Left4Dead

I'm going to indulge in a bit of TMI here. Full disclosure. I love Left 4 Dead. I love the running, I love the screaming. I love shoving the annoying teammate off of the roof so that they get ripped apart by the gnashing horde below. But most of all? Nothing gets me horror-hard like blasting a corpulent boomer with a shotgun, dousing the surroundings with bile. I'm sorry if that makes you uncomfortable. Click your feeble minds elsewhere. The rest of you? You're giving that knowing nod right now. You don't have to say anything. I know.

If you're a horror fan, you owe it to yourself to at least watch a game. A single match has more electrified adrenaline than most horror flicks do these days throughout their entire run time. The smash success for the XBox 360 and PC is distilled, 198 proof gameplay. There aren't complicated menus. There are no excruciating Metal Gear Solid cut scenes or complex narratives to follow. You run. You kill. You try to live. That's it.

That said, I have no idea how this can be adapted to a film. Everything that makes it so slick and streamlined as a game is every reason it can't be a good movie, not without making substantial tweaks and additions to the story. There just isn't anything there aside from zombie killing with a dash of morbid banter between the characters.

That's not stopping an enterprising cadre of fans from trying, though. They've nabbed some dopplegangers to stand in as the band of 4 from the first game and have whipped up a teaser trailer (after the jump) along with some rather polished images. All of this is laying the foundation for a full-fledged feature.

Yes, it's all Left 4 Dead all day! In honor of the highly-anticipated sequel (on shelves today!) we're having the Squad ramble about the franchise, and my topic is this: Please don't make a Left 4 Dead movie. I know this advice may come as a disappointment to several hungry producers who've seen the game (and the pre-order numbers on the sequel) and have visions of a Resident Evil-style movie series, but here's why it's a bad idea:

Left 4 Dead (and its sequel) are bare-bones, boiled-down zombie movies already. Take the concepts from Romero, several dashes from 28 Days Later and the Dawn of the Dead remake, dip it into a wonderfully gory and post-apocalyptic setting, and populate the tale with four colorful (but intentionally generic) survivors. The game is already a movie homage, is what I'm saying, and to switch things around and make it back into a movie ... meh, seems like the result would be a copy of a copy of a copy. (Office workers know how lame that can be.) Hell, even the "load screens" (like the one in this very post) are a light mockery of movie marketing!

Oh sure, you could definitely make a Left 4 Dead movie starring Jason Statham, Rachel Nichols, Bruce Dern, and Chiwetel Ejiofor (my dream cast) ... but that doesn't mean you should. But since we all know it will happen eventually, I can't help but wonder who'd direct it. Vegas odds would give it to Paul W.S. Anderson, but I say give it to Ruben Fleischer. Yep, the guy who directed Zombieland. Or Peter Berg.

When you mention creepy soundtracks, people tend to think of movies. I understand why this happens--because a good soundtrack can make an average movie terrifying--but it's hardly the only place where a spooky bit of music can set the mood and freak out an audience. Gaming is still in its infancy as an artform (and we'll save the "are games art?" debate for another day...), but music in horror games is as vital to the overall experience as it is in horror films. Unfortunately, it rarely gets any kind of recognition from the masses.

With that idea in mind, I had the brilliant idea to come up with a list of the creepiest music from horror videogames. Like most of my ideas, it sounded really great when it occurred to me. How hard can it be to come up with ten or so scary tracks? I thought to myself. Like all projects I undertake, this one turned out to be way more work than I expected. There's a lot of horror game music out there, and I've spent the last week or so going through it track by track trying to find the best of the best. This is the fruit of my labor...

Jump past the break for the list.

I'm afraid to look at my account statistics for Left 4 Dead, the addicting FPS from all-around outstanding game wizards Valve. I'd love to know precisely how many thousands upon thousands of the undead horde I have mowed down or how many teammates I've accidentally (learn to duck, noobs!) popped a cap in since the game came out last fall, but frankly I don't want to see how much time I've actually spent playing the game. The number is, I have no doubt, colossal, and I'm not sure I'm ready to have my addiction quantified like that.

Which is a trepidation that will only get worse with the impending release of Left 4 Dead 2 on November 17th. I've intentionally been avoiding paying too much attention to it, secretly hoping that if I pretend it doesn't exist I won't once again turn into a withered husk that never sees the sunlight upon its release. But seeing as I am a permanently affixed to the Internet, that's been a bit of a problem. A few juicy pieces of info have slipped in, such as the New Orleans setting and the new ability to use melee weapons to plow through the horde.

However, when I saw a headline exclaiming a look at the "trailer" for the game, I caved and watched. Now I can already feel the itch to run down city streets tossing pipe bombs and Molotovs into huddled masses of brain munchers. The title calls it a trailer, but this looks like it might actually be the opening cinematic to the game; either way, it has me jonesin' for more L4D2 ASAP.

Check it out below.

E3 is to computer / console stuff what Comic-Con is to ... bad movies we won't get to see for three months. But if you're a big-time video game junkie, there's no better place to meander through than E3. (I've never attended, but it sure seems like a cross between Best Buy and a time machine!) For a ton of reports on all sorts of nifty new products, you can find the scoops on Joystiq or Engadget, but our good pal Peter Hall has broken the game previews down to the most important stuff: the horror games.

Just like horror flicks, the gaming biz is awash in impending sequels ... but since we're talking about titles like Bioshock 2, Dead Space: Extraction, and Left 4 Dead 2, well, I won't be complaining all that much. But of course there are a few non-sequel scare games that look pretty damn cool -- and you can find all the info at HorrorsNotDead.com. I'm still really curious about this Saw game ... and I'm always down for a fresh trip to Silent Hill!