It may have taken a short while but my preview of Left 4 Dead has been published on HalfLife2.net and in it I say such things as:

Four Survivors, five big monsters, countless Infected, this is Left 4 Dead, the upcoming game from Turtle Rock studios, the latest addition to the Valve family. Left 4 Dead is destined to be the ultimate in cooperative survival first person shooters. Combining some of the best gaming elements ever to grace the PC, Left 4 Dead is a game destined to change the face of PC gaming as we know it.

This preview was intended to incorporate information from an interview with members of the Left 4 Dead team…but alas somewhere along the lines that interview has fallen through the cracks and seems to have disappeared.

Anyway read the preview of Left 4 Dead right here.

I now officially love goo and that is all thanks to World of Goo which I have had the pleasure of playing, it may only be Chapter 1 of the game I have been able to play so far, but some early impressions are in order.

This indie game, currently nominated for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize at the Independent Games Festival has been made by two ex-EA employees; Ron Carmel and Kyle Gabler and their studio 2D Boy. Based on this preview version of the game they have made a piece of magic. Who would have thought that goo and some nifty physics could be so fun? I did actually, after playing Tower of Goo, what I will call the precursor to World of Goo, all those months (…or is it years?)ago I knew that goo was the way forward.

World of Goo is taking the mechanics of Tower of Goo and putting them into something much, much bigger, better and goo-ier. Your goal is simple, build a structure out of the extremely cute looking goo people (are they people? I don’t know!) to the exit pipe of the level to let the goo escape to freedom! It may be a pretty simple idea but it is executed with such great craft that I can’t wait for the full game to experience it all.

World of Goo doesn’t just base itself on the simply delightful core levels, there is a meta-game thrown in for some damn fine fun! For every goo ball over the required number you save in the main game they get thrown here. This is your chance to build a tower up to the sky and get above the clouds of the other people who have played World of Goo and built a meta-game tower.

It is things like this, simple competition which make this game destined for (hopefully) greatness. While this may not end up being the most commercially successful game in the IGF finals (AudioSurf has my money on that, more on that another time)I think it has a great chance of winning, the innovation on sheer brilliance on hand is apparent from the off, monsieur’s Carmel and Gabler should be proud!

The full version will be out soon, and the sooner the better because I really need to see what further exciting goo balls there are and what extravagant levels have been devised for us! Look out for a full review when the full version has been played to death by yours truly! Check out they lads right here for more information on getting your hands on World of Goo.

I have been playing around with the demo for the upcoming Warhammer 40K Dawn of War expansion, Soulstorm. My thoughts?

The Warhammer franchise has had a few very successful years on the PC and is looking destined to have a similarly great one this year. The success is largely as a result of Relic’s Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War, a gritty, bloody, very good Real-Time Strategy which threw you head first into the universe of Warhammer 40K. Since the original game was released there have been two expansion packs (Winter Assault and Dark Crusade) which have added new races and changed the way the campaign works. Soon, the third expansion is due to land; Soulstorm.

Read the full preview on GAME.co.uk