Zombie blastin’ goodness

Valve is releasing what i believe to be one spiffy game! The game is called Left 4 Dead and it does involve zombies. As an added bonus, these aren’t your slow moving zombies…heck no! These are the Super-fast-moving-zombies-that-travel-in-giant groups kinda zombies…….but with a twist! See? The zombies are changing. Some are getting abilities…Everything from sploding goop onto people and attracting masses of zombies..To throwing out a long grabber thing and wrapping around the prey and dragging you to it….and if you’re the unfortunate survivor that falls prey to one of these “Super-Zombies” then you are going to need the help of your fellow survivors t get free…Did I mention this was an on-line Co-op game?

Yep! You go online, and help your fellow survivors escape the city. You play one of 4 characters, and blast a trail through brain-eating zombies until you get to a safe spot…then, you rest up, gear up and move on. your survivor buddies will rely on your bullets, and your aid in patching them up, just as you will rely on them. After all, its a “Help or be eatin'” world out there now!

Not a fan of playing with others? Dont like going online? No worries, yo can alway play offline in solo mode with computer controlled allies. This in some ways is more efficient yet in other ways its more hassle..Solo mode you don’t have your allies running off ahead leaving you to get pulled to your death by a zombie group, and if something goes screwy…well, you only have yourself to blame….on the down side, the NPCs aren’t very bright, and in many cases you will be doing most of the intelligent stuff. Sometimes its easier haing quick thinking pawns…errr..people doing the hard stuff while you stand back and…erm…guard the back position.

The demo was released both on PC [STEAM] as well as XBOX Live, since it’s going to be released for BOTH the Xbox360 and the PC as well, so whichever is your gaming platform of choice, you can get it. I personally have yet to decide which gaming platform im going to go with. On the Xbox 360 its obviously going to run just as smooth on your system, as it does someone elses…HOWEVER on the PC, there likely going to be MODs and expansions. (Kinda like the zombie mod that was released for halflife 2…god, i wish that was available as down loadable content on the Xbox live service!)….The choices, the choices….

Xbox Live 360

If you own an Xbox 360 you no doubt have an Xbox live account. If not a paid subscription, at the very least a freebie silver edition. If you don’t, then go sign up for a freebie silver edition account.

Now, I am not saying the service is great. It’s fun and it’s handy, and it’s fairly inexpensive. However here’s my thought process. Most of the games, like Call of Duty and such allow for online playing FREE of charge. Not the Xbox however! The same games you could play head to head with real players for free on the PC, requires a PAID subscription to play on the Xbox. So, considering that? I would say the cost is a tad high..no matter how cheap it is..when compared to the free alternative? It’s a bit high.

Next is the subject of media! Xbox Live allows you to download movies to your Xbox system that you hav bought through your Xbox live account. The movies are actually reasonably priced, and there are many new releases from a huge variety of genres! You can also purchase TV shows through this same process. This is where the pricing becomes a little skewed. TV shows cost roughly all the same. So, you can spend the same ammount on a 23 min episode of “Family Guy” as you would on an 11 minute episiode of “Robot chicken”. That’s a tad bit extreme in my opinion. On top of that, they also charge that ammount for “shorts” from Atom Films, that you can watch on their bloody website for free!

Now, about downloadable content. I think this is the numbero uno reason to have an xbox live account. You can get extra maps and levels for your favorite games, or even new characters or items…or new quest lines to expand your favorite RPG…heck, even an expansion pack! The thing is, most of these items are going to cost you. You pay for the new content on top of your xbox live account, which just seems a bit iffy to me. On the original xbox live you weren’t charged for new content, and on the PC in most cases you aren’t charged for new levels and things. I can understand the expansion packs, but the rest is just silly.

Not everything about the Xbox live account is bad though. They do allow you to connect to your MSN account, so you can still keep in contact with your non-xbox live friends on your MSN contact list. Though this is a bit tedious at best. You see, unless you spend 30 bucks on the keyboard/gamepad combo yer gonna have to type to them using your gamepad and a pointer on an on-screen keypad…which means it’s going to take you an hour to say “Hello! How are you!”. It would be nice if they allowed you to call your MSN contacts through Xbox Live, but they don’t so your only option is spend an hour getting one message out, or plunk down an extra 30 bucks for the special keyboard.

Xbox Live also has released a new feature! Some may have seen this, others might not have. What it allows is you to purchase and download original XBOX titles on your 360 console. Games Like Halo and Fable…as well as a handful of other titles(Though more apparently will be added in the future). The games are priced about equal to what you would expect to pay and Best Buy or EBGames. However, you could get the titles cheaper getting them used or in a discount bin. However that’s not really the point. Here’s the thing though. When you purchase and download the game to your console, you don’t get a case or manual. I like those items myself. On top of that, the downloaded game takes up precious room on your Hard drive, and if you have a lot of games, and use a lot of the xbox live features…your Hard Drive room is extremely valuable. I would say buy the damn game and save your hard drive space.

So, what it boils down to is, the Xbox live service for the 360 is a very mediocre service at best, and they charge for every little thing. It’s no secret that Microsoft is money hungry. It’s that same hunger for constant flow of money that caused them to release Vista years before it was actually finished and ready for release..Or what made them release the xbox 360 originally with so many over heating bugs that resulted in so many people having to return their console to get it fixed.

The service however wouldn’t be so bad if at the very least they had some sort of stipend happening..where each month you recieved a couple of microsoft points(The currency you have to buy so you can spend on their service) for being a paid subscriber.