KILL BILL: Memoirs of the Dead.

We made it to the roof. Francis, Louis, Zoey and I. Only two weeks had passed since the infection and the streets were already littered with the filth of flesh hungry corpses. But we’d noticed something else…the damn critters were mutating, a breed of new horrors awaited us and it wasn’t going to be easy getting where we needed to go. We loaded up our weapons…shotguns and ammo, steeled our hands and prepared to make our descent down into the decadent stench of decaying flesh waiting for us in the belly of a newfound hell (The building). Francis (Tunji) and Louis (Wale) were new to this game; a couple of trigger happy Halo junkies, they had absolutely no idea what fate (The game director) had in store for us. But I did. Zoey (Michael) and I were there at the beginning. I took lead, pulled open the door…a couple of stragglers bumped around at the bottom of the stairs…easy enough. We made our way down the staircase and peered round the corner. A couple a more stragglers jumped at us out of nowhere, nearly scaring the guns (gamepads) out of our hands. The newcomers were proving to be effective, but it wasn’t long before I realized we were going to be in serious trouble. The rule is simple…survive together…or die! Separate…and you’re as good as dead eyes. A lesson we would all come to learn the hard way. The Horde came at us! Panic set in and our fingers pressed down at lightning speed on our triggers. Blood spluttered into the air, bits of rancid flesh exploding all around us, undead after on undead, falling at our feet. A Hunter jumped on Louis as a Smoker grabbed a hold of Zoey; I ran after her and put a bullet in the rotten bastards decaying brain. Francis knocked the Hunter off Louis before emptying a load of shotgun shells in its belly. A few blocks down and someone accidentally set off a car alarm…if it wasn’t an accident, I woulda had to put that puppy down myself. The sound of the alarm drew every flesh eating vermin for two blocks to us in frantic flesh feeding frenzy. We survived…but the damage was done. I watched Zoey and Francis limp for the next few blocks to the safe house. We all got it bad…no one wanted to die; no one wanted to be left behind. We made it to the safe house and patched ourselves up. Finally! A real man’s weapon…M16’s, the best gaddamn friend a soldier ever had, not as good as an AK in my books, but still one hell of a gun. Our new weapons cut through the horde like a hot knife through butter…but the journey was getting more and more difficult as we got closer to Mercy hospital. Smokers came at us out of every corner; Boomers caused us no end of trouble with putrid vomit that brought the horde down on us in unending droves; Hunters pounced on us, tearing at our flesh with talon-like fingers as Tanks smashed us into the floor in depraved rage. Frantic auto-machine gun fire and a well placed pipe bomb saved our butts from certain death more than once. And then…there were those blasted Witches. Each time, we barely survived…paying in full for our negligence of the one unspoken rule…“Stay together…or die.” We struggled our way to the end, to the very top of Mercy hospital. All that was left now was for us to make the call and the chopper would be on its way to rescue us. All the blood and sweat, stench of rotten corpses, broken bones…soon we would be rescued and finally rewarded with a respite from this hellish world. Soon this old dog could breathe a deep sigh and give his tired old bones a well deserved rest. It had been a hard campaign. I looked towards Zoey…she’d been with me through it all…from the very beginning. We’d watched each other’s backs, fought through seemingly impossible masses of zombified flesh eaters, together. I couldn’t even count the number of times I’d saved her ass, but she’d saved me too on occasion and in this old dog’s books, that made us even. But it also made us comrades.

