Valve Seems Like A Nice Guy

Today is actually a pretty good day...don't have any school work, I can take a nap, I can eat normal food again (for the most part), not bad, things are better than before...

But I was intrigued by this.  Left 4 Dead loves Dead Rising 2...now isn't that classy.  Stories like these make me smile.

http://kotaku.com/5650478/left-4-dead-loves-dead-rising-2

Not only did they make that image above and put Chuck Greene in one of their comics, but they also made passing references to Frank West from DR1, etc.  To me, this is like if Namco made another Ridge Racer and Sega came out and said "You've got a damn fine racing game there, my good man."  Although neither company seems interested in racing games anymore, but that's besides the point.  DR2 isn't in direct competition with L4D (they aren't even the same genre, FPS vs. Action/Adventure), but they like zombies too.  I just wonder if the feeling's mutual on Capcom's side.  After Inafune said that Japanese games were five years behind US games, I think he's a bit touchy to say so.

And throw in this too.  I like Valve.  I like them a lot.  All of their games are pretty good.  Yeah, I get on violent games, but at least Left 4 Dead was on the cusp of the zombie wave so they get a pass.  Plus not to mention they've come up with some unique ideas instead of spitting out these Halo/Fallout/CoD clones, geez.  They have unique ideas, fun characters, different vibe, etc.  Not only that, but they've really fueled the user community by releasing Garry's mod, map-making tools, and the HL source code for modification--lots of fun stuff.

Believe it or not, I actually had the chance (for a college class I might add, in Fall '09) to create a mod of the Half-Life 1 engine.  I got it going alright, but my teammates didn't really follow through and I worked on it mostly myself...I'm proud of what I learned though--it's nice to get your hands dirty.  I am also a huge fan of making FPS maps--I talked about that way back in a July '10 entry about Goldeneye/Perfect Dark maps in CS 1.6, but that's just the tip of the iceberg--there's more.  I may touch on that someday, but don't count on it any time soon.

Overall, gotta give Valve some props.  Cheers.

BTW, I actually got 1000/1000 on L4D1 (a long time ago) so that's not bad.  But enough of zombies.  In all honesty.  Screw 'em.

NOTE: I'm sorry Kotaku that I keep borrowing your images.  I hope you can forgive me someday.