You’ve heard us ramble on and on about how very much we love co-op cinematic survival shooter Left 4 Dead, now you’ll finally get a chance to see why.
Valve today announced that Left 4 Dead will be playable on the PC by the public at the upcoming Leipzig Games Convention, Festival du Jeu Video and PC Gamer Showdown. Better still, the Xbox 360 version will be unveiled at Penny Arcade Expo where it will also be playable. I’m told Valve will have two 4-person games set up at their booth. If I were you I’d head straight to Valve when the PAX doors open to try and avoid lines.
I’m already pretty jazzed about the PC version, so I can’t wait to see how the game has translated over to the Xbox 360 version. It’s a pretty sweet surprise that the worldwide debut of the console game will be at a public event.
The official schedule for Penny Arcade Expo hit the PAX forums over the weekend. The fairly chunky schedule includes a nice cross-section of the gaming industry and the folks who cover it.
Some of the highlights I noticed, from my quick perusal, includes:
Ken Levine’s keynote EndWar, Prince of Persia, Far Cry 2, Fallout 3, Dawn of War, This is Vegas, Dragon Age and Spore presentations The Growing Role of Women in the Industry Game Criticism and Old Game Journalism The Art of the Dungeon Master History of Harmonix Family Feud PAX Edition The Wil Wheaton Panel GamerDad’s Gaming With Children
Of course you’ve also got live music, movie screenings, the tourneys and a chance to see Tycho and Gabe create a strip live. Sounds like a fun time. Who’s planning on going?
The PAX 2008 Schedule [PAX]
PAX is largely fantastic, but for us, one event stands out above all others. The Omegathon. It’s like that bit in Neverending Story when Atreyu has to run through those statues that shoot laser beams, but instead of jumping through one pair, imagine jumping through six pairs. And they may not all shoot laser beams. Some might shoot ninja stars, or boomerangs encrusted with rusty barbs. And if he makes it to the other side, he gets an all-expenses paid trip to TGS. Yeah, that’s exactly what it’s like. This years event – which as usual sees combatants facing off across a series of six games/events – will kick off with Peggle, before moving onto Boom Blox, then Pictionary, then Rock Band, then Jenga, then the brutal, unforgiving, final mystery event, which we hope is some kind of old-timey yo-yo contest. Click through for the full details.
Apparently in reaction to gamer-centric convention E For All’s news today that Jonathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel will be the face of their show, Penny Arcade announced that Fatal1ty won’t be the face of theirs…. or even welcome.
World’s Top Gamer “Fatal1ty” will not be at the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX)
PAX is proud to announce that they will not be welcoming E-sportsman Johnathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel to the event.
“There is no one else in the video game industry quite like Fatal1ty and we’re thrilled that he won’t be attending our show” said Gabe, Chief Executive Officer of the Penny Arcade Expo, the greatest video game festival in the universe. “Seriously, if he even tries to come we’ll kick him out.”
Fantastic news! Hey, I wonder if Gabe and Tycho will let me submit a list of other people who won’t be welcome at PAX… let’s see…
As I started my prep work for coverage of this year’s Penny Arcade Expo I pulled up a copy of this year’s show floor: Pretty impressive stuff.
It looks like nearly 80 companies will be showing at this year’s show. The list ranges from such heavy weights as Bethesda, Electronic Arts, Sony, Nintendo, Activision, Ubisoft and Microsoft to developers like Rockstar, Bungie and Turbine.
Is it just me or does this look like a much more impressive show floor than E3? Of course, the big difference is that I can’t imagine there will be any major publisher or developer announcements coming out of PAX. That doesn’t mean we won’t get a chance to go hands on with a lot of games and perhaps even needle some news out of the reps on hand.
Either way, looks like it’s going to be a really good show this time around.
