IT()E L4D site

Frisky Wabbit has put together a L4D website for us, and though it's a work-in-progress, it's lovely. Check it out.

Two new L4D2 videos

Video Games | Left 4 Dead 2 | SDCC 09: What's New Interview HD

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Video Games | Left 4 Dead 2 | SDCC 09: Stay Out Gameplay HD

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Post 300

Though the glory of the UO days has passed as Numenor beneath the waves, IT()E yet abides in this place. Our outposts lie in Skype, Ventrilo, Teamspeak and GTalk, and our last embassy to derelict gamers is Left 4 Dead. While the irony of that last bit echoes through the halls of our many empty servers, the news isn't all bad. We've lately found some new members - an agreeable lot, to be sure - and it's time to welcome them properly.

All hail IT()E Karnage, IT()E Lonewolf, IT()E Blake Ice, IT()E Slam, and IT()E tehpeanut!

We'll do our best to keep you entertained. IT()E DOA has some ideas on that score.

Splinter Cell: Conviction - new trailer

SC:C has a couple of things going for it. It's the spiritual successor to Chaos Theory, a 2005 game that, for its complexity, intelligence, and replayability, remains almost peerless. Its creator is Ubisoft Montreal, a AAA developer that has historically produced highly-original and often deep IP's. And finally, Conviction has been in development forever, which (we hope) means it will have a level of refinement, out-of-the-box, that so many new titles seem to lack these days.

Few games live up to their own pre-release hype, but this one might be the dark horse in the season of Modern Warfare 2.

Video Games | Splinter Cell: Conviction | SDCC 09: Teaser Trailer HD

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Yoga in Iowa

The first pic is of a yoga practitioner using proper technique. The second ... well, that's Steve's improvisation:



See the rest here.

Yahtzee reviews Red Faction: Guerrilla

This doesn't come out for Windows until September, and they're making it no secret that the PC offering is a straight port from the consoles versions.

RPS on L4D2

Rock, Paper, Shotgun has some screenshots that are worth a peek. I'll only post one here, so as to steal as little bandwidth as possible:

In addition to the Charger, a pair of new special infected have recently crept out of the stank. The first is the Spitter, which has a ranged attack that causes damage within a radius for a period of time. That, I surmise, is Valve's way of addressing the "shiva-stacking" phenomenon that so plagues the infected team in Versus matches. The Charger is also designed for that purpose, but accomplishes it by different means. Thus far, there is no special infected known as the Swallower.

The other new special is the Mud Man, which (I think) shows up only in Swamp Fever. He scuttles around on all fours, which makes him difficult to see amongst a mob, and probably impossible to see in deeper water. As you can see in this video, Muddy's melee attack covers your HUD with muck, which obscures your vision a bit (though not as much as when a Boomer honks on you).

UPDATE: Shack News has a bevy of gameplay videos.

LATE UPDATE: The Mud Man is not a special infected, but rather one of the "uncommon common" infected (like the haz-mat zombies) that appear only in certain campaigns.

Left 4 Dead update

From Steam News:

Updates to Left 4 Dead have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

• Lobbies and games you've recently joined and left will be ignored for two minutes. This will prevent a player from ending up in the same lobby or game when quickly searching for another
  
• Restored Find a Game Lobby/Find a Game in Progress to the Create Lobby screen available from the Lobby Browser
  
• Updated localization text
  
• Fixed an issue where VPK.EXE would not extract all files

Ninjas of the mundane

Paragons of various things that have no practical applications whatsoever (for the most part):

Attention IT()E

Time for ITOE to make a comeback this fall.
Some things need to be done ahead of time to capitalize on the release of MW2.

Let's pick a method for brain-storming.
I'm not sure that Scott's Blog is the appropriate location for rantings etc... but that's up to him.