you are interested in co-op game with incredible replay power and intense action...this is the must-have for the season.

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Fallout 3 - Game Review

9. November 2008 - Curt C
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Over the last week I needed some time to de-stress from the workloads and prepping for the move so I picked up Fallout 3. Mostly the decision for this one was based on the reviews I heard on the GFW and PCGP podcasts. Wow....was I not let down.

The game starts as you may expect...building up a story base as well as familiarizing yourself with the controls. It was decent and actually kept me fairly entertained and listening to the story and watching the cut-scenes. Even before you start out on your adventures the game takes a slightly different twist...it actually makes you decide your fate. By that I mean that the decisions you make in nearly every conversation you have with the NPCs will affect the outcome of other pieces of the game. It's a great way to really get the player sucked into the action and into the game itself.

After the opening segment in the "vault" you'll find yourself out in the wastelands of D.C. and here again I found myself saying WOW. When I got out there I pulled up my map and pointed to where I needed to go and started hiking. It was what seemed like 10 min of killing some wandering baddies and scouting around when I figured I must have took a wrong turn and missed my destination....was I wrong. Popping open the map showed that I wasn't even close to 1/2 way there yet. That's when I got the realization that this place is huge. When I say huge, I really mean massive.

Now I wont go into the details on the main quest but I will make a note that there really is more to this game than just the main objective. The sheer number of side missions alone woudl keep you going and entertained for dozens of hours. Add in the main mission and the replayability of your decisions and you may just find yourself playing this one clear through the holiday's and well into next year.

I'd have to say this one is definitely a game worth picking up. I spent my money on it and I'm a cheapskate, so that says something.

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XNA Game Studio 3.0 Released

4. November 2008 - Curt C
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It looks like Microsoft officially released the XNA Game Studio 3.0 (get it here)

Personally, this is one of the few things that's really still interesting to me for development. I played with it a little (very little) to see about writing some apps (aka games) for my Zune (yeah, I love my Zune). Since that time though I've been WAY too busy to dig in more. Now that 3.0 is officially out I'm really going to try to jump back into it again.

If you're an XNA developer I'd love to hear from you...what's good, what's bad, what's easy, what's hard, etc.

Oh, and I highly recommend you check out the XNA Community Site (http://creators.xna.com/en-US/)

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