So we loaded up our guns, split into pairs of two and put our backs to the walls at the top and bottom of the stairwell, which ran up the back of the fortified building which was across from the helipad…and made the call. The Horde came in their numbers. Numbers of Hunters, numbers of Boomers, numbers of Smokers. Our strategy worked well, it was easy enough to defend ourselves against the undead knocking down our doors in the narrow space of the stairwell. That is…until the Tanks came into play. Half a ton of mutated rage-pumped human flesh knocked Louis into the ground like one of those steroid-junkie wrestlers beating down a three foot midget. I emptied three clips into the beast before it finally keeled over. And just then…I heard it…the sweetest words I’d ever heard…the sound of Zoey shouting out…“The chopper’s here!” and as luck would have it, the way was clear. We made a run for it, Zoey tagging close behind me, both assuming that Francis (Tunji) and Louis (Wale) would be following close behind us, watching each other’s backs. We were almost there, just a few more feet to safety, a few more steps to the chopper and we'd be safe. As I put my foot down on the ramp leading up to the helipad, I felt a strange tug and suddenly found myself flying backwards. A Smoker had gotten a hold of me…I cried out to Zoey as the Smoker’s wormlike tongue pulled me passed her. The abject horror I should have felt at being pulled into the jaws of certain death was replaced by bewilderment and the morbid realization of what was happening in front of me. With imminent rescue looming before her, Zoey (Michael) didn’t even look back. Not even a glance. The Smoker dragged me away, pulling me up alongside another one of my comrades, who was being mauled to death by a Hunter. Out of the corner of my eyes I could see it was Francis (Tunji), “Ambushed…” I guessed, as he was making his way out of the fortified building. In the distance I saw Zoey, as she finally made it to the safety of the chopper. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Louis (Wale) fighting off straggling undead as he made his way up the ramp to the chopper. It was then that I knew it was over; and as the horde came streaming towards me- the hunger for flesh evident in their blood red eyes- I looked to my side, but Louis was already dead. “Damn!” I thought. “…Should have had that last smoke.”

We had both been abandoned…both been betrayed by people we trusted, both been Left 4 dead. Sigh, but then, who was I to say I wouldn’t have done the same thing. As the chopper took off, a line from a gritty movie I once watched flashed across my mind....the words seeming wiser now than they had the first time I heard them: “An old man dies...a young girl lives….”

“…Fair trade.”

Well, Yegwa asked me to do a write up on the multi-player session that we had a couple of days ago on the Valve developed zombie shooter, so...here it is (above I mean). I couldn't think of any other way to do it really, that wasn't going to be considerably longer than this. And while I am no Stephen King, I think I did a pretty decent job translating the events of the gaming session . As long as you get the idea and realize that on that particular day in question, I discovered why the game developers chose to call the- brilliantly put together- action horror shooter...LEFT 4 DEAD! Mostly thanks to my backstabbing friend Michael(Zoey)...who I wouldn't want to be caught in a real life Zombie apocalypse with, I can tell you. BUT IT WAS LOADS OF FUN!!!

L4D Multiplayer

Before I get into a summary of the multiplayer fun we had playing Left 4 Dead over system link, let me make a correction. Yesterday I said that Niyi cries for help as a hunter gouges out his insides. Well, he was actually gasping for breath as a Smoker constricted his windpipe.

With that out of the way...

So, Monday and Tuesday were public holidays in Nigeria because of the Islamic Eid-el-Kabir. I decided to ask the guys if they would be willing to try out the multiplayer co-op in Left 4 Dead on Monday and then play the versus mode and then Halo 3 on Tuesday with a few more people. They said yes!

On Monday night we got together and settled down for some 4 player action, only for El Cij to abandon us because he couldn't find his way out of Cyrodiil back to the real world. We forgive him, but only just. So, Niyi, Michael and I got started and began going through the 'No Mercy' campaign on Normal difficulty.

We actually did pretty well. No one ever died, we stuck together and proved to be a proper Spartan fighting unit, but instead of spears, we had automatic shotguns and assault rifles spitting hot lead. I was even beginning to fear that maybe it was too easy, but the escape from the roof of the hospital proved me wrong.

We wiped out 5 times in our attempt to escape, until I suggested that maybe we try and camp out in the stairwell of the communications room. This worked out very well for us and we took out every zombie that dared show its face including two tanks. Unfortunately, once the helicopter arrived, only three of us made it out with Michael getting stomped by zombies on the way to the helicopter. By the time we realised, the pilot had lifted off, leaving us with a cinematic view of a horde of zombies fighting over Mike's corpse.

Ah well.

