I learned a long time ago to ignore anyone who hailed the death of the PC. Surely by now, the PCs detractors have learned that the PC as a gaming platform is never really dead, it just evolves.

Despite ample irrefutable evidence to the contrary, every year without fail someone wheels out the old chestnut: “The PC is dead.”

This year will be no different. In fact, MCV reported that PC boxed sales have declined a record amount over the course of last year. Going on old logic this would see to indicate that the old chestnut might just turn out to be true this time. However, anyone who would suggest that would be a fool.

PC gaming is seeing a definite shift away from physical product. There are several reasons for this and all of them are excellent reasons to become a PC gamer (if you haven’t already).

The first and most telling reason is the rise of digital downloads. With Steam leading the way, many seasoned PC gamers have made the switch from buying boxed discs to digital downloads. In fact, Steam has made PC games terrifyingly easy to purchase. Once your credit card details are stored on Valve’s servers, it takes just three clicks to buy a PC game; just a short wait for the game to download, and it is yours for life.

Coupled with the ridiculous ease of purchasing, Steam also has the lead on the crazy sales. They regularly slash titles sometimes as much as 80-90 percent, allowing canny Steam customers to make a killing on PC games. I myself purchased Torchlight (3.49 GBP), Left 4 Dead Game of the Year Edition and Red Faction Guerilla (both for 6.79 GBP) over the Christmas period and there was much more there for people to splash out on.

Daryl Still, 1C’s director of international sales, said to MCV that PC games sales would be predominantly digital by 2011.

This puts everything in the right perspective. Right now, games charts are only measured on retail sales alone. The PC sales may be on decline at retail but Steam and their competitors have yet to submit their sales figures to the likes of NPD and ChartTrack. This will start to change this year  in the UK as ChartTrack has struck a deal with some digital download services to integrate their PC sales figures into the UK charts. Steam, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo are still yet to agree to submit their figures but based on the success of ChartTrack’s initial trials then deals may be struck.

Digital downloads were the big theme of 2009 and it will interesting to see just how the addition of downloads will affect the UK games charts.

This is not the only area where the PC is changing and thriving. In fact the PC’s main strength currently is the MMO market. Obviously, World of Warcraft is huge and continually expanding but other MMOs are catching up. China is a massive market for MMO games and EA Sports announced earlier this year betas of Tiger Woods Online and FIFA Online 2 to be tested there. NCSoft’s Aion launched very successfully in the Far East and the West this year, yet again showing the strength of the PC as a worldwide games platform.

Sneaking in quietly are the free-to-play browser based games. Bigpoint, OGPlanet and the very stealthy Runescape developers Jagex are all seeing amazing volumes of players. Jagex are especially surprising as they refuse, point blank, to engage in marketing. Runescape in particular is still going strong almost into its tenth year making the Cambridge-based developer/publisher extremely happy.

Yet again, the PC has the chops to silence the critics and does it without the pomp and ceremony associated with the soap-operatic console market.

The PC has been around for a long time. It has seen off the PlayStation and PlayStation 2, the NES and Super NES. It has pre-empted the online gaming revolution with DOOM, 3D gaming with Quake, and has constantly been the hardware benchmark that the consoles continually aspire to.

Retail sales are down. Who cares? The PC is still going strong and don’t let anyone say different.

In an episode that either proves my five-year-old son is really awesome, or that I should have Child Protective Services called on me, he and I had a lengthy conversation about his favorite Infected in Left4Dead 2. To clarify, he doesn’t have a favorite zombie because he watches me play. He has a favorite because he kicks ass at Left4Dead 2. I’m not saying that he’s good enough to jump online and help his teammates, though that would be amazing, but he and my other two sons – his older brothers (7 and 8) – can make it through all of the campaigns. Here’s the gist of the conversation:

Nathan: Dad, I ran from the Witch and she didn’t kill me.
Me: What the heck are you talking about?
Nathan: The Witch didn’t kill me and I ran and the Charger hit me.
Me: Oh, you’re talking about the zombie game. Did you kill the Witch?
Nathan: Yep. And she didn’t kill me.
Me: Awesome buddy, is the Witch your favorite zombie
Nathan: Yep, and the Spitter. She never hits me with her spit.

