Our Contest Winners, and L4D2's New Special Infected

November 16, 2009 - L4D Team

The "Dude, Where's My Thumb?" contest is officially closed. Congratulations to contest winner Roland Nagy, who just won himself an extremely limited edition (i.e. one) customized "infected" Xbox 360 for his entry below:



Sure, it's photoshopped. But with the level of detail and originality of its premise, it was awesome enough that it wins anyway.

25 runners-up will be getting signed copies of Left 4 Dead 2 for their entries. Below are some of our favorites.

This entry comes to us from Isaac. We liked how happy this Hunter seems to be with himself. Everything's gonna be okay!



This entry comes from Alec Benjamin Miller. It was probably our favorite among the non-photoshopped entries, and one of the few entries we got that incorporated the Jockey. (We hope that's the Jockey, anyway. Otherwise we have no way to explain what's happening in this photo.)



This entry comes to us from Luca Calabrese, sporting the best Bill costume we've ever seen. He grimaces just like Bill. He wears a beret just like Bill. He even has a fake beard, just like bald old completely hairless Bill.



Last Friday we posted character pages for Ellis, Coach, Nick and Rochelle. Today Left 4 Dead 2's new Special Infected get their turn: The Spitter, the Charger, and the Jockey.

A Slight Clarification...

November 13, 2009 - L4D Team

Due to an ongoing debate in the office and online as to whether "12 AM" means noon or midnight (we're still sticking with midnight), it's been more challenging than we realized to tell people when exactly our game will be available. Factor in the Earth rotating around the sun, daylight savings time, some of our fans insisting on using the Mayan calendar, and we're just going to try and make this as specific as possible:

When L4D2 will go live:

• Monday, November 16th, 9:00 PM Pacific Standard Time
• Monday, November 16th, 10:00 PM Mountain Standard Time
• Monday, November 16th, 11:00 PM Central Standard Time
• Tuesday, November 17th, 12:00 AM (midnight) Eastern Standard Time
• Tuesday, November 17th, 5:00 AM Greenwich Mean Time
• Tuesday, November 17th, 8:00 AM Moscow Time
• Tuesday, November 17th, 2:00 PM Japan Standard Time

Also, if you were interested in learning a bit more about the Survivors you'll be playing as this Tuesday(ish), check out our Survivor pages for Nick, Ellis, Coach and Rochelle with character, weapon and item details.

Get Free Wallpaper, Turn Yourself into a Zombie, and Win an Xbox

November 12, 2009 - L4D Team

During the production of a game, a lot of concept art gets drawn up, redrawn, thrown away, cursed at, and, occasionally, even used. There's a mountain of this stuff fluttering around the Valve offices, and while the non-artists among us might not know much (anything) about art, we hope we're not embarrassing our artists by saying it looks pretty kickass. So we grabbed some of it off the nearest pile and made it into desktop wallpaper:



And we lest we forget our hard-working animators and modelers, Here's some high-res screengrab wallpaper from the game's intro, too:



If you're looking at all these wallpapers and thinking, "These are okay, but they're not as good as the desktop wallpaper I have up now of my own face," have we got news for you. You can plug that picture into GameStop's "Leave Yourself 4 Dead" Online Zombifier and see what you'd look like as a ravenous, kill-crazy zombie. (Admit it, you're curious.)

Lastly, if you haven't already entered our "Dude, Where's My Thumb?" contest, remember that it closes Monday, so get creative this weekend and win a copy of the game or even a new Xbox!

L4D2's "Dude, Where's My Thumb 2" Contest

November 10, 2009 - L4D Team

For our Left 4 Dead 1 contest giveaway, we gave all you gamers a simple proposition: take a picture of yourself or a friend doing something creative in front of a L4D ad. We were blown away by the inventiveness, humor, and photoshop mastery of some of the replies.

With Left 4 Dead 2's November 17th release date almost upon us, that means the return of the "Dude, Where's My Thumb" contest, and another chance to be inventive and win awesome prizes. Like last year's contest, gamers are challenged to take a funny, interesting, scary or otherwise unique photograph of you or a friend in front of one of L4D2's outdoor media placements (buses, billboards, etc.). You could win a limited edition "infected" Xbox 360-hand-painted, laser engraved and custom designed to celebrate the release of Left 4 Dead 2.

Go to the official contest page for complete details and to submit your photo.

Also, if you haven't played the demo yet, you still can! Get it on Steam or through the Xbox LIVE Marketplace!

Left 4 Dead 2's G4TV Interviews

November 5, 2009 - L4D Team

X-Play's Abbie Heppe dropped by the Valve offices recently for some one-on-one interviews with the Left 4 Dead 2 team. The result was a series of very cool interviews currently up on G4TV that shed a little light on everything from the new modes to the design decisions made in taking the Left 4 Dead franchise to the next step in its evolution.

Chet Faliszek explains L4D2's Realism Mode


Kerry Davis Walks Through L4D2's Scavenge and Survival Modes


Dario Casali talks L4D2 level design