First off the bat, Left 4 Dead is beyond awesome. I have just spent the best part of two hours with three of the guys from the RPS Steam Group playing through the demo levels on the Expert mode. It wasn’t until we finally managed to get to the safe room at the end of the second demo level that I realised how long we had been playing.

I was too busy playing and getting sucked into the game to take many screenshots, but those guys at Rock, Paper, Shotgun have some galleries of the game from their trip to Valve.

This game is just amazing in co-op mode, singleplayer is ok, but it has nothing on blasting through the hordes of zombies with three friends. They seriously are hordes, at times the AI Director will send what seems like thousands of zombies at you and will then throw in some Boss characters like the Boomer or Hunter.

When we were playing it was the Director that we talked about most, this thing is magnificent. It can build the tension so much just by keeping the opening areas of a level relatively clear of zombies. After the onslaught that we battled against so often in the opening rooms of the second demo level, to fail and start again in near total silence in freaky.

I won’t forget the moment when we entered the last but one chambers and heard the sobs of the Witch, we saw he sitting in the doorway blocking our path to the final battle. With three of us on very little health we decided to that the person with the most health would instigate the fight. It was quick and brutal, only two of us were left standing with 1 health a piece, we managed to force the Witch to retreat away from the level.

That was intense, and it was pure awesome. I can’t wait to get back to play this again tonight.

Patch 1.08 has been released for the amazing Trials 2. This is one hell of a big patch that sees a load of new exciting features arrive to the game. First up is the introduction of voice-overs for the game from Brandon DiCamillo, Art Webb and Rake Yohn. These guys are famous for their work on Jackass, Viva La Bam and a whole host of other wacky projects. I haven’t had the chance to check out what they sound like in game yet, but when I do I will let you know.

The chat system has been overhauled, there are new chat rooms for the teams in game as well as language specific chats. This goes hand in hand with new multi-language support. I am pleased to see that Welsh wasn’t included, I want that language burried.

As ever there have been graphics changes with improved graphics for the higher end users as well as a new mode that has been especially designed for low-end machines and laptops. This also means the game is now compatible with ultra-portable mini-laptops such as teh Asus EEE. This is just another reason to add to the growing list of reasons for why I should get myself an EEE.

Finally there are 14 new free tracks bringing the total to over 60. Hells yeah.

Can’t wait to get my crash helmet back on for some more Trials action.

That, yes that is Natascha, the Heavy’s new friend, lets just hope that Sasha won’t get too offended at finding a new beast in our Russian friend’s arsenal. The low down on this new beast? As Valve describe it best this new unlockable will be used to persuade people like the Scout and Medic to face the Heavy “mano-a-tiny-itty-bitty-mano” by slowing them down, no more escape for them pesky flies. However Natascha is now a teeny bit weaker than Sasha, so don’t expect to mow down as many of your foe as before.

Also due to arrive with the Heavy update is the new Payload map, Badwater Basin. The big difference between this new map and Gold Rush is the focus on wide open space and vertical combat. Also of note for the new map is that it is now one single large area split up by various checkpoints, much easier to gauge your progress than on the split up mayhem of Gold Rush.

A new patch for Trials 2 has been released and it features some good stuff, some damn good stuff! While a full list of changes can be read here I will just run down a few of the big ones.

- Team limit bumped up from 10 to 20
- Downloadable content now able to be used
- General changes to the physics system
- Changes to original Dynamic tracks and training tracks
- Five new tracks – four new easy and one new Dynamic track.

Video of new Dynamic track Domino Effect:

Via Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Race Driver GRID is all about the race according to Chief Game Designer Ralph Fulton. In his latest Developer Diary he gives us some more background regarding what we can expect to see in the game apart from great racing and great crashes.

The main thing raised in this diary entry is the revealing of three different racing areas for the game. First off is Europe the home of the ‘classic’ racing disciplines such as touring cars and open wheel cars. Expect to see some of the finest track from around Europe here.

Secondly we have the US which, as Ralph tells us, features a lot of street racing around places such as Long Beach, San Francisco and Washington. Expect to see some big muscle cars here.

Finally GRID will take us to Japan where ‘drift’ racing is the focus of the game.

Each area has different cars and environments in which to race so expect to see some great looking cars and tracks be perfectly suited to each other.

I just wonder what is with the Queens of the Stoneage love as the soundtrack to these little diary things….

You Have To Burn The Rope!

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According to Jim Rossignol in the newest issue of PC Gamer UK ‘Relic feel like the beating heart’ of the PC and judging from his mega-preview of Dawn of War 2, Relic are just that. While Jim was unable to break down the mental defenses of the Relic staff and find out what races other than Space Marines and Orks are due to appear, he was able to gain a magnificent insight into the game itself.

Boy does it sound fantastic and wow it bloody well looks gorgeous! Dawn of War 2 surely is going to be the best looking RTS when it is released. If these screens are anything to go by then it really will be, the look fantastic! And that is just from minuscule magazine pics!

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Sometime last year I read an article in PC Gamer about a little game called Masq. I went and downloaded the game and immediately fell in love with it for its extremely strong story and general brilliance. Earlier this year in my weekly PC column on 411 Mania I talked a little bit about Masq. Soon after that Javier Maldonado got in touch with me and we decided to do a little Q&A. What you read below is the result.

Javier talks about the beginning of Alteraction and Masq, the development of the game and his thoughts on the story in video games today.

Chris - How did Alteraction come into being and what is the company ethos?

Javier - A few years ago I was looking for way to participate/play in a movie-like story, meet exciting characters, etc. However, all that I found were games which seemed to be trying to stop me from living and enjoying the story, either with twitching challenges or difficult puzzles. And the story was not that good either. So I decide to make my own. I figured many others would enjoy playing these kinds of “games” so I decided this was an enterprise for the long term to trigger a new game category. I went to some friends and asked them to invest some money–and Masq and AlterAction were born.

Chris – Masq is brilliant, how did the game come into being?

Javier – It was inspired a little bit by David Lynch’s Blue Velvet and Latin-American Soap operas. Over many years I wrote and programmed Masq in Macromedia Director. My wife was my editor and main tester. I even drew the first three episodes, but soon we came to the conclusion that this was too much work and we needed some help, so we set up an office in Mexico where we hired local artists. In the US, well known game designers such as Ken Melville and Noah Falstein helped me to localize Masq in English and introduced me to everybody in the gaming industry. I must say that with a few exceptions, the industry was very dismissive.

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Just take a look at the trailer below, the first gameplay footage from upcoming Codie’s racer, Race Driver: GRID the spiritual follow up to the TOCA series. It will be landing this summer on the PC, 360, PS3 and, for some unfathomable reason, the DS!

This is actual gameplay footage, and it looks like Codie’s have taken the Colin McRae DiRT engine and made it even tastier. I officially want this game!