What was really cool though, was the times that we didn't make it. It really was like watching a movie. Like when Michael and I would have died and we would watch Niyi fighting with everything he had (and he was using Bill as his character so it made it look even better) with the AI controlling Francis in support. One time, Niyi actually even thought he was dead when he was incapacitated by zombies so he came into the room we were in watching our screen. We then saw Francis shooting zombies off him with the precision of a machine and struggling to get Niyi back on his feet. Michael and I shouted at him to go back to his pad, he still had a chance!

Watching from our own screens we saw him shooting with dual pistols at the horde, giving Francis support until he could get up. Unfortunately, they got seperated by the horde, and that just resulted in them becoming zombie snacks.

It was really cool, and although we tried playing through the Dead Air campaign not long after we finished No Mercy, by the time people were running into walls because they were falling asleep at the controllers, we decided it was time for bed.

The game is really awesome in multiplayer and I can imagine it would have been even more so if Siji hadn't sold us out for the Dark Brotherhood. Sometimes it felt like it would really get too easy once we all got used to the game, but the AI Director really gave us some good scares and paced the levels pretty well. Oh, and we got to burn two witches which was cool. It is also possible the reason it felt like it was too easy was because of how uber Francis was at taking out the specials.

The second day was even more interesting, but I think I will get Niyi to write about that as he was the one playing, I just observed from time-to-time...and laughed a lot.

Post Xmas Glut Reading

The end-of-year gaming glut has come and hopefully is done with for yet another year, but it also means that the gaming blogosphere in general has settled down and started writing about other things not related to any of the games that have come out recently or at least thoughts on these games without all the hype associated with their releases. Obviously Some Kill Giants is not part of this trend as I have a mega Left 4 Dead post coming up from our experiences with four-player co-op and unfortunately only four-player versus, which WILL be filled with hype, but I digress.

Anyway, been hitting up the ol' Google Reader and going through some of my feeds that I have neglected and I have unearthed some serious gems.

First up is a post by Jim Rossignol on rockpapershotgun on the PC gaming scene in Korea and how it has literally made the country like no other place on Earth in terms of gaming and player culture. It has always fascinated me that they have been able to take computer gaming to the next level and have it as a cultural institution in its own right. I guess the equivalent in America for example would be...uh...er...reality TV stars? Uh...yeah. Anyway, go read the article, it is quite awesome and makes me think that my mad idea to make a nationwide Nigerian gaming intranet for high-speed gaming would be a great idea!

Secondly, over on Ludus Novus, Gregory Weir talks about games that are from parallel dimensions where gaming technology evolved along different lines. I wish I lived in the one where games like Odin Sphere were the norm instead of the exception. He also provides a link to a modern Mode 7 game and coins a new term that I really, really want to see gain traction - pixelpunk. Cool eh? I am sure that you want to see it gain traction too. Let us push it out there and make more games that fit the description.

Cactus, who I have written about before on here made a list of games that he hadn't finished developing, but were playable. The ideas behind them are awesome and messed up as always. You should check out the link if you are tired of high end gaming and looking for something interesting.  The rate he comes up with and discards ideas is quite frankly oppressive!

I think that should be enough for now. Need to go finish working on that L4D multiplayer article. I can give you a text-based trailer though.

Two people die a lot and get incapacitated even more! An example is made of traditional FPS players. Two make a run for the helicopter on the roof, Niyi cries for help as a hunter gouges out his insides. About 100 litres of Boomer vomit was spilled. A witch shrieks and burns as the world goes black and white. Left 4 Dead.

L4D - No Mercy Couples' Night

My girlfriend and I just finished playing through the No Mercy campaign of Left 4 Dead on easy mode. It took us 2 hours and 7 minutes, and we had one complete wipeout in that time frame.

It was so unbelievably intense and a lot of good fun.

A bit of background first. My girlfriend plays videogames as you can tell from her own blog, but most of the games she plays are either jrpgs like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, or games like Phoenix Wright, Puyo Pop, Animal Crossing and some platformers. She is not a player of first-person shooters. At all. I think she may have tried one of the 007 games sometime in 2003/4, but she hadn't touched one since then. She is one to try though and I managed to convince her that since we would be playing on easy, it won't be a problem, and that she would have three people supporting her throughout the entire game. There would be no problems at all!