The conversation went on for a few more minutes with him exclaiming his excitement over not dying by various zombies. I’m sure that some of you are appalled by the fact that my five year old plays Left4Dead. I think I might be a bit appalled too. I understand the idea of censoring content for younger people. I understand the impressionable mind. I also understand teaching my child the idea of real and fake, and you know what, he actually understands it. He understands that zombies are not real (I’m screwed if the zombie apocalypse actually happens). We’ve even taught our children that Santa is a made up persona who represents the spirit of Christmas.  We have no desire to take the magic and creativity out of childhood. In clear issues, we stress what is real and not real, but we do leave room for grey areas and wonderment. Hacking zombies in a video game – not real; People starving in our own city and needing our help – real; People being healed of diseases by supernatural means – wonderment.

Anyhow, I thought it was awesome that not only could my son converse with me about Left4Dead, but that he also shows signs of following in his dad’s gaming footsteps. I think I am more excited about going with him on his 17^th birthday to watch him purchase his first M-rated game than I am to buy him his first beer at 21. Wow, now my nerd is showing.

In case you may not have noticed, games have slowly been moving towards being services rather than stand alone products. New releases, from the biggest blockbuster to the lowliest PSN of Xbox Live Arcade game, are now frowned upon if they don’t include some sort of internet-based shenanigans either through online multiplayer, or even just simple leaderboards to compare your scores with your mates.

World of Warcraft and Runescape are the most obvious examples of games that are services. In fact everything from Modern Warfare 2 to Shadox Complex has some sort of online service incorporated into them.

“Service is becoming everything,” underlined Valve’s Jason Holtman during his Montreal International Game Summit keynote. “It’s going to impact every line of business and every line as you think about your game.”

Of course Steam is the perfect example of games delivered as services. They boast 20 million users worldwide and a catalogue of 950 games, all of which are automatically updated when Steam is running on your PC.

These include titles like Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead, both of which have been constantly updated since they launched. Team Fortress 2 alone has seen 97 updates that include new content as well as patches and fixes, and all provided for free.

“The direct customer relationship means now that you shouldn’t think of your product as ‘finished’ — a single piece that goes out monolithically. You should think of your product or the game you’re making as an ongoing service to your customer,” Holtman adds.

Of course, the services that Steam provides to its customers are also provided in a lesser fashion across the major consoles with updates downloaded automatically when they are available.

LittleBigPlanet is another fine example of how a game has grown into a service, with the community now topping 1.3 million user-generated levels. Over the year since its release, Media Molecule has been just as busy keeping the game up-to-date and running smoothly as they were developing it having now patched it 25 times. Paul Holden, lead architect behind the game, believes in the the importance of good community support.

“We realised pretty quickly how important it is to ensure the quality of the releases and the patches,” he said in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz at MIGS. “It’s surprising that even fairly small changes that we’ve made have had large impacts on the community.”

Community maintenance is key to LittleBigPlanet’s continued success. Holden continues, “By releasing regular content we keep people interested. Once we release a big pack we can see a big uptake in the number of people playing. If you look at companies like Blizzard with StarCraft, or Bungie and Valve, they look after their communities by releasing regular content and updates, and in turn the community responds well to that kind of attention.”

He adds, “The next patch to go out is 1.21 which should have a whole bunch of new features that have been in the pipeline for some time. And then there’s more planned for well into next year. Sony’s been very keen for us to support the game ourselves. A lot of publishers are keen to move on once a game has been released and patched but Sony has been very keen to give us the resources we need to support the game in this way.”

In an industry still dominated by monolithic blockbuster titles and analysts claiming that marketing sells games more than quality does it is refreshing to see that there are some big names ready to stick their necks out and say that it’s the players and communities that games build that are important and that quality really does matter.

