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X-Play's Abbie Heppe recently got to visit Valve Software to get her hands-on Left 4 Dead 2, bringing you some amazing interviews and gameplay walkthroughs. While she was there, she also got a guided tour of Valve's offices from Left 4 Dead 2 writer Chet Faliszek. She was kind enough to bring a camera crew so you could go on your own little virtual tour of the offices.

Won't you go on that virtual tour with me?

As every gamer patiently waits for the chance to play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 as we rapidly approach its release date next Tuesday, I'll actually be taking the time to catch up on some games that have slipped through the cracks so far. After wrapping up Brutal Legend last night (thought I do want to dive back in and find all the guitar solos eventually), I'm moving on to Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony. With any luck, I'll manage to see that adventure to the end on Sunday.

That's just me, though. What are you playing this weekend?

Call this an Afternoon Hangover after a Friday beer lunch (man, I miss those)...

Obviously this is spurred by Modern Warfare 2's release next week, but it's a question applicable to any game with multiplayer. When you boot up a new game for the first time, what takes priority...playing through the story, or hopping online and getting a jump on your stats?

Personally, I can't do anything multiplayer until I play through a significant portion of the single-player campaign. This is for a couple of reasons:

• I'm a little sensitive when it comes to story spoilers, even in bad games. (And bad movies, and bad books, and bad TV...)  Better to get through the experience myself before co-workers casually mention that character/event/location either died/happened/exploded. I've heard enough chatter about MW2 already, and the game's not even out yet.
• I need to get familiar with the basic control scheme of a game before I embarass myself in the public arena. Movement speed, aiming sensitivity, weapon familiarity...I need to know the particulars of all of these things so I can properly blame them for finishing second-to-last in the round.
• I always forget to recharge my headset, so I need a few hours alone anyway.

So this Tuesday...perks or plot? Render thine opinions!

When I met with OneBigGame charity co-founder Martin de Ronde, formerly of Guerrilla Games, the last project I expected him to announce was an adventure game based on Minesweeper.

Yes, Minesweeper, the point 'n click freeware game bundled with your copy of Windows.

Minesweeper is currently in development at Revolution Software by adventure mastermind Charles Cecil, who previously developed the Broken Sword series and collaborated with Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons on Beneath A Steel Sky (recently released on iPhone).

"He's [Cecil] come up with a back story for as to why the mines are there, he's come up with characters," laughed de Ronde. "It's turning out to be a really, really cool game in terms of mechanics and also in terms of the setting and the universe..."

Who knows how this will turn out, but the concept alone is insane enough for me to sign up.

It's time once again for our weekly round-up of downloadable content for all of your favorite music games. The first thing you'll probably notice about this week's list is that it's noticeably light. Rock Band fans are the big winners this week with track packs from the Foo Fighters and Nirvana, and a track from Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. Rock Band Unplugged users can go mobile with a track each from Bullet for My Valentine and System of a Down, while Lips belts out songs from Bananarama, Juice Newton and The Supremes.

No new releases

Click through to see new tracks for Rock Band, Rock Band Unplugged, SingStar and Lips.

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Rockers and/or rollers get ready: The White Stripes are headed to Rock Band and Rock Band 2 next week.

The duo, known for primitive drum lines, fuzzed out blues riffs and its lack of a bass player, is dropping the following tracks on listeners/gamers:

• Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground
• Girl, You Have No Faith in Medicine
• Icky Thump

For (slightly) more traditional music, there's also The Damned (goth-punks from before you were born) bringing their song "Smash It Up (Part II)" to the games and Kasabian is offering "Club Foot" as well. The tracks will be available on the Xbox 360 and Wii  on November 10 and the PlayStation 3 on November 12.

I'm going to download The White Stripes' tracks because I'm curious how Rock Band can possibly make them fun. While Jack White is an interesting guitarist and a great songwriter, Meg White's drumming is among the simplest ever recorded, and there is no bass... so how's it all going to work? In other words, how do you take music made by two artists and make it fun for four fans to play?

I like The White Stripes, but a lot of people don't. They tend to polarize. For example, The White Stripes opened for G4 producer Frank Meyer's band The Streetwalkin' Cheetahs back in the day. This was before The Stripes "sold out," when they were playing at the height of their indie glory, and Frank says he was "not impressed." What do you think? Are you a Stripes fan?

Gearbox Software head Randy Pitchford has a long history with the folks at Valve, which is probably why he’s able to speak with just candor when it comes to what he believes are serious missteps on behalf of the acclaimed developer.

Coming off a series of comments criticizing Valve over their digital delivery platform Steam, Pitchford recently told the UK gaming publication OPM that Valve’s avoidance of PlayStation 3 support bears similarities to the kinds of “childish and narrow minded” attitudes that fanboys are famously known for having for or against a particular console, AnalogHype (via Develop) reports.

