Dead Island Launch Trailer - Work With Your Crew... Crush Some Zombies

It feels like we saw the much talked about teaser CG trailer for Dead Island only a few months back(If i recall correctly, that trailer was out in February). And here we are, with the imminent release of the game, we at least now know how the game will play. It might not live up to the lofty emotional zenith of the games debut trailer but it still looks like it'll do coop first person shooter/brawler well. Are you getting Dead Island?(It's a USD$49.99 game) Dead Island releases on September 9th. Watch the launch trailer below...

Dead Island The Game Wont Be Anything Like The Trailer!

How disappointing. The Dead Island trailer was one of the best trailers I have seen for quite sometime. The games developer Techland gave journalists a closed door demo of the game. What they saw was not a dark, moody title. It was fast, arcadish, and over the top. This IGN preview exclaimed this about one of the playable characters in the demo “As he ran around slicing up zombies and bashing in their heads, he would exclaim things like, "Daaaaaamn, that bitch was huge!" and "You a dead bitch now!"” . Way to go stereotyping a black character Techland. Worst thing of all? The family you saw in the announcement trailer will not be in the game! I  mean seriously Techland! Dead Island is more like Dead Rising than, dark realistic(I know, sounds ridiculous) zombie game. The misleading announcement trailer below…

Dead Island Back From The Dead - Slated For Release This Year

You might not remember this game, but it was first introduced in 2007 and we’ve been waiting ever since. Much of the trouble seem to have been in Techlands(the games developer) inability to find a publisher for the game. So they went on to work on their other franchise, Call of Juarez. Recently info has surfaced on IGN that they have managed to find a publisher(Deep Silver) for Dead Island and it is slated for a 2011 release for the PC, XBOX360 and PS3. Based on IGNs preview, Dead Island is a coop zombie survival game where you must escape the island using whatever item you find. Weapons and ammo will be rare and you’ll have to use whatever you find as a weapon(much like Dead Rising). What I like from the screens is that Dead Island doesn’t look dreary and gloomy like other zombie apocalypse games. It has a tropical bright graphics style. Oh and the CGI trailer they released is amazing. Check out the trailer after the jump…

Left 4 Dead 2 DLC In The Works - Community Made Campaign & Left 4 Dead 1 Campaigns

In a blog post on the Left 4 Dead 2 official blog, Valve confirmed they will be releasing a big update for Left 4 Dead 2. According to the post, Valve are working together with community modder Matthew Lourdelet who did 2 Evil Eyes on a new custom campaign called Cold Stream. In addition to this community made campaign, Valve will also be looking at porting the remaining Left 4 Dead 1 campaigns into Left 4 Dead 2. These updates have no release date and Valve are saying it will be sometime after the release of Portal 2. Valve will be releasing the Cold Stream campaign as a beta soon and will be taking feedback from the forum here. It’s been too quiet on the Left 4 Dead front recently. Glad to see more work being put into it.

Valve Prepping Up To Announce A New DLC for Left 4 Dead

 

So after the furore with the announcement of Left 4 Dead 2, there are indications that Valve will be making an announcement soon on new DLC for Left 4 Dead. Well this isn’t really speculation since this is from Doug Lombardi himself. Speaking to CVG, he said:

 

At a recent press event that took place in London earlier today, Lombardi told us, "We plan to keep supporting Left 4 Dead 1. There will be some announcements coming before summer's out about what's coming there, and then we haven't shown everything that's in Left 4 Dead 2 yet."

 

 

Lombardi added, "I think 8, 9 months from now once everything's been out for a while and everyone's had time to see the complete product of Left 4 Dead 2 and see continued support for Left 4 Dead 1, they may sort of see what we were up to and what the method of our madness was there."

The upcoming DLC will be for both PC and Xbox 360, he confirmed.

 

Glad to hear there will be new content by Valve for Left 4 Dead.

Dead Risisng 2 Confirmed For The PC, XBOX360, and PS3

Capcom today confirmed that a sequel to the XBOX360 crowd favourite Dead Rising, is in the works. Dead Rising 2 is being developed for the XBOX360 as well as the PC and PS3 platform. Blue Castle Games(from Canada) is developing the game with no set release date yet. According to an IGN news report:

The sequel will take place several years after the zombie invasion of Willamette. The original virus escaped containment and has now spread throughout the entire country. Players will now have to combat tens of thousands of zombies and explore the new "gambling paradise" of Fortune City. The designers also promise that there will be lots of new objects you can use to kill the zombies

So if you are waiting for a slow shambling type of zombie experience? You can wait for this game as opposed to the fast L4D zombies.

Left 4 Dead Darkness Toned Down During Development

Zombie massacre game, Left 4 Dead initially had a more dark low brigthness lighting. Valve explained the reason for to increased brightness in a new blog entry that with the darker earlier build, play testers were having difficulty spotting zombies. They designed the game to allow player to see silhouettes of zombies from a distance to avoid being mobbed. They said :

Because of this, playtesters weren't able to see zombie silhouettes in the midground and background. Because of this, they were repeatedly getting mobbed.

While sudden zombie attacks were inarguably scary, they were also frustrating—players weren't being given the information they needed to react. They wanted that "Here they come!" moment, and we weren't giving it to them. The solution? Light-colored fog

I think this is what makes a Valve game so well polished. The amount of play testing they do, it takes years for them to develop the game. But when its done, its so well made and everything so cleverly thought out.

The blog post has details on how Valve made some other design decisions on the art style and is a good read.

Source : http://www.l4d.com/blog/post.php?id=2129