The Left 4 Dead Tour

Valve is touring blood thirsty zombies all over! Left 4 Dead will be playable at multiple events:

Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Half-Life and Counter-Strike) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced a series of live demonstrations of Left 4 Dead at upcoming industry events the world over.

Left 4 Dead is the new survival co-op action game from Valve that blends the social entertainment experience of multiplayer games such as Counter-Strike and Team Fortress with the dramatic, narrative experience made popular in single player action game classics such as the Half-Life series of games. The PC version of the game will be playable by the press and public at a series of upcoming events including Leipzig Games Convention, (Germany), Festival du Jeu Video (France), and PC Gamer Showdown (UK). The worldwide debut of the Xbox 360 version will be at the upcoming Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) in Seattle, WA. Members of the development team will be on hand at each event to provide information and give away some Left 4 Dead memorabilia.

“The shared experience of Left 4 Dead is unlike that of any other action game,” said Gabe Newell, president and co-founder of Valve. “That’s what we’ve experienced playing the game, and from showing the game to the press and our partners. It sounds cliché, but in many ways you have to play this one to truly appreciate what we’re attempting. So, to give gamers a chance to sample this new type of experience first hand, we’re taking Left 4 Dead on the road.”

Left 4 Dead is due for release on the PC and Xbox 360 this November, and earned numerous awards at this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, CA, including 1up.com, Gamespot.com and Maximum PC’s Best PC Game, as well as Best Multiplayer Game from Kotaku, IGN, G4TV, the official E3 Judges, and more.

For more information, please visit www.l4d.com

EA’s E3 2008 Lineup Revealed

IGN has EA’s E3 2008 line-up. Many big titles including Crysis: Warhead and Mirror’s Edge will be making an appearance.

• Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 (PC, PS3, X360)
• Crysis Warhead (PC)
• Dead Space (PC, PS3, X360)
• Mercenaries 2: World in Flames (PC, PS3, X360)
• Mirror’s Edge (PC, PS3, X360)
• Skate It (Wii)
• Spore (PC)
• The Lord of the Rings: Conquest (PC, PS3, X360)
• Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (PC)

Bethesda Softworks Announces Development Partnership with Splash Damage

Press Release:

Bethesda Softworks®, a ZeniMax Media company, announced today a long-term development partnership with the award-winning U.K. studio, Splash Damage™.

Splash Damage has been recognized by the industry for the quality of its titles and particularly for its skill in creating cutting-edge multiplayer games. The studio has received numerous accolades and awards for Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory™, including Game of the Year nods from GameSpy, IGN, and PC Format. Their latest game, Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars™, won over 80 Editors’ Choice, E3, Most Wanted, and Game of the Year awards and nominations.

Read more

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames Coming August 31st

IGN has confirmed that Pandemic’s much delayed shooter, Mercenaries 2: World in Flames is finally hitting retail shelves on august 31st. For more info, check out the official Merc2 website.

Team Fortress 2 - Huge Update coming Next Month!

After all the delays, Team Fortress 2 will finally get unlockable weapons set as well as a brand new map (well, sort of) Goldrush alongside Meet the scout video! IGN did a QnA with Valve’s Robin Walker. Here’s a snip:

IGN: When might we start seeing the unlockable item updates mentioned a while back? What classes are being focused on right now? Is the Medic still planned as the first update to roll out?

Robin Walker: We’re almost done. The Medic is still planned as the first update, but we’ll be pushing into the other classes pretty quickly. Much of the time we’ve been taking has been on the backend work, so we won’t have to do that work again.

New Details:

• The unlockable medigun will switches out the 10 second invulnerability effect for 10 seconds of 100% chance of critical hits.
  
• You unlock the first Medic unlockable when you complete 12 of the 36 Medic achievements, the second at 24, and the third at 36.
  
• Goldrush is coming along with the Medic achievements and unlockable weaponry.
  
• The cart in Goldrush moves faster the more Blu players are near it, and contains a handy dispenser to heal and resupply them as they escort it. The Red team wins if they can keep the cart from reaching their base.
  
• Goldrush is the first map to use the cinematic physics technology from Half-Life 2: Episode 2 in a multiplayer environment

For more details, check out the extensive IGN QnA

Project Origin New Trailer and Interview

PC.IGN sat down with Monolith to discuss their upcoming Horror-FPS Project Origin. Here’s a snip:

IGN: How are you balancing the horror elements with the action moments? Is it more action-focused than FEAR or should we expect even more creepy moments?

Mulkey: We will continue to present a nice blend. Too much of any one thing, even a good thing, starts to wear thin if there is nothing to change things up. So it is not so much that it will be more action or more horror, it will be that the nature of both of those elements are ramped up in intensity.

Full interview, new trailer and 10 high resolution screenshots after the break. Read more

Assassin’s Creed QnA

IGN sat down with Charles Beauchemin, technical lead at Ubisoft to chat about the upcoming PC version of Assassin’s Creed. Snippet from the QnA:

IGN: How much of the changes were based on community feedback after the console version’s release?

Charles Beauchemin: When the console version was released, we looked at the feedback from the community and we decided to use the additional time of development to add some variety by including new investigation types. Here is an example: before receiving the green light to assassinate Garnier de Naplouse, you had to complete 2 investigations out of 6. However, you could complete all the investigations available as well. Since we had 5 potential investigation types, you would at least encounter one type twice. Now, with the 4 new investigation types, we have a total of 9 investigation types, so you can complete all 6 investigations before going for Garnier de Naplouse without doing the same investigation twice.

Full QnA and 33 screenshots after the jump.
Read more