There's nothing quite as terrifying as hordes of hungry, screaming, mindless undead, roaming the streets in search of human flesh. Survival horror has known this for ages, yet most have failed to realise the key to truly horrifying zombie movies - togetherness. True zombie horror is taken from the way groups of humans deal with desperate situations, rather than the monsters themselves.

Valve's new co-op intensive shooter Left 4 Dead aims to capture the more human side of zombie horror, pitting a team of four disparate survivors against the hordes of the damned, which is nearly as frightening as a lone game facing off against an assemblage of video game critics. Turn the corner slowly...

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Not much of a surprise this is a possibility, the two games do use the same game after all. But Left 4 Dead hasn't even launched and someone's already modding it (probably the demo, anyway.) Here's nine minutes -- reloading! -- of Left 4 Dead gunplay on TF2's Dustbowl map (slightly customised). Warning, the volume on this sucker is hecka loud for some reason, with tons of -- reloading! -- gunfire.

Left 4 Dead Meets Team Fortress 2's Dustbowl [CS-Nation, thanks AproposOfEverything]

Sharp-eyed reader Sriker H. sent this in:

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Eagle-eyed Kotaku reader Srider spied something interesting during his playthrough of the Left 4 Dead demo, amusingly enough on the back of an in-game box of "Chocobites" cereal. Seen in the first apartment in the game's first campaign — and wherever cereal is eaten in Left 4 Dead — the back of the box promises a free six-inch Team Fortress 2 action figure. The catch? It teases us to "collect all 10!"

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Left 4 Dead Demo 4 Xbox Live 2. The Kotaku PSA posted earlier today that brought word of the Left 4 Dead demo hitting Steam today failed to mention that the Xbox 360 demo has also gone live. Well, it has — for everyone who is not in Japan. According to Larry "Major Nelson" Hyrb's blog, the game is rated M for an alcohol reference. Make sure the kids are out of the room when that occurs.

It would appear that the engineers at Valve (and formerly of Turtle Rock Studios) have spent a considerable amount of time making Left 4 Dead look, well, ever so slightly different. Side-by-side, with all of the game's visual tricks switched on and off, it's clear they've gone the extra mile to ensure that the zombie shooter looks pretty in between those brief moments of respite from the hordes of undead sprinting at you.

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Now that Gears of War 2 is in the can and maybe even in your hot little hands, what's next for Epic Games and designer Cliff Bleszinski (née Dude Huge)? Would you believe survival horror? That's the word from EGM's "Quartermann" who writes in the mag's monthly rumour column that Bleszinski's next will be a "mix the bloody visceral elements of Gears of War with psychological terror."

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Earlier this week came the news of Microsoft pre-emptively choosing not to release Fallout 3 in India, citing "cultural sensitivities." It's interesting because rather than wait for a ratings board or authority to ban it, or local media/pissed off people to demand it's banning, Microsoft just said nothankyou.jpg and took its business elsewhere.

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Revealed on Gametrailers TV overnight -- Call of Duty: World at War will feature a "zombie mode" that's unlocked once you complete the game. It's a four-player co-op mode pitting you against endless waves of Nazi undead. Man, that sounds cool just saying it. The mode features its own economy in which things like buying weapons as well as making barricades and moving obstacles cost money. Yes, flamethrowers are involved.

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Readers Steven K., Eamon and Chris A. send this one in late, a screenshot from Chapter 6 in Dead Space that will help the rest of us decode what the alien scribblings on the walls mean. Some smudges on a few alien letters, plus some additional human phonetics (SS and TH, and "dbl letters"), but it's a start for would-be graffiti decoders. Thanks guys.

Update: Haven't played the game this far yet, but gahazakul's comment seems helpful enough for those wanting to fit this into a canonical explanation that I'll highlight it:

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EA Redwood Shores wanted to get the carnage right in Dead Space, and like less gruesome subjects, it can be difficult to illustrate something you've never seen. Perhaps that's why dead bodies have looked silly or at least uninteresting in other games. So the Dead Space team studied pictures of car crash victims and war scenes to get it right.

"We knew this would be difficult to portray, because sometimes gore in games looks cheap and unrealistic," executive producer Glen Schofield told Edge. "Sure enough, the first few corpses that we did, just weren't convincing enough. I rejected them.

"This sounds horrible, but we had to go look at pictures of car accidents and war scenes and things like that because we had to get it right; we had to portray scenes of terrible carnage and realism. It's a big part of making that experience convincing."

I'd be interested to know where they got their photographs. I doubt they actually got shots from a medical examiner or other public authority -- although it would be amazing (and one hell of an uproar) if they did. I saw some pretty disturbing things as a reporter -- Brian saw lots more, for sure. It's not easy to look at that kind of stuff, much less pore over it to study the visual details. It's a hell of a job they had to do.

Dead Space Team Studied Car Crash Victims [Edge Online]

Ah, a trip down memory lane, filled with the walking dead. Here's a look at how zombies have changed over the years in the Resident Evil series. Gameplay's changed, too!

The royal we have a bit of vomit phobia. The last time I threw up was college (go figure), but the time before that was grade school: Fruit roll-ups everywhere. Upcoming shooter Left 4 Dead from developer brings out the puke for the Versus mode hi-jinx. Valve's Doug Lombardi explains:

Yeah, there's this slapstick quality to the game that really comes to life on Versus mode. When you're playing as a Boomer, your best shot is to vomit on somebody and maybe see the horde come in before you get taken out. You're not going to be around too long.