Amen to that.

Thanks to Gamasutra and GamesIndustry.biz.

Not taking into account last week, where Modern Warfare 2 had the biggest launch in entertainment history, this week has perhaps the most robust release lineup in recent memory. Good thing Modern Warfare 2 was so short… Three huge games are coming out this week, all of which are must buys. The New Super Mario Brothers Wii features classic Mario side scrolling action with up to four players. For those who prefer the more mature titles, Assassin’s Creed 2 brings stealth action in to Renaissance era Italy, on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Both are guaranteed to be great games, but they lose out this week to a horde of zombies.

Left 4 Dead 2 is the latest release from Valve and has potential to be their biggest. Pre-orders are four times that of the original installment and Executives within Valve expect this to be the fastest selling game in the company’s history. This prediction comes with good reason too. Left 4 Dead, which has only been around for a year, has already established a booming community of team based zombie killers. The sequel is set to contain more special zombies, more zombie killing tools and five more campaigns. Plus, don’t forget the horde full of DLC is also expected to follow this already bustling game.

Stopping an invading Russian army has its appeal, but nothing is like mowing down an oncoming horde of the mindless undead. It’s probably a safe bet to say that there are no cooperative games that will be quite as fun, or as intense, as Left 4 Dead 2. This is definitely a must buy this Holiday season.

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Join host Ewan Aiton in this SIXTH episode of our highly rated and anticipated podcast, Double Jump. This week, week three of our birthday celebration month, listen as

• Blake Grundman and Ross Polly debate the Left 4 Dead 2 boycot.
• The GRE crew talk about resurrecting their favorite games series of old.
• And I flashback through the ten greatest gaming moments of all time.  BE WARNED though there are some serious spoilers in here.

As usual, we love your comments and feedback, so feel free to drop us a line below, call the DoubleJump Voicemail at 646-402-5688 x 50223, or email us at doublejump@gamesareevil.com.

Music by Pterodactyl Squad

Like Portal? Wanna play it at work?  Well I have the game for you. This week’s Dammit Game of Week is Portal: The Flash Version.

Personally, I hate puzzle games.  Which is weird, because every study about female gamers tells me I should LOVE them. Guess we can’t always trust those, now can we?  By the way, I hate Portal.  Yes, go ahead, tell me I’m crazy.  I know I’m crazy.  Why else would I be doing this?   But I know there are a lot of you out there that like spending time with Aperture Science,  so I figured I’d share this with you.

The game was created by two Valve fanboys over at WeCreateStuff.com. Here’s what they have to say about it.

Portal: The Flash Version started as a Flash project by Hen Mazolski and Ido Tal, back when Valve first announced about their exciting new game. We define ourselves as definite Valve fanboys, and we just couldn’t wait to play the game. We decided to make our own version of it ourselves, just for us, as a side project. Little did we know, it turned out to be a very fun game to play even in 2D, and after some pressure from our close friends, we decided to send it out to the world. This is the result.

Unlike the other games I’ve led you to so far, these controls are a little more complicated.

Left mouse button – launch a portal.
A W D – movement
Q – launch a blue portal.
E – launch a yellow portal.
R – Close both portals.
F – pick up an object.
~ – open up console (enable through the options)
O – quick quality adjust.
Esc/P – pause game.

You have over 40 challenging levels to tackle with energy balls, cubes, turrets, and even the crusher.  Be prepared to be frustrated, but maybe this time you’ll get cake. Mmmm… cake…

To get a bigger version, please click here.
And BTW

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With all the Free content going around and now the announcement of a $50,000 donation from Harmonix and MTV, it’s got me wondering.. Is the economy starting to turn around? *Knocks on wood* At any rate, we’re here to see the benefit of all of this great content and so much more. Oh and by the way, subscribe to our madness!

