Left 4 Dead 2 demo launched.

Wednesday 4th November 2009 - 17:00


Hotly anticipated arrival for zombie shooter plus Microsoft announces 'revised rollout' for Sky service and Fast Food Panic Wii screens



Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Half-Life and Counter-Strike) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced the availability of the Left 4 Dead 2 demo to all PC gamers and all Xbox Live Gold Members

The Left 4 Dead 2 demo features gameplay taken from "The Parish" campaign, set in the New Orleans French Quarter. Playable by 1 to 4 players over local or Internet connections on both the Xbox 360 and PC (with two-player split screen available on the Xbox 360), the demo features all the new boss infected zombies and many of the new melee weapons included in the full product.

Valve hopes that L4D2 sets a new benchmark for co-operative action games. Set for release on November 17, the title adds melee combat to enable deeper co-operative gameplay, with items such as a chainsaws, axes, baseball bats and frying pans!

Meanwhile, Microsoft has started what it is calling a 'revised roll-out' of the much hyped Sky TV service. As regular readers will remember, the new TV via Xbox function was supposed to have been launched last month but the unexpected upsurge in network traffic crashed the service almost instantly.

Speaking on an official forum the company stated: "We have been experiencing some technical issues with the Sky Player on Xbox 360 since launch last Tuesday morning. It is important to both Sky and Xbox that we give customers as much information as possible about why the service is not working and when we expect this to be resolved.

"As we said last week, some customers have been unable to experience full use of the service due to the initial demand for the service at launch, when so many people tried to access the service all at the same time. Right now we are implementing a revised rollout which will see Sky Player become available to all Xbox 360 customers gradually. While unfortunately some customers do not have access to the service, tens of thousands more will be added each day, until the service is available to all."

So for any fans of Premiership football via Xbox live - patience is very much a virtue.

We round off with some brand new screens of Fast Food Panic, forthcoming on Wii. The puzzle-based restaurant simulator will have you cooking to order, seating customers, clearing tables and making sure nothing gets burnt. Sounds a little bit like hard work to us! The release date has yet to be confirmed.