"I noticed something on the net not too long ago. Doug Lombardi (Valve's VP Marketing) had to take a swipe at the PS3 again, and I thought it was foolish. I read it the same way I read fanboys. Like there's a guy who brought the Sony platform and he's a Sony guy, so he decides he's going to spend a certain percentage of his time bashing Microsoft. And there's a guy on Microsoft doing the same thing,” Pitchford explained.

As for his own stance on the PS3, Pitchford said, “The PS3 is awesome. I think Valve...I don't know why they are doing that. It's weird. But yeah, the PlayStation platform's really cool. It's different to others and it's certainly a challenge to be able to develop software for. But that's where the fun is, right?"

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I stopped playing Madden after I left the confines of college housing, as I was no longer forced to provide human competition to my addicted roommates. And even then, using the term "competition" was a stretch. Even though I love watching the sport and I know how the game works, the deeper strategy of football play-calling has always eluded me, which is why I was one of those guys who always called a fake punt on 4th and 12. It usually didn't take longer than halftime for me to be excused back to my room and Unreal Tournament. I bring this up because I had to endure last Sunday's Packers/Vikings rematch, and watching Aaron Rodgers (whom I still kind of believe in, kind of) go down sack-after-sack reminded me of my own struggles on the gridiron. Slamming my fists repeatedly on the table wasn't a show of frustration, no…it was me frantically pressing the A button to get him to throw the damn ball already. I mean, how could he not see that Driver was wide open? What camera angle is he playing with?! And shame on Mike McCarthy for not attempting a 73-yard field goal. You can't win if you don't score.

In that spirit, let's get started with this week's Reply to All, which has absolutely nothing to do with the story I just told.

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Sex in video games has become much more prevalent (especially in BioWare games). I've been reading reviews for Dragon Age: Origins and most of them mention awkward sex scenes, which I felt was awkward in Mass Effect. My question, I guess, would be do you feel sex in video games really contributes to the story telling aspect of the game or is it just there to bring about some notoriety or attention to the game? -- usemeup

How much or to what effect a sex scene contributes to a story, regardless of the medium, is entirely dependent on the skill of the writers, directors, and actors involved. If done properly, it can contribute quite a lot...the ultimate expression of human love is indeed a powerful thing, but its meaning and impact is heavily dependent on the relationship of the participants. That's why it's much more challenging to get right in video games, where action frequently trumps meaningful character development, and it can easily come across as awkward or done simply for the shock value.

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The first Resident Evil was a landmark game for a multitude of reasons, chief among them was that it got a new generation of young people to finally start taking the possibility of a zombie outbreak seriously. With each successive game in the series, we learned more and more about what to do: how to heal ourselves in the case of a bite, what the proper zombie combat attire is, how to navigate through complex building layouts, and how to avoid eccentric rich families...the list goes on. All of this is highly practical information that will...aw, screw it. Resident Evil is RIDICULOUS. Here are Five Reasons Why.

Number Five:  Herbal Essence

Video game healing mechanisms are easy targets for us practitioners of logic, as serious medical emergencies require treatments above and beyond gourmet mushrooms, hiker-level first aid kits, and simply "walking off" multiple gunshot wounds. In almost all cases, we accept the "it's just a game" argument and enjoy ourselves. Resident Evil's herb system, iconic as it has become, deserves a spot in the upper echelon of gaming quackery.

Defined no further than "green herb" and "red herb," these little miracle plants are responsible for keeping you alive during a zombie outbreak. But is there real science to it? The Internet site eMedicinal.com believes there might be, offering herbal remedies for the following undead-related conditions:

•     Skin Troubles, Acne, Eczema, and Bad Complexion
•     For Dropsy (swelling of soft tissue as a result of pooling fluid from maintaining an upright position)
•     To Calm Nerves
•     Prevention of Nightmares
•     Carinative (relief of gas and bloat)

Missing from this list are "profuse bleeding from the leg" and "missing chunks of neck," which, sadly, no amount of juniper berries or German chamomile can heal. Unless perhaps they're in a spray form.

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You won't be able to purchase Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on Direct2Drive, GamersGate or Impulse when it's released next week because of the game's integration of Steam. Infinity Ward integrated the Steam client into Modern Warfare 2 to support Steamworks, prompting all three digital distribution chains to decide the game will not be available in their stores.

"At Direct2Drive, we believe strongly that when you buy a game from us, you shouldn't be forced to install and run a 3rd party software client to be able to play the game you purchased," reads a statement on Direct2Drive's website. "Because COD MW 2 requires you, the consumer, to do that, we aren't able to offer the game via Direct2Drive at this time."

Direct2Drive is also offering a $5 coupon off any other Activision title in its marketplace.

"Impulse will not be selling Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 either," said and Impulse spokesperson in a statement to Voodoo Extreme. "We share some of the same concerns as Direct2Drive over the bundling of the Steam client with the game. The most obvious issue is the forced inclusion of a competitor's store that blocks us from carrying the game."

