The Left 4 Dead fan film we told you about is out now and it's completely insane.  It's called Left 4 Dead: Impulse 76 and it starts with three characters from the first Left 4 Dead - Zoey, Francis and Louis.  They only have to make it three blocks to their target...but as you know, those three blocks are the longest of their lives.  There's no downtime here as this video is all action.

So why is this video an homage to co-op gaming?  Just watch - there's no spoilers here.  I guarantee you'll be smiling, going WTF, and then smiling again around the 6 minute mark though.

Fan films are all the rage these days, but most can't seem to actually hold a visual candle to the source material.  While their hearts are usually in the right place, these films lack the financial backing to turn their creator's true vision into a reality.  That's what makes the Left 4 Dead fan film so unique - it's being created by several folks from Airsoft GI, manufacturers of Airsoft guns.  They also seem to have a few sponsors on board helping fill the coffers and creating something that looks like Left 4 Dead..

Here's a quick two minute teaser showing some of the Left 4 Dead survivors and setting the mood for the movie.  Can you spot all the in game references?  Warning: The video is slightly graphic.

Left 4 Dead did a lot of things very right. One of those things is creating a campaign of movie posters to represent each scenario the four survivors, Zoey, Bill, Frances and Lewis had to endure. The movie posters were also applied to DLC that came later, and the sequel - Left 4 Dead 2. Some of the original concept posters have surfaced for the original survivors, and some of the art or situations may look familiar.

This is a patch that's a long time coming, as it applies to the original Left 4 Dead on the Xbox 360.  For those that purchased the Sacrifice DLC for the game, they may have found that it not only erased the progress of some other achievements - namely the Zombie Genocidist - but that certain achievements were unobtainable like one called Sacrifizzle.  Thankfully, Valve have stood by their product and released a patch that fixes these glitches, restores the achievement progress for most people, and introduces a host of other tweaks and fixes.

The patch was actually released for the PC version back in October, so these fixes are already in place.

Microsoft's Xbox Live Gold deals this week are focused on zombies and that means plenty of co-op DLC and games for us to love.  Zombie Apocalypse, Dishwasher Dead Samurai, Borderlands DLC, and Left 4 Dead DLC are all discounted for your gaming pleasure.

	Normally	This Week	Savings
L4D Crash Course Add-on	560	240	57%
Zombie Apocalypse	800	400	50%
Dishwasher Dead Samurai	800	400	50%
Borderlands Zombie Island of Dr Ned	800	400	50%
L4D The Passing	560	240	57%

This deals are good until next Monday, the 17th.

When gamers look at a game, one of the things they may overlook is the basics of design - the game's mechanics. Though we notice the potential of how a great game is great, we may not know exactly why a great game works so well. A full analysis of the gameplay mechanics for Left 4 Dead by Full Sail grad student Paul Goodman and course director Adam Greenwood-Eriksen brings to the surface the key design elements. A comprehensive look from Left 4 Dead creators give a solid nod to Co-Op being key to the games success a bit closer to the surface.

A modder with too much time on his hands has lovingly created a Left 4 Dead Survival mode map that allows the Survivors to defend Helm's Deep - as seen in Peter Jackson's film The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

This map was actually created over a year ago, but has recently come to light via a YouTube video of some friends playing it. Complete from the outer wall to the Deep itself, the map is impressive in scale and even more so in detail. Keep reading to see the YouTube video, or go here to download the map itself.

And no, you can't actually blow the horn. Sorry.

The original Left 4 Dead is now available for the Mac via Steam, this follows news a few weeks ago that Left 4 Dead 2 was also on the platform.  The game is part of the Steam Play series, which means if you own it on one platform you own it on both.

To celebrate the launch, Valve has the four player co-op shooter on sale at 50% off.  That means it's only $10 out of your pocket to join up with friends to shoot some zombies in the face.  Not a bad deal.  An even better deal is the bundle of both Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 for only $15.  

A few days ago we brought you details and box art from the new Left 4 Dead DLC, The Sacrifice.  The original survivors return in this prequel to Left 4 Dead 2's The Passing, which was released earlier this year.  The trailer is out now, and it looks like The Sacrifice will be serious business indeed.

If you play Left 4 Dead or Left 4 Dead 2 on the PC, you probably know there's a pretty robust L4D modding community. The mods can be pretty hit or miss, depending on how invested the modders are, but I, myself, am loath to pass up a perfectly good opportunity to shoot, decapitate, and otherwise maim zombies in new environments for simply the price of my time spent downloading the mod. A highly-anticipated (it's been in the works for a long, long time) Left 4 Dead fan-made campaign has recently been released, entitled "I Hate Mountains." It sports five new maps containing a mansion, lakefront, lumberyard, and uh, we're assuming mountains through which Francis and company must trek. 

The first Left 4 Dead's DLC is on sale this week on Xbox Live for Gold Members.  Normally setting you back 560 , or about $7, the pack is on sale for 320 , or about $4.   The content includes a new single player campaign mission with two levels that takes place immediately following the No Mercy mission.

No doubt this sale is getting those folks ready for the new DLC for Left 4 Dead 2, called The Passing, which will feature the Left 4 Dead 1 survivors meeting up with those form Left 4 Dead 2.  We expect that package to hit on April 27th for the price of 560 .  Of course the content won't just be a new campaign, but much more.

Sometimes, glorious nostalgia merges with modern artistry, and awesomeness is the result.  Such is the case with the unofficial "de-make" of Left 4 Dead.  Named Pixel Force: Left 4 Dead, it's an 8-bit answer to the question, "What if Left 4 Dead was made in 1988?"  The official site for the game is down at the moment, no doubt due to the mad downloading frenzy of Left 4 Dead fans.  In the meantime, you can download Pixel Force: Left 4 Dead, with glorious two player couch co-op, right here.

Bill, Frances, Louis and Zoey have received a full retro-NES makeover, and we like it. Eric Ruth and PixelForce NES are responsible for this amazing "de-make" of Left 4 Dead. So far there is a full trailer out for the game, but by January 2010 Eric Ruth expects to have a full release of the pixelized Left 4 Dead on PC. If Left 4 Dead had been around in the 80's, this is what it would look like.
 

"It features all the campaigns from the original game, including 8-bit incarnations of the special infected, for two players to play through -- it is a NES game after all, fancy four-player wasn't standard."

If you have children, and are a gamer, you have probably run into some awkward situations.  There are some games that are perfectly acceptable for adults, and yet wildly inappropriate for children.  Some parents may disagree, and buy Grand Theft Auto for their first grader, but for most of us, there's a line between what's a "me" game, and what's a "kid" game.  This line varies from gamer family to gamer family, of course, and by child, as well.  For my youngest, who is eight, we have a higher tolerance of sci-fi violence (such as that in Halo's campaigns) than we do human on human violence (Call of Duty comes to mind).  Excessive realistic gore is a no-no (Left 4 Dead), but heavily stylized cartoon blood (Castle Crashers) is acceptable.  For our older son, fifteen, all the above games are probably OK, but I'd draw the line at games with strong sexual content or excessive language.  The point is, there are going to be some games on the shelf that your kids are not allowed to play.

This is a story about dads and sons, parenting a teenager, changing interests, and, of course, zombies.