Observing Left 4 Dead Relationships

Martyn Zachary Leave a comment

Notice: Don’t forget to check out our latest update to this post, “Dissecting the Casts of Valve’s Left 4 Dead Series“

This post is a quick sneak peek into our forthcoming article that focuses on the evolution of the casts of Valve’s Left 4 Dead series. An interesting feature of the original campaign posters is their equal-weight character distribution: The placement of the characters rotates evenly, with very little utilization of character-specific poses and personality-emphasising traits. In the five LD41 posters (the new Crash Course included), Zoey and Francis both cover all four placement slots, with Bill and Louis found in three out of four. Illustration below:

Left 4 Dead 2 Posters 2x2+1

This seems to be about to change in Left 4 Dead 2: In the two campaign posters revealed so far – Swamp Fever and The Parish – there are marked differences compared to the previous game.

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Batman: Arkham Asylum Demo Review

Martyn Zachary Leave a comment

Many websites have already titled this game “arguably the most anticipated game of the summer” 1)http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2009/08/07/batman-arkham-asylum-demo-released/: Though it easily makes top 5 twice at GameStats, it only comes close to cracking the top 20 at Eurogamer. That being said, however, Batman: Arkham Asylum could very well be the most anticipated game – not titled Call of Duty.

British developers Rocksteady dropped demos for the game last week, and rather than crumble under the excitement, we dedicated the entire Slowdown team to combing through the demo, three-man Bat-style, giving it a hard long look in anticipation of the forthcoming September release of the PC version. In fact, this may very well be the most ridiculously in-depth look at the demo you’ll happen to chance upon. Should you find a more thorough article, though, let us know in the comments section… and we’ll retract this boisterous claim. Consider yourselves warned!

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The Blackwell Convergence Review

Martyn Zachary Leave a comment

Dear readers, though this article focuses primarily on the 3rd instalment to Wadjet Eye Games’ “Blackwell” series, The Blackwell Convergence, we are subsequently also to publish a second, combined number on the 1st and 2nd episode. Please bear with me as we progress, in reverse order, to achieve some degree of relevancy.

Both parts will also touch upon topics beyond the make-up of a “review”; whether we should chalk them up to “analysis” or “discussion” remains open for interpretation. Should you agree or disagree, let us know what you think in the comment section! Finally, if you are yet to familiarize yourself with this ongoing series of adventures, I do hope you should come back to check out part 1/2. The easiest way to find out when is to either subscribe to our Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/slowdownvg) or to our RSS feed (http://www.slowdownvg.com/feed/)!

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Batman: Arkham Asylum Demo Released, PC Version Delayed

Nabeel Burney Leave a comment

A demo for Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham Asylum has been released to all platforms. The PC version of this hefty 2GB package can be grabbed here, at nVidia’s site. As with Resident Evil 5, the demo works with nVidia’s 3D Vision technology for those who have the required hardware. The playable portion is the area that was shown at E3 a few months back, early in the game with a few areas and enemies for players to experience the various facets of the game mechanics.

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This gameplay teaser comes with slightly bitter news for PC gamers, as their version of the game has been pushed back from the previously simultaneous launch date of August 25th date to September 15th. The reason stated is the improved implementation of nVidia’s PhysX technology, which provides the physics for the game’s environments and objects. A similar situation occurred in January with the release of Mirror’s Edge on the PC, which was a few months behind the console versions 1)http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/11/20/mirrors-edge-pc-delay-down-to-physx/1. The game is highly anticipated here at the Slowdown, so stay tuned for some impressions of the demo.

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Left 4 Dead Crash Course DLC

Martyn Zachary Leave a comment

As most of you know by now, Valve announced the Left 4 Dead Crash Course DLC on the Steam news blog. I apologize for being this late, but we decided against posting the announcement due to the ghastly, nasty genericalness of the PR available:

[Crash Course] delivers new single-player, multiplayer and co-operative gameplay to both platforms. … While containing both Survival maps and a Co-operative Campaign, the primary goal of “Crash” is to deliver a complete Versus mode experience in just 30 minutes…

Left 4 Dead Crash Course Poster
Left 4 Dead Crash Course Poster

All this changed earlier today, though, when we had Destructoid jump to the aid in the form of an exclusive preview of the new levels. There are good news and bad news.

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