I've contacted Activision about these developments. If they comment, I'll let you know.

Were you planning to buy Modern Warfare 2 through any of these services?

We're still around six weeks away from the theatrical debut of "Avatar," James Cameron's long-awaited return to the director's chair. But you'll have the chance to whet your appetite earlier than that. Ubisoft Montreal has been toiling away at James Cameron's Avatar: The Game for some time -- it releases in early December -- and Phil Theobald checked it out for us a few days ago at an Ubi event in San Francisco. According to him, the team wants to make a game so nice, you'll have to play it twice. That's once as the paramilitary RDA and as one of the blue-skinned Na'vi:

"At a crucial point, you are given a choice: do you continue to work with the RDA or will you turn against your fellow humans and help the Na'vi defend their home? Your decision affects which character you play as for the remainder of the game, and there are separate human and Na'vi stages and missions. For the full experience, you'll want to play through Avatar at least twice to ensure that you've seen everything that it has to offer."

Read more of his preview here, and let us know if you're excited for the game and the movie!

In recent interviews, Dhani Harrison, son of Beatle George Harrison, has not only revealed the existence of Rock Band 3, he's also dropped a tantalizing detail about the gameplay. According to Harrison, Rock Band 3 will teach gamers how to play music "for real" as they go.

“I’m working on Rock Band 3 and making the controllers more real so people can actually learn how to play music while playing the game,” Harrison said. “Give me a couple years, it’s going to happen.”

Any stories about music games that originate from rock-personas have to be taken with skepticism -- musicians have often dropped wrong information about the video games they're working on because they're way too busy making music and/or pulling groupies to worry about the finer points of video games -- but Harrison is different. By all accounts, he was a major figure behind the scenes of The Beatles: Rock Band, and seems to know his stuff. So when Harrison talks, you have to listen.

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Soon, Nintendo will drop its biggest game of the year, New Super Mario Bros. Wii. It's being released in the days after Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 comes out, widely expected to be one of, if not the, biggest releases of the year (Activision's CEO said it could be the most impressive launch in any entertainment medium -- ever). Nintendo disputed that point in little bit a Gametrailers TV interview with Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime.

Files-Aime believes once the holiday dust has settled, New Super Mario Bros. Wii will outsell Modern Warfare 2, if you look at a single platform's sales (i.e. Modern Warfare 2's sales on Xbox 360).

"I'll take that bet," he joked.

In the same interview, Fils-Aime also addressed other rumors regarding Nintendo. It's been long rumored Nintendo will release an updated version of the Wii with support for high-definition visuals. Despite the head of Nintendo's R&D division recently telling investors that "moving to HD appears to me a natural flow," Fils-Aime outright denied the existence of the theorized "Wii HD."

"I don't know how forcefully we can say there is no Wii HD," said Fils-Aime.

Lastly, the Nintendo head honcho briefly discussed the next Zelda game. Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto confirmed the game's existence at E3 this year, but Fils-Aime wasn't willing to commit to a 2010 release date for Link's next adventure, but he didn't rule it out, either.

“We haven’t committed to Zelda for 2010," he said. "That’s what he [Miyamoto] said. So we’ll see how that continues to develop.”

[image credit: flickr / Brian Clary Photography]

Source: Gametrailers TV

The Interwebs have a long and storied history of providing nothing but factually accurate information, so I’m going to trust that these recently leaked images of Halo: Reach, Bungie’s next (and final) installment in the Halo series, are in fact the real McCoy (or they could be fake. Either one).

The point is, someone posted the pics on a message board, claiming the images were snagged during a visit to Microsoft headquarters. In addition to showing off a variety of weapons (new and old), the screens reveal a new HUD that apparently “lists teammate names as well as shows what ‘perks’ players are carrying.” As Koku Gamer points out, three of these supposed perks are “sprinting,” “cloaking,” and “hologram.”

It’s hard to draw any real conclusions about the game based on these blurry images, and considering it will most likely be a while before Bungie drops some solid info about the game, take these screens for what they are: a potential/brief glimpse of a game that will be out in the future.

Check out our photo gallery for more screens.

What kinds of elements are you hoping make a return/get an overhaul for Halo: Reach?

Source: Koku Gamer

Polyphony Digital will finally deliver Gran Turismo 5 for the PlayStation 3 in 2010. The 1,000 cars on the disc should keep racing fans happy for some time, but even when they've exhausted everything Gran Turismo 5 has to offer, series creator Kazunori Yamauchi told Autoweek that next entry, presumably titled Gran Turismo 6, shouldn't take as long to arrive.

"You won't have to wait as long as you did for GT5," said Yamauchi. "GT5 represents a whole new operating system. GT6 is just new apps that run on the GT5 system."

It seems a little premature to already start requesting features for Gran Turismo 6...

Source: Autoweek