Digital City Podcast

For some time now I've only been a two-console owner, the PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Wii. I received a lot of flack from co-workers and friends for not having an Xbox 360 and was even referred to as a "Sony fanboy."

Then Valve released Left 4 Dead and a group of us from the office downloaded the demo and had a little PC LAN party. From that moment I knew I had to add that game to my library; however, it was only available for the PC and Xbox 360. I was never a big PC gamer. So that left me only one option: get my hands on an Xbox 360. As fate would have it, I got one for my birthday.

I purchased Left 4 Dead. And played the hell out it; most of my friends list is compiled of people I met during online play (only the ones who healed me, and didn't leave me behind).

After a week of play and finally surviving all the campaigns, I wanted more. For some time now we've heard about an update coming as early as March or April that would bring some new life to this living dead shooter. But Thursday, IGN did a hands-on with the developers of Left 4 Dead, learned a few tricks, and posted actual game play video. First is "Survival Mode," and it's just that: the game will throw hordes and hordes of zombies at you until you die. Before the unending assault begins, players will have time to collect health kits, weapons, gasoline tanks, and other items. There's no time limit for this; the timer doesn't start until someone hits the button. Once that's done, be ready for a furious zombie onslaught.

According to IGN, "there are all sorts of personal records you can accumulate. The most obvious one is trying to get a best time for each of the 16 Survival levels in the game. There are extra incentives as well. You can earn bronze, silver, and gold medals if you survive long enough. Though the medal times for each map will be tailored for each map, right now the basic idea is that you need to survive for at least 4 minutes to get bronze, 6 minutes to get silver, and 8 minutes to get gold. Of course, online leaderboards will also let you compare your times with those of our friends for bragging rights." (In our play session, the best we ever got was within a minute of earning silver.)

The other new addition is a Versus mode for both the Death Toll and the Dead Air campaign. This allows two teams to take turns playing the survivors or zombies, in an-all out "who's the best" competition. When Left 4 Dead originally shipped, only two of its campaigns were playable in Versus mode. The upcoming update will be free for the Xbox 360 and PC,and expanding the killing fess with the addition of Death Toll and Dead Air to versus mode.

Left 4 Dead screenshots

The news seems to be getting better and better for the PlayStation 3 in terms of game titles in 2009. Possibly joining the list of games is the popular Xbox/PC zombie shooter Left 4 Dead.

EA is known for releasing game titles on multiple platforms; however, some would say that this is just wishful thinking. With that being said, you make the call. HMV has a link where you can preorder for a June 5, 2009 release.

Whether this is fact or fiction remains to be seen. I guess we will just have to wait until June to find out.

On this week's installment of the Digital City, it's the post-Black-Friday special, where we discuss the latest economic woes, our holiday wish lists, Black Friday vs. Cyber Monday, the new MTA text alert system, and Blockbuster's lastest idea--a set-top streaming movie box.

Our ongoing conversation about technology and urban spaces continues, with longtime CNET editor Matt Elliott joining us to discuss slumping e-commerce sales, the new high-tech Yankee Stadium, and competing plans for adding GPS and Wi-Fi to mass transit systems.