Be Excellent To Each Other

And singing.

Excellent. However, I won't be around to kills zombies tonight. I'm going up to the city.
Also, I chucked a party invite your way last night. The party system's been a bit buggy/shit recently though so that could have been the problem

Cheers and thanks anyway Wullie.

I GOTS IT! I GOTS IT!

(Only had to trade MarioKart and bung £2 cash with my £2.06 credit note)

Can you not book the AV room for earlier tonight, Z?

I might be online late for zombie fun.

Good fun tonight, although I did feel like I was being hurried through the levels. I was itching to explore rooms and kept getting left behind...

Oh. I was about to come and play. Are you all packing up for the night?

Sorry, I started like that too. But I'm too scared to open doors now unless I have too. We can have a slower game next time if you fancy it. Me and MeLady have this whole 'LEFT ROOM CLEAR' 'RIGHT ROOM CLEAR' system going on.

Also I played it through on single player once so I could read all the graffiti and that.

But yeah, I had a great time. I really like the fact that the game takes about as long as a TV show. Thats A Good Thing.

I'm quite tired, but I could be persuaded to play some more. Depends if we have an Craster or an Zardoz, maybe.

And Lave: yes, I'd like a slow game at some point.

This is probably at least a little bit my fault. Once you've played versus a lot, you get into the mentality of rushing through as quickly as possible, so that the special infected have fewer re-spawns.

It's no one's fault; it's just goes with the territory when you're playing with experienced campaigners.

On second thoughts, I should really go to bed.

Where are you?!

An Craster couldn't get this today :0(

Not coming online. Too drained after the funeral. Anyone fancy a game on Sunday evening?

Not surprising

Don't think I can sunday, but as always if I'm about shoot me an invite.

Apart from Malabar, all I see here are girly, silly excuses.

Alright. I'll play again.

I'm available tonight and Sunday.

REALLY enjoyed it last night.

Sorry I turned up later than even I expected. Glad there are other sad bastards hardcore gamezorz to play with after midnight.

Up for more tonight, it will be late again though.

How late? 11 is fine for me, but if we're in the realms of 1am then it's getting to be a bit silly.

Favourite moment of the early shift: after taking some good advice and hiding on a rock in the sea at the end of Death Toll, we finally make a dash for the boat to find a Tank standing on the jetty, waiting for us.

Much hilarity ensued, followed by nearly all of us dying. Only one of us managed to make it to safety (not me).

I didn't realise Patton did the voices of the Infected.

I don't know how late yet Myps. What about your super awesome staying up power?

Not going to be about tonight or tomorrow.

Wanna shoot zombies with the bezzies

I have to stay fairly fresh for tomorrow as I have to cook and shizzle.

I don't mind playing at 1am, I just don't want to be starting then.

What do you think of it [L4D] then, Myp?

First impressions are that I do quite like it. I did feel like I was being rushed through the levels, and I had people telling me what was coming up next, so it wasn't as scary as it could've been.

I think I need to play with people who are less experienced to get the 'WTF' blind panic factor that everyone keeps talking about.

Fair do.

I'd highly recommend that.

You need to have your first few play-throughs with people who don't know the ropes, so you get the full effect of absolute panic, terror and confusion.

You start to get used to the sound clues, so you can remain pretty clued-up about what's around you. My ears have become pretty well-tuned to the Witch's crying now, for example, and I can tell the difference between an approaching tank and a horde of zombies.

What difficulty level were you on?

Normal.

Haz L4D.

I was getting plenty of "blind panic" moments on Normal from unpredictable AI-director lead stuff. "Hey, you guys! What you need now in this narrow corridor is a tank... and a boomer".

Yeah, there were some good moments. It didn't help that I was tired, though. I do really like it, I was just expecting more getting lost and stuff. I felt like I was being funnelled down an extremely set path.

Ah, well. I don't think you are ever going to get that. Left 4 Dead is an extremely pared down co-op shooter, and it's nothing else. No exploring, just an ever-changing dynamic tactical situation. I think the purity of vision at work here is admirable.

THe games you played with me were on easy myp. It's a lot more mental on normal. And I've never finished it on the one between Normal and Hardest. I recommend playing it through on single player. You get to explore and wander and the bots work well. Then drop into multiplayer afterwards.

As I said last night, it's the only game in a long time that entertains me when it is unfair. It's got the same mentality as AvP.

Was it really on Easy? That might explain things. It did feel like too much of a breeze...

Try expert, where you'll be lying on the floor after half a dozen hits from normal zombies

Question is, do we have enough for a Versus game tonight? I want to be the Tank.

Yeah, the two I played last night were both on easy. Defo.

I think I'm in Manchester for a night out, but if I'm not*, I'll certainly be up for a game or two.


*I have to work late today to make up for being off yesterday, so I may be too shattered to go out.

Hopefully. I'll try and get on as early as possible, try and stay awake my little prince.

I've got matchsticks and a dripbag full of coffee.

The 11pm-12pm game we played last night was on Easy, because I was hosting. I chose easy because it was initially only me and An Dimrill, but then we rapidly acquired two more people (buckskin -- a UGVMer I think? -- and Skeptobot) and it was too easy then. Normal is the difficulty sweet spot for me right now.

You can democratically change the difficulty mid-game, because it's awesome like that and Valve have thought of everything.

By getting Lave to shoot all cars, and having me not be too bothered by friendly fire.

I keep reading the thread title as 'Drop Dead Fred'.

*Blip*
Celebrity Fact: According to my twitter feed both Graham Linehan (writer of Father Ted/IT Crowd) and Peter Serafinowicz play left for dead. PC and 360 versions respectively.
*Blip*

Mmmm Pop Pop....... Pop Video.