Dead Island is rough around the edges and that's sure to turn a lot of people off. First-person melee combat doesn't feel natural right away -- although aiming with the mouse is far superior to the console control schemes. The same can be said for the PC version's graphics, which are way sharper than the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360's. That said, textures tend to flicker from time to time, I'd describe every cutscene as "stiff," and the visual flaws like hands going through doors and weird mini-game meters made me laugh. Still, presentation doesn't make a game, experiences do. And they are packed into Dead Island.

so it's a giant piece of shit visually, but plays fun.. kinda how cs used to be 10 years ago? -_-

Iron Man
No respawns, no restarts, no ammo, all tension!

Do you think the game is too easy? Looking for a challenge? Try this one on Expert. Realism rules are in effect. There are no respawns in the map. There is no ammo. If your team wipes, you need to restart the whole campaign.

Holiday Update

December 16, 2011 - L4D Team






If you have been playing Left 4 Dead 2 for a bit, you probably have your own lists of who is naughty and who is nice. We already make it easy for you to track who is being nice – we have the Steam Friends list. But we know people can rage, players can grief, and some people… well some people you just don’t want to play another game with.

For those special people, we have the blocked list. Think of it as your own personal naughty list. Not only will those people not be getting gifts from you this holiday season, they also won’t be joining you in any games, reindeer or otherwise.

Once you add someone to your blocked list, they will not be able to join your game. This means they are blocked through the lobby interface, the server browser, the recently played list, and even direct connecting. They are gone from your life.

This does also mean if a friend invites them to your game, they will be blocked. It also prevents you from joining a game where there is a player you have blocked. If it was a mistake or you kissed and made up, you can always unblock them and everything will return to normal.

How do you block someone? You can simply block any user from within the Steam Community page, Steam chats, or your Steam Friends list. Players can also be blocked while in a game via the Steam Overlay, which provides an easy path to both locate and block current and recent players from joining your future matches.

Don’t worry about offending someone with your block. As always, your blocks are private. Only you can see the list of people you’ve blocked. And again, don’t worry about making a mistake blocking, you can always unblock someone at any time.

What games will support your block? Left 4 Dead 2 is the first. We want to test it here. CS:GO will be next and then we will continue to add games that use Steamworks matchmaking.

So now that you have your lists, what about gifts for you in today’s updates?

First we have some bug fixes. We have a fix for the problem of Tanks not consistently spawning in the finales. Prodigysim (once again) correctly identified when the issue was introduced and helped us track it down. Thanks!

We fixed the problem of dying when you win Death Toll and we mixed up the distribution of melee weapons in the new campaigns (we do read the forums) .

We are also back with custom campaigns. Today we are adding I Hate Mountains ( Download ) to the rotation and have an updated version of Suicide Blitz 2. If you missed it, RT Frisk made a special version of Suicide Blitz 2 to help with a marriage proposal. Ohh…

Lastly… well what are those things in Versus? What’s this new achievement? You’re gonna have to play a round and find out.

I don't think it matters in L4D, since rage on our part or our opponents' was normally just caused by losing badly. But yeah, CS? I guess it's time to incite 4chan, SA, etc. to mass-block everyone in every server they ever play so that after a while, nobody can ever join a server.

(Knowing Valve, the likely solution will be to remove the "join a server" capability from the game.)

it’s the Contagion GDC trailer.

Contagion is the first full game from the team behind the Zombie Panic Source mod, and it’s being pitched as a spiritual successor by the team of modders gone pro. It has zombies, it’s co-op, and uses the Source Engine, so comparisons with Left 4 Dead are obviously going to be made. I think I just did. But it’s slower, and there’s a bigger focus on survival horror through ammo conservation, and the paths through the levels are randomly generated, so you’re never sure where you’re going or what you’ll find. Well, apart from the undead, or your old team-mate who’s been resurrected as one of the shuffling brain nommers