doug lombardi
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Left 4 Dead 2 Might Work With Left 4 Dead 1
11:00AM Luke Plunkett | The centre of the firestorm over the announcement of Left 4 Dead 2 seems to be that Left 4 Dead 1 players feel they’re being left behind. But what if they’re not? More »
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Valve: PS3 Orange Box Players “Got The Stepchild Version”
8:00AM Owen Good | In an interview with CVG, Valve’s Doug Lombardi says the experiences of putting Half-Life on PS2 and Orange Box on PS3 have put them off Sony development for the near future. More »
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Valve: Left 4 Dead DLC Announcements Coming Soon
8:20AM Michael McWhertor | Making good on its intentions to continue supporting the original Left 4 Dead, Valve says that the next batch of downloadable content for the Xbox 360 and PC game will be announced sometime this Summer. More »
Left 4 Dead Makes Versus Vomit Funny
6:00PM Brian Ashcraft | 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] More »
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Here’s Who To Blame For Half-Life 2: Episode 3’s Long Gestation
5:30PM Luke Plunkett | Half-Life 2’s “episodic” expansions are hardly what you’d call episodic in the gaming sense of the word. Other series can knock out two, sometimes even three full games in the time it takes Valve to cobble together a single 4-6 hour mission pack. Of course, the wait’s always worth it, since nobody does it quite like Valve does it, but still. Long waits hurt. And when something hurts, we like to blame somebody. So who can we blame for the agonising wait between Episode 2 and Episode 3? Blame Left 4 Dead. And blame Team Fortress 2. Valve’s Doug Lombardi: So I mean, we’re taking more time because it’s a more ambitious project. We also sort of had Left 4 Dead become this big thing in the middle of it that we wanted to spend more time on, and you’ve just got a lot of stuff that we spent this year doing with Team Fortress 2 updates and what have you. So there’s just a lot going on, and then an ambitious project on top of it caused the schedule to move out a little bit from the delta of the last three releases in the franchise. Goddamnit Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead, how dare you…ah, who are we kidding. We can’t get mad at you guys. Valve on Episode Three: ‘A More Ambitious Project’ [Shacknews] More »
So, *How* Long Until Half-Life 2: Episode Three?
12:20PM Michael McWhertor | If there’s one thing Valve excels at, it’s making us wait. If you thought the wait between Half-Life 2 and the episodes that followed it were long, expect to wait even longer for the third (and final?) episode in the continuing adventures of Gordon Freeman. Valve’s marketing man Doug Lombardi tells Kikizo that Episode Three is going to be longer than the wait between every other entry in the series — longer than the wait for Episode One, longer than the wait for Episode Two. More »
Left 4 Dead To Follow Portal, TF2’s Example
10:20AM Michael McWhertor | What we’d seen of Left 4 Dead at Games Convention, we’d mostly seen before. Just prior to E3, we played through the entirety of the game’s first scenario, a sprint to the roof of a hospital through a cluster of zombies, where the four survivors await evacuation by helicopter. And, should you be too lazy to check out our impressions from that gameplay session, we’ll just tell you it was tight, adrenaline pumping stuff. There were only a few noticeable changes in the Games Convention build. It was our first look at the updated models and skins for the four playable characters, each given a new coat of paint to help further distinguish them from the hordes of undead. But it was the new touches of detail — and the promise of more Left 4 Dead — that sparked our interest once again. More »
Team Fortress 2 Updates Coming To Xbox 360 Later This Year
11:30PM Michael McWhertor | Owners of the Xbox 360 version of Team Fortress 2 will be scarfing down sandviches and delivering payloads later this year, as Valve is finally bringing all the updates delivered via Steam to the Xbox Live Marketplace. That means new, class-specific Achievements, new unlockable weapons for the Pyro, Medic and Heavy, new gameplay modes and new maps, all on your Xbox 360. Valve marketing director Doug Lombardi got that piece of business out of the way just before our latest Left 4 Dead demo, saying that the developer wanted to build up a massive update for Xbox 360 users before delivering. Given that Valve is being forced to charge for the update, they wanted to ensure that 360 owners were getting their money’s worth. So, how much? The price isn’t final, but Valve is hoping to go as low as possible, aiming for a ten dollar price tag. Not too shabby. Sorry, PS3 owners, no word on when or if Valve will be giving you the same Team Fortress 2 updates. More »