Links to Topics Discussed:

1. Quake Live Goes Live Next Week!

2. Where Did Ensemble Studios Go?

3. Harmonix / MTV Donate $50k.. Even Though They’re Broke!

4. Valve Sees 3000% Increase In L4D Sales.. Holy Crap!

5. Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Risisn: EGO, Screens, Facts

6. FREE Titan Pack: Unreal Tournament 3

7. Mirror’s Edge Map Pack With FREE PS3 Map

8. Skate 2: Dyrdek’s Fantasy

9. What the hell is SXSW And What Part is Free?

10. Sacred 2 PS3 Screens FTW!

Open To The Public:

• What are you going to be playing this weekend?

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• Blake Grundman – Wii Editor
• Cory Appleton – PS3 Editor

Special Thanks:

• Rob LeFebvre for our kick ass music!
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Related stuff to check out:

• PODCAST: EvilCast NewsBrief, Episode #14
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• PODCAST: EvilCast NewsBrief, Episode #16

Still on the fence about whether to shoot some zombies in the face in the best co-op game of 2008? Well now you really have no excuse!

Steam, presumably in a drunken stupor, have come up with a real gem for this week’s Weekend Deal. You can now gun-butt your way through hordes of un-Resident Evilly fast “infected” whilst screaming “Boomer!” at your Steam friends list for half the price. We would suggest you buy this game at full price, so if you don’t get it at half price, I’ll personally have to come round to your dwelling and limp-wristedly slap you about your chops.

To buy or not to buy? This week, there’s no question!

Researchers at Durham University have modified a video game and turned it into a fire drill simulator.

The team used The Source Engine, the 3D game engine used to drive Half-Life 2, and created a virtual model of one of the university’s departments.

I have to say that this is one of the more unexpected uses of the Source Engine, but I love the idea. This is just modding taken to another level, but it shows the real-world implications of the culture surrounding video games on a sensible level. Granted, it won’t have the progression of the fire down perfectly, but all they have to go is learn the FarCry 2 engine, and they’ll be sorted.

“If a door was on fire, they [gamers] would try and run through it, rather than look for a different exit,” said Dr Smith

Non-gamers treated it as a more serious exercise.

Well come on, we’ve all played Splinter Cell’s first level, give us a break. ;]

Source: BBC Technology News

EDIT FROM AUTHOR: Just as a note, I tipped our own article to Kotaku, hoping that it would bring us more readers and bolster the community with more members. It turns out that they just took the link I sourced it from, and claimed it as their own find, as can be seen HERE. So, for posterity, this was the original article that was given to Kotaku, they just refused to credit us.

Release: Nov 17 2008 (US), Nov 21 2008 (UK)
Developer: Valve
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Genre: First-Person shooter

What makes Left 4 Dead so special is that it knows exactly what it’s trying to accomplish and goes after it one hundred percent, ditching anything that doesn’t add to the core gameplay experience. The result is a game that oozes action, excitement and pure fun with none of the baggage that often taints titles with a similar goal. Forget what you think you know about survival horror because Valve have thrown the rulebook out the window and started afresh; Resident Evil this is certainly not.

Joined at the hip

You play as one of four survivors trying to escape a horde of zombies that were once your fellow citizens. Split into four self contained campaigns, each lasting sixty to ninety minutes on normal difficulty, it’s your task (as a team) to make your way to the extraction point alive. The game thrives on co-operation. We’re sure the bulk of you have played ‘co-op games’ in the past, but what we’ve got here is something on a whole other level. If you don’t work as a team you’ll not survive, it’s as simple as that. While you can play in single player mode (with A.I. taking control of your three fellow survivors), the game is more enjoyable, and unpredictable, when played with other ‘real-lifers’.

Sticking together and not hanging around is the key to success. If one of your team-mates gets pinned down by a pack of crazed zombies then they’ll need you to pick them up – and possibly patch them up with that health pack you’ve been saving for yourself. You might be thinking that you’d just let them die instead, well that would be a mistake as you need the combined firepower of all four of you if you hope to escape with life intact. It’s this type of situation that demands you stick together; you’re as reliant on each other for help as much as you rely on yourself. Try not to stay too close though as you can inflict friendly fire damage on your friends.