None whatsoever.

And there were none. As long as you don't consider occasional panic shooting and the fact that we were the only two people that made it out of the city at the end of the day problems. And at least the other two got to see the helicopter before a Tank jumped on top of the helipad and stomped them to oblivion...

Sorry Bill. Sorry Francis.

Playing with her was actually a lot of fun. Originally I had thought that we would get to a certain level, she would get tired, bored or too stressed out by the game and we would quit and watch some TV or something, but she stuck through the entire thing. This highlighted a couple of things about the game for me and reminded me of why I like co-op games.

1. On easy mode at least, Valve has been able to create an FPS that encourages rather than alienates players unused to the conventions of the genre. At a first glance, it would seem that they were able to achieve this because of the nature of the genre. Zombies do not require advanced tactics to beat as they do not flank or take cover or perform any other type of maneuver that may cause non-FPS gamers to balk at the amount of things they have to do in order to have fun. They just point and shoot. However, they have been able to keep the challenge for more regular players of the genre by including the boss zombies as well as allowing the AI Director to activate hordes of zombies that charge the player. This increases the tension and whenever we survived an onslaught of boss and normal zombies, I could see that my girlfriend got a feeling of accomplishment no matter how small even if she didn't kill most of the boss zombies. She was able to keep some of the normal ones at least at bay.

2. The importance of silence. I love how the zombies in Left 4 Dead do not always attack the minute you can see them. The fact that they mostly just hang around either against walls or standing about aimlessly gives newcomers some breathing space within which they can practice their aiming and get used to the controls within the game, but without the constant pressure being under attack would produce. The fact that the pistols have unlimited ammo helps a lot as well.

3. I love games with audio cues and those in Left 4 Dead are really well executed. Within thirty minutes of play, my girlfriend was calling the presence of Boomers, Smokers, and Hunters with confidence (tinged with a bit of apprehension). And of course we were always acutely aware of the presence of a Witch  or a Tank. This also allowed her to participate in the game on another level as well. She could raise the alarm whenever she caught one of these audio cues and I didn't, and sometimes, she was able to take care of a boss zombie threat behind us because of the audio cues. This is a very empowering thing for someone learning how to play the game and in a small way ties into an interview on co-op gaming that Shigeru Miyamoto gave that was pointed out to me by Derek Rumpler. Providing players of different skillsets something to do in a cooperative game is quite important to making sure everybody has fun.

4. The ability to revive fallen comrades was also pretty nice as well. Whenever she got overwhelmed, either I or the AI would get to her in time and set about reviving her. This was pretty cool as it fostered a sense of teamwork as opposed to the standard respawning method that is used in games like Halo 3 for example.

These are all just quick impressions from the playthrough I had with her and I am sure I will have a lot more thoughts on the game once I can play it with four players on a higher difficulty setting.

Oh, and for all the people out there who may be interested in playing the game with a spouse or loved one, nothing is as cool as rescuing someone from the slimy tongue of a smoker with a well placed shot.

L4D - Seamless Tutorial

My girlfriend and I were just discussing how the introductory movie in Left 4 Dead felt like a tutorial of sorts. All of the boss zombies are introduced, you get to see all the moves that the characters can make (apart from the use of first aid kits I think), things that one should be careful of (DO NOT SHINE A LIGHT ON THE WITCH!) and the basic flow of the game.

So, it was really neat to go to Valve's Left 4 Dead site, while I was looking for images for a new banner and another L4D article, and find that they have a blog post up about the very same thing.

These guys are really geniuses. Check out the blog post here. It details the thinking behind the movie and the process they went through to make it happen. Along with early versions of the sequence. Good stuff.

L4D

Played 3 chapters of the first campaign (the levels are called campaigns with chapters further sub-dividing them) in single player, and most of the first chapter with Niyi in co-op.

