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2 months ago
Feature: There was a single-player Counter-Strike?
I love a spin-off. Angel? Great stuff! Count Duckula? The Better Call Saul of cartoons. Kourtney and Khloé Take Miami? Take me, I’m yours! I could go on and on cutting-and-pasting from this Wikipedia page, but I’ll get to the point. Games also have spin-offs. Often they’ll be forgotten about. Sometimes they’re even disowned. On a few occasions, they’ll take on a life of their…
12 months ago
Chet Faliszek and Kim Voll open Stray Bombay Company for new co-op game
Chet Faliszek, the former Valve fella best known for his work on Left 4 Dead and writing other good words for games, has joined forces with former Riot Games principal technical designer and AI bod Kimberly Voll to found a new studio. Stray Bombay Company is its name (as in Bombay cat), and drawing people closer through play is its game. They haven't announced any…
Turtle Rock Studios, the mob who created Left 4 Dead, are revisiting their cooperative zombie-shooting days in Back 4 Blood, a name which seems a clear a statement of intent. Expect to shoot a load of zombies together with your pals, though Turtle Rock are keen to stress that they want Back 4 Blood to be more than just Left 4 Dead with a new…
1 year ago
Erik Wolpaw is working with Valve again, because he never really stopped
Hooting echoed across the virtual valleys and mesas of the Internet this week after those who pan the digital stream in search of anything ending with "3" got an inkling that former Valve writer Erik Wolpaw had returned to the Half-Life mob after leaving in 2017. And yep, Wolpaw has confirmed to me that he is doing work for Valve these days - because he…
2 years ago
Feature: Skaven and the dead
Vermintide: taking the torch of Left 4 Dead from its cold, undead hands
I’d wager most folk around these parts devoured Left 4 Dead back in the day, just as I did. Valve’s “28 Days Later with your friends” infected my life for a good year, and a bigger, better sequel one year later only strengthened the disease. But as Valve haven’t really been in the business of making games for a good few years - hopefully, that’s…
Feature: Listen now or be monstered
They lurk, they creep, they skulk and weep. Monsters in videogames can be as simple as a big spiky cyclops ball, or as unsettling as a sobbing woman in a rainy alleyway. This week on the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show, the team is talking about their favourites, from flaming skulls to digitally possessed diving suits, and the clever ways in which game monsters…
3 years ago
Left 4 Dead and Evolve creators Turtle Rock Studios have announced a new co-op first-person shooter. Ish. A bit. They've announced they're making one. The mysterious game will be fantasy-ish and, y'know, you'll shoot enemies with your pals and oh, it'll be free-to-play. While Evolve switched to free-to-play a year after launching but this new game will be designed as F2P from the start, which…
What use are Saturday morning cartoons? Who's even around to see those? Mate, what I need is Monday morning cartoons. Some short fun cartoons around 10 on my first day back at work sounds just the ticket. So come on, let's enjoy the 2016 Saxxy Award finalists and winners. Valve unveiled this year's finest Source engine machinima on Friday night after I'd already flicked a…
Turtle Rock are moving on from Evolve, their hunters vs monsters multiplayer game on which development recently ceased. Before starting something new, though, here's a brief return to something old - their Valve-published masterpiece, Left 4 Dead [official site]. Via the Turtle Rock forums, studio co-founder Chris Ashton has uploaded Dam It, a campaign that, in a loose narrative sense, falls in between Dead Air…
4 years ago
Happy 20th birthday, Valve! Yesterday. Happy 20th yesterday. Sorry, I only just saw the Facebook notification. On August 24th, 1996, ex-Microsoft employees Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington made a beautiful baby who was mighty eye-opening. In the dreamy game of "What if...?" one curious hypothetical is: what if Valve never existed? There can't be many companies who've had nearly as much impact. Steam (eventually) revolutionised…
5 years ago
Louis, Francis, Bill, and Zoey, and Ellis, Rochelle, Coach, and Nick have returned, though probably not in the way you'd hope for. The Left 4 Dead survivors have found themselves transported back to Nazi Germany to tackle those dreadful Nazi zombies in Zombie Army Trilogy. A free update last night added the eight survivors to Zombie Army's character lineup for your undead-redeading enjoyment. To celebrate…
Turtle Rock and 2K are currently on the receiving end of an Internet Frown due to their approach to DLC and pre-order gubbins in their impending humans vs monsters multiplayer shooter Evolve. They'd pared some pretty major stuff, including playable monsters, off into bonus payments, and as well as their various editions and DLC being simply confusing, there's been concern that the game experience might…
Feature:
Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time. Of all games, Left 4 Dead and its sequel might well be the ones I miss the most. Sure, I could still play them today if I wanted to, but who would play them with me? They're two of the smartest and most…
A game going gold isn't particularly big news in this age of early access, unless you're someone who worked on it, or you're one of those not-at-all-fatiguing people who just have to start singing Spandau Ballet whenever a certain precious metal is mentioned, but I keep meaning to say something about Evolve. Here's an excuse to: Evolve, the 4v1 team shooter from original Left 4…
6 years ago
Super Time Force launched on Monday, while we were off enjoying the holiday (I sat in a park in St. Albans in torrential rain with a bottle of wine, because reasons), so have a reminder that it's out. The time-twisting shooty platformer's port from Xbox is fancied-up, as one would hope. Capy Games bunged in a new mode and more levels, renamed it to make…
Feature: The Rockingest Of Turtles
Evolve is the next game from original Left 4 Dead developer Turtle Rock, and that alone should be enough to turn an eye or two or however many you happen to have. I was a giant firebreathing space mutant recently, so I can't judge. I got to go hands-on with Evolve's second batch of Hunters and gameplay options, and I came away with opinions. Powerful…
2014 would seem to be the year in which the games industry has another crack at making primarily multiplayer shooting games work all over again. There've been a few false starts in the past, but Destiny and Titanfall are some super-big, super-fat attempts at achieveing enormous mass market success from shooters where narrative takes a backseat. Now Evolve joins the ranks of big games looking…
7 years ago
Making Left 4 Dead campaigns is an interesting challenge. You're building levels for a game that decides when and where to attack the player, and you have almost no control over those moments. It means your focus is in creating the world and in making it an interesting space for the players to exist in. You can't guarantee that the cleverly designed chokepoint you made…
We're waiting for you, Valve. In the sweat chamber. Show us what your mad wearable computing tech can do, instead of all this teasing. Latest report is that they've come up with kit which can measure assorted bodily responses, including heart rate, facial expression, brain waves, eye movement, pupil dilation, body temperature and, indeed, sweatability. Based on how you appear to be feeling, the game…
Feature: Of Tim Schafer And Turret Wives
Yesterday, you probably read the first part of my chat with Valve's Erik Wolpaw and Double Fine's Anna Kipnis. If not, it's right here- but FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY. By which I mean until the Internet ceases to exist, which, you know, could happen someday. Anyway, in today's installment, we branch out a bit from yesterday's story-centric beat. Valve's newfound love of wearable computing,…
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