The zombie hordes (known as ‘The Infected’) you encounter aren’t your typical super-slow-motion kind of undead, these are high horse powered monsters that will rush at you with an alarming turn of speed, giving you minimal time to read and react to the situation. At any given moment, in what was once a deserted street, you can find yourself the point of interest for countless numbers of enemies approaching from all sides; another reason sticking together is so vital for success.

Aside from your regular every day ‘Common Infected’, you’ll also have to contend with a number of ‘Special Infected’. This handsome group are altogether more dangerous than their common brothers and sisters and, unlike the common infected, present a considered danger indiviually. Made up of Boomers (grossly overweight fiends that spit vomit over you, attracting hordes of infected), Hunters (agile little guys that pin you to the floor and savagely claw at your flesh), Smokers (use their long tongues to hoist you in and constrict you), Witches (tough little ‘ladies’ that do serious damage with their nails) and Tanks (the behemoth of the bunch who hurls chunks of concrete your way or simply flings you through the air). It’s this group of characters that unleash the real chaos, as you may be happily fighting a small wave of zombies one minute only to realise your team-mates have been pinned by a hunter, or caught by a smoker, and it falls to you to fight your way towards them and free them before it’s too late.

It’s the director’s show

While the game only contains four campaign maps (more would have been very welcome) the experience is different each time you play through, thanks to the ‘A.I. Director’. This system, built into the game (it’s not an actual person), dynamical decides on the placement, and frequency, of enemies, weapons, ammo and health packs throughout the level. For example, it may decide that you’ve been performing a little to well for its tastes and so removes the weapons from a spot you could pick them up in a previous play through, or it may take a dislike to the way that you’ve stayed in one area for so long and send a pack of Infected your way to give you a lesson on loitering. It’s a brilliant concept that works perfectly, giving each session an unpredictable, exciting edge.

As well as the campaign, you have the option of going at it in versus mode. However, this is not your typical death match/capture the flag/king of the hill etc. Essentially versus takes the same form as campaign, only this time one team controls the survivors and one the infected with the roles reversing after each of the campaign’s five chapters. The team controlling the infected spawn as a Boomer, Hunter or Smoker and it’s their job to deal as much harm (preferably death) unto the survivors as possible. If you happen to get killed by a survivor you’ll need to wait until the respawn counter reaches zero before reappearing as a another – randomly selected – Infected. There’s a case to be made for it being even more fun playing as the Infected then as a survivor; the satisfaction of successfully ‘Booming’ someone with vomit and watching as the horde descends on them is hard to match in any of today’s videogames. At times you could even be lucky enough to spawn as the dreaded Tank himself (or herself, it’s difficult to tell), which will usually result in some serious carnage of your own design.

That’s a nasty burn

Presentation is great too, both in the visuals and audio. The environments are nicely varied over the four campaigns and the Infected are suitably hideous and disgusting by design. Fire effects are particularly nice; especially after a well aimed Molotov hits its target of unsuspecting zombies. Audio is well prodcued with the required screams and howls from the Infected coupled with excellent, and humorous, voice acting from the four survivors.

If there is anything that is going to stop you picking this game up it’ll be that some may find the gameplay a little repetitive, in that you’re basically doing the same thing throughout each of the campaigns. However, the A.I. Director, and the fact that playing with different people changes the experience dramatically, keeps the game alive long after you’ve beaten it once through. That being said, it would still have been nice to have more environments to explore; we’re keeping our fingers crossed that some sort of DLC in that form will soon appear on the horizon.

An engrossing, exciting and, above all, fun experience that takes the term ‘co-op’ to new heights. Left 4 Dead has thrown the survival horror rulebook out of the window and injected a much needed jolt of life, and degree of originality, into the genre. Some may feel a little cheated at the short campaign length but the dynamic difficulty settings, and an emphasis on team-work, should keep you coming back for more long after your first play through. Plus, how many other games give you option of actually playing as the zombies!?