I have killed a Smoker while it tried to draw me in close, gotten over 100 headshots, and avoided taking damage after been puked on by a Boomer. I say this not to make a feeble attempt at bragging, but to emphasise the fact that all these things happened without me planning to get the achievements. I got all of them in the heat of trying to survive the zombie apocalypse.

I have cracked more than 100 zombie skulls with bullets not because of some hardcore-ness on my part, but because I wanted, needed to survive and we all know what necessity is the mother of...

Random shots fired in panic at a smoker while I was being pulled in? Blind luck! And speaking of blind luck, the episode with the Boomer and me taking no damage? Heh, I was huddled behind my companions and meleeing like a mad man waiting for the damn vomit to disappear. This game is too intense, and I love it!

I have only put give or take roughly 2-3 hours into it and it is already all I could hope for. Now, to see whether it holds up in the long run. Can't wait to play the multiplayer now.

I will post more once we go at it with 4 people.

LEFT 4 DEAD error.

Okay, first of all, I'd like to thank Texazzpete for pointing out that horrendous error I made in the blog about Left 4 Dead, where I said the Valve game would be out on the PS3 console when it wasn't, and while I have corrected that particular little oversight on my part-in the blog- I am certainly not beyond admitting my mistake and promise it wont happen again. So, thanks for the heads up Pete!
Niyi.

LEFT 4 DEAD

Well…I’m sure everybody has read Yegwa’s glowing review on the new game-currently out- on the Xbox 360 and also available on Steam, so I won’t have to say much about the game developed by Valve and published by Electronic Arts except that, so far I’ve heard nothing but praise and excitement from reviewers and friends about how good this game is or is going to be and I have to admit it’s a little difficult not to get caught up in the whirlwind threading in the aftermath of such high praise. So, I’ll be here anxiously waiting with an itchy trigger finger and the game better be gaddamn terrific or I’ll have a bone or two to pick with quite a few people and I’m telling you it ain’t gonna be pretty. On that note: Bring on the frenzied zombie killing gore and violence…let them scream!!!

Game Rating: M (Mature)
Blood and Gore
Intense Violence
Language

Left 4 Dead available on Steam

Left 4 Dead is available from Steam today! Shame, I still have to wait until I can figure out a way of getting it when it launches for the 360 in just a few more days.

Almost all the previews and impressions from the demo have been glowing, and there is a bit of an early review from the guys over at shacknews and they also like it! Plus, don't you look forward to this?

Or running away from them?

I was tempted to get this via steam since I do have steam on my PC and have a system capable of running it, but the fact that I would have to play it online or on a LAN makes me balk at the thought of it. I want to play this with my friends and be able to see and hear them screaming or laughing.

Well, hopefully, it will just be a few more days. I was talking with a friend about a courier service that helps get things down to Nigeria fast. If it works out, will post about it on here so that you guys can know too.

I have actually been looking into bringing games in for sale, but have been having challenges, if this works out, maybe I will roll with it.

And yet another game for the pre-harmattan season

Hm...I see that Niyi hasn't introduced himself yet as he ought to, but no matter, I am sure he will come round in time. Or I will have to beat him with a foam bat until he does.

This post is not about him, apart from the fact that he will be involved whether he likes it or not. This post is about Valve. This post is about this game -

I don't know how I was about to let this pass me by. Somehow it seems like I have missed most of the hype for Left 4 Dead. All I knew was that Valve was releasing a zombie shooter, but I had no idea what it was called, and even though I was interested in what "Valve did next", I just kept postponing my looking it up.

Now that I finally have, it has suddenly shot up to number 2 on my most wanted list (Little Big Planet is still whispering sweet words into my ear). I have been waiting for a great co-op game, and I hope that this is it. I trust Valve a lot after Portal lived up to its hype and I have enjoyed all the Half Life games, so a procedural zombie apocalypse to be survived with friends that is being put out there by them is essentially a no-brainer for me.

Definitely getting the 360 version though as it would be a lot easier to get 3 other people on one console to brave it out and maybe it could become our new multiplayer game instead of Halo 3 over system link.

Below are some videos showcasing the gameplay and a trailer so you can see what I am getting pumped about.