Left 4 Dead

You know, when the vampire trend was spinning out of control and spitting out some of the worst films and television programs known to man (as well as some really cool stuff; I won't forget that), I started believing that it was time for people to start getting into zombies.

When I was first in college, getting my philosophy degree, I descended into the world of George Romero's Night of the Living Dead. These films were some of the best movies I've ever seen. I used to watch horror films because of how ridiculous they were, but now I was watching zombie movies that were smart and told me something about "human nature." To this day, Dawn of the Dead remains one of my favorite movies of all time.

Left 4 Dead was a franchise that came about long before the zombie thing started to feel like it was being done to death. And the brilliance of these games stems from the fact that it feels like you are inside of a Romero zombie movie. You are controlling one of four main characters.

I've come to love this game enough that it has crept into my every day life. For example, whenever someone has a headache, I have the unhealthy compulsion to shout out "Pills here!" And sometimes when there is a girl crying in public I like to shout out "WITCH!" OK, that last one was a lie, but I have definitely said the former quite a few times.

Just play the game.

Postcard 2010: PC Gaming

I had been to my share of LAN parties where a network cable was all I needed to connect my computer to a bunch of great friends and play video games for hours. I would spend hours playing video games and then I would go the rest of the year without thinking about starting up Warcraft III: Frozen Throne or Counter-Strike: Source. Meanwhile, good friends like Stephan, Adam and Joe were playing video games all year round. The difference in skill level between me and these other boys was gigantic, and quite often it just made playing certain video games no longer fun.

At the end of 2009, the digital content delivery service known as Steam had its first big post-holidays sale. Interesting games I'd seen friends playing in Stephan's basement were now available for incredibly low prices. I could play the same games that my friends were playing only it would cost me 20 to 40 percent of the price. At the holiday LAN of 2009 I had made up my mind: 2010 would be the year when I went gung ho into PC gaming, and particularly first person shooter. The week prior to 2010 I spent stockpiling fantastic video games for dirt cheap.

While I found myself playing a whole lot of different games, Team Fortress 2, Bioshock, Left 4 Dead, and Left 4 Dead 2 being among my favorites, it was the quirky FPS Borderlands and its brilliantly crafted DLC Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, and Claptrap's New Robot Revolution that made it easy to make good on my promise to get into PC gaming. I could start up the game in Fort Worth, Texas, hook up my head set, and find myself in the company of my good friends Adam (College Station, Texas), Derek (Grand Rapids, Michigan) and Stephan (Corpus Christi, Texas). While gaming, the world that I had known prior to leaving Michigan wasn't all that far away any more.

LANs became different. I could keep up with my friends, both when it comes to computer hardware and game performance. Over Christmas, I played a CS: Source gun game mod with six or seven friends in which I was neck in neck with Joe, who had probably logged more hours of gaming in 2010 then everyone in the room combined. Rather than simply forgetting about PC gaming after the holiday LAN, I found myself trying to deal with difficult gaming quandaries such as which game to play after Borderlands (no good answer yet) and whether to subscribe to DC Universe Online or Star Wars: The Old Republic in 2011 (hopefully both, but at different times).

Left 4 Dead: The Sacrifice

I was already a fan of the cinematic quality of Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 on PC, but as they began to release more and more extra content I became more and more interested. The Sacrifice, a four-part web-based Left 4 Dead comic book mini-series, was a wonderful cap to the experience. It fleshes out the characters from the original Left 4 Dead while also including some of their better known one-liners and techniques. It employs classic zombie film themes regarding the military and how humans are their own worst enemy. The story was interesting and strangely heartfelt and I felt that it was probably the best comic book I've ever read that was intended as promotional material for a video game.

Left 4 Dead: The Sacrifice is available via the L4D web site here. The comics can also be downloaded in PDF form: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four.

A Guide to Video Game Lingo

1. Molly - (noun) Molotov Cocktail; an improvised incendiary device created by filling a glass bottle with a flammable substance, capped with an alcohol soaked cloth wick; capable of doing fire damage to multiple targets when wick is lit and bottle is smashed on or near targets.

"Tank! Hit it with a molly!"

2. 'Nade - (noun) Grenade; an anti-personnel weapon that explodes a short time after release; capable of doing explosive to one or more targets depending on proximity to explosion.

"'Nade out!"

3. Spam - (verb) Originally a reference to mass, unfiltered e-mails, spamming now also refers to indiscriminate use of multiple projectile devices such as grenades, smoke grenades, flash bangs, pipe bombs or Molotov cocktails.

"That noob just keeps spamming 'nades."