It's funny how something that simple and insane-sounding is fun and so satisfying. It's really something different than you've done in a game before, and I think that's part of the charm of it. It's like, "Wow, I vomited on all these people and I get to watch all these zombies and rip them to shreds." You know, there's this sense of a little bit of the accomplishment thing, but then there's also this slapstick moment where it's like, "I vomited on him."

Valve, breaking new ground in in-game upchucking.

Left 4 Dead Interview: Versus Mode, Demo Details, and the Joy of Vomit [Shacknews]

Very nice opinion piece up at news.com.au from Ben "Yahtzee" Crowshaw about the banning of Silent Hill: Homecoming. Yahtzee is a well noted lover of Silent Hill, so I'm sure many have been hoping he would rear his head in the local media to let loose on the local classification regime. But the meat of the story is on the art of horror, and how our culture is the worse for branding this an inappropriate form of entertainment. Being an opinion piece, there are still plenty of Yahtzee classics in store, so there's a few good chuckles for those of us in the choir. I'm sure you don't need more convincing. Go read it already.

Of course, I completely disagree. I mean, look at that picture -- there's a kids playground! Ergo, this game is for kids and they must be protected from it.

Video game censorship and the art of horror [news.com.au]

"Do yourself a favour when you get the game," writes Ben Kuchera at Ars Technica. "Make the room as dark as possible. Turn the sound system up. Allow yourself to be swept away in it."

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Anyone curious about Left 4 Dead's brand of co-op Zombie evasion and survivalism will be able to tip their toe in the water next month when Valve release a demo for both Xbox 360 and PC.

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Another great trailer for you guys! This of course comes courtesy of Capcom in honour of Tokyo Game Show and it's quite epic. It gives us a little insight on how the plot is going to develop in Resident Evil 5 around Chris Redfield. But that's not all, there are plenty of other shotgun toting favourites, old and new, that make an appearance.

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Capcom has just released a batch of twenty-two new screens for Resident Evil 5, in honour of...well quite frankly I don't know what they're in honour of, or if they really need a reason. There's a bit more of the interface included than I'm used to seeing in RE5 shots, but aside from that it's just Leon and Sheva, hanging out together, killing them some infected peoples. I can't think of a better way to spend a Friday evening.

Resident Evil 5 Gallery

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Using a conveniently-located typewriter to save your progress has been one of the few constants in the Resident Evil series over the years. Or, least it was. Capcom have finally waved goodbye to the old stalwart, with Resident Evil 5 to be the first game in the franchise to, well, get with the times and introduce a new save-game setup. Producer Jun Takeuchi:

Actually, I really like typewriters; they're really typical of the Resident Evil series. But this time, the save system will be a combination of checkpoints and chapters.

You old RE fans can take your nostalgia and cram it. This is good, good news.

Resident Evil 5 Dumps the Typewriter Saving System [1UP]

No, not the Wii version. The next proper version, the one that may or may not be in development at Blue Castle Games. The latest issue of the UK's Official PlayStation Mag reckons that it's not just in development, but that Capcom are trying something a little new with it: that it'll be episodic. Like Siren: Blood Curse. Be worth watching to see how that plays out, if true. One episode per night/day, perhaps?

OPM UK Rumours: Crysis on PS3 in 2009? [PS Beyond]

Well, Shell Shock 2: Blood Trails is coming. When you might ask? Just in time for Christmas is all we know at this point. Yesterday, McWhertor brought you the Lynard Skynard trailer, and today we got some new screens to keep you busy. The game is slated to hit Xbox 360, PS3, and PC.

Shell Shock 2 Screens

Fans of the horror video game genre are very, very protective of their Silent Hill franchise, paying deadly close attention that each successive game is not only a high quality affair, but also stays true to the established canon of the series. It's no wonder, then that fans were taken aback when it was revealed here at Kotaku that the fifth game in the series would be developed here in the states by developer Double Helix, rather than traditional developer Team Silent. Did handing off the beloved franchise to an all-new, Western team create a darker, nastier Silent Hill, or did it simply result in darker, nastier game critics?

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Worlds collide as EA announces that their sci-fi survival horror game Dead Space has gone gold, on target to ship to retailers across the country on October 14th. Along with the gone gold announcement, EA has also revealed two platform-specific, limited-edition downloadable outfits for the game, available to customers who purchase and play within the first two weeks of the game's release. The PlayStation 3 version is a rather snazzy black and blue affair, while the Xbox 360 version sports a dirty white and yellow motif to match the consoles' colors.

Personally I hate console-specific premiums, as they generally tack an hour onto my visit at the game store, picking up one, putting it back, picking up the other, putting it back. I'm can be a pretty indecisive guy when I decide to.

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At this year's Tokyo Game Show, Sony Pictures and Capcom will have the world premier of Resident Evil: Degeneration, an all new CG-animated feature film. It's being produced by Hiroyuki Kobayashi (associate producer of Resident Evil: Apocalypse and video game producer of Resident Evil 4 and Devil May Cry 4) and directed by Makoto Kamiya (special effects director of L: Change The World, Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All Out Attack). For those not attending TGS, the movie will also be shown at the New York City Horror Film Festival on November 13th and at a Fangoria-hosted screening on November 18th. Hit the jump for the full press release.

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When it was still supposed to be shipping in 2008, Capcom forecast that Resident Evil 5 would ship 2.3 million copies in the year. Now that it's been pushed back to 2009, though, things are looking up! Producer Jun Takeichi has said that while he hopes the game sells 2 million at the "low end of the scale", he's really hoping the game does closer to 3 million, because "users in Europe and America will be particularly pleased with the game's content". Jun, users everywhere are pleased by zombie dirt bikes.

Developer Interview [Capcom]