Left4Dead is a co-operative, multi-player shooting game set in a zombie apocalypse. It will be available for Windows and the Xbox360 on November 18, 2008. I have anxiously watched the game’s progress. My love for the zombie genre is well documented, and the concept of blasting the undead with three of my friends seems too good to be true.

Thanks to a tip from Ars Technica member and Gibberish reader Agreschn, I was able to get early access to the game’s demo. I debated playing the game after getting my access key for two days. I was disappointed by the 360’s zombie breakout hit Dead Rising, and the fear of disliking Left4Dead was almost greater than my interest in playing the demo ahead of everyone else.

I also had two competing objectives when I played the demo: I wanted to write as much as possible about the game, but I didn’t want to spoil the experience. Some demos are just a tutorial, some are a random chapter of the game, or is a special-made level. Left4Dead starts you off at the beginning of the storyline: you are one of four humans trying to escape a city overrun by zombies. A helicopter passes by, loudspeakers blaring the location of an evacuation point. I played the first level a few times and the second level once. My initial observations may change once I play the full game, but here they are so far.
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I saw this on TeamXbox today. A new iteration of Call of Duty, a first person shooter video game franchise, is due out later this year. This particular version of the game is set in World War II.

Question: Given the glut of WWII-themed games, how do you keep the excitement level high?

Answer: Zombies.

Bonus points: Nazi zombies.
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You can create a gamer profile on the Xbox 360. This profile allows you to keep track of your friends, game achievements, etc. Since I have two Xbox 360s in the house, I had to come up with an easy way to move my gaming profile from one console to the other. Microsoft sells memory cards in various sizes to do this, and to also save games. Since both of my 360s have hard drives, I could get away with the smallest card available, which is 64MB. I didn’t want to pay retail for it (about $30) so I went to eBay.

I bought a new 64MB unit from a longtime eBay seller. The listing stressed the unit was new several times in the ad. I wound up buying it for $14 shipped. I was slightly surprised when the memory unit arrived a few days later. It wasn’t in retail packaging, and had an inventory sticker on the plastic case. I immediately thought the unit was refurbished.
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After considerately committing suicide a week before the warranty expired, Microsoft sent me a new (at least to me), Xbox 360 Elite as a replacement. The total turnaround time was a week, partially because UPS took a few extra days trying to deliver my busted console to Microsoft’s repair center in Texas.

My replacement unit was built in June of 2008, which I am pretty sure is still a Falcon motherboard. The Falcon is the second-generation motherboard for the 360 Elite. It features smaller chipsets that may increase reliability by reducing heat within the console. Looks like I missed the Jasper revision by a few months, but my 360 Core replacement will probably shit itself in time to pick up either a Jasper or even Opus revision.

Here’s to another year of gaming!

My birthday present to myself last year was an Xbox 360 Elite. I wanted a 360 for awhile, especially after Catan and Carcassonne were announced for Xbox Live!, but I had heard a lot about reliability issues. After almost a year of trouble-free service, my 360 started crashing on Thursday.
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I just got into recycling pretty heavily this year, but I’ve been a “reduce and reuse” type of environmentalist for a long time. It’s funny seeing people at work talk about how green they are and then put four or five plastic 1L water bottles in the recycling bin every day.

Anyway, I have been feeling guilty about my AA battery use for my Xbox 360 wireless game controllers. Depending on play frequency, I go through a pair of AAs in as little as two weeks. Batteries aren’t the most eco-friendly thing to get rid of, and since the 360 represents the majority of my disposable battery usage I starting thinking about rechargeable alternatives.
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The excellent European board game Ticket to Ride is coming to the Xbox 360 today. The game will feature local and online multiplayer. At 800 points the game seems like a must-buy. I hope they will release the other countries/games as expansions.

Thanks to Arsian and 360 gaming buddy Agreschn for the reminder.

Microsoft responded to the availability issues of online service Xbox Live! by offering a free game to their customers. I had originally hoped that they would offer users a 800 Microsoft Point credit towards any game(s) they wanted, but Microsoft announced that they were giving away Undertow instead. I downloaded the Undertow demo when it first came out, and I played it for about five minutes before quitting. Oh well, any free game is better than no free game, right?

Undertow will be available for free until Sunday, January 27th. Ars Technica is reporting that Xbox Live! is already suffering from mass downloads, so you may have to be patient.

I buy a lot of stuff, and sometimes my highest hopes turn out to be the biggest disappointments. I’ve evaluated the things I’ve purchased last year, with an eye to what I use on a regular basis that Gibberish readers may use often as well. Sure, I “use” my Keltec PF-9 every day when I carry it, but most of you don’t have carry permits and its appeal is not as universal as this year’s winner. Here’s a look back at the best and worst gadgets covered on Gibberish in 2007.
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I posted about my Rock Band drum troubles earlier in the week. The good news is that EA was super quick about sending me a new drum kit: second day air at their expense. The bad news is that the new drum set still has the same problems as my old one. I guess I could have gotten another “bad rev,” but I am not going to bother with returning this set. I still have all of the original packaging and will take the whole game back to Target at some point this weekend for a refund.

Oh well … that really sucks, but I have plenty of other 360 games to play.