• marking for the first exam block is over. Probably should hunt down some lunch #
• @trib Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay or Warhammer fantasy battle? #
• @SocialBttrfly You aren’t that late to the voice enabled video gaming sphere are you? (I assume this is XboxLive stuff you’re mentioning) #
• Reviewing a book chapter - I keep putting provisos into the review “Assuming the author isn’t [X], I recoomend [X]’s article be added” #
• Oh crap. Just worked out that the author HAS to be one of the papers I’ve just recommended the authors cite. #
• Previous statement repeated. It’s down to three contenders - and I suspect there can really only be one. #
• @trib Connor or Duncan? #

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• @stilgherrian Perhaps the experience of being able to watch the movie without the DRM enforced crap will wreck the experience of other DVDs? #
• Discomforting - desktop phones have upgraded to have 000 & ANU security as speed dial options as a response to recent events in the building #
• @the_common_ryan Yeah. The HR people are coy about the “incident in the corridor” which led to a range of security briefings and changes #

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Left 4 Dead

Sweet Zombie Elvis, this has been an awesome game in just two demo levels.

Let me start by saying how amazing it has been to have a female character in a video game aimed squarely at the male market who is fully clothed, and wearing sensible shoes for a zombie apocalypse. (Okay, so Riff points out that the second I saw she was wearing Converse Allstars, I was always going to pick her character as my avatar).

Second, it’s been awesome to play as Zoey because I swear my pistol accuracy is superior when running in her character mode. When she’s on the AI’s control, it’s all about the hunting rifle and long range shots, or the shotgun.

Third, Louis.  A player character of colour with a good voice actor, and, the only one in the game wearing a tie.  Clearly, straight from the law office to the zombie apocalypse, without time to do more than just relax the tie a little, and reload the guns.

Fourth, co-op play.  Apart from a minor encounter with a griefer who decided that shooting me was more fun than shooting the zombies, co-op play has been an amazing collaboration between survivor players.  Teaming up with friends in Brisbane against the virtual horde has been huge fun

Fifth, the in game voice commands - it’s so clearly designed for a game pad it’s amusing, but also quite neatly executed.

Finally, the voice acting in the demo is surprisingly good.  There’s real emotion in the voices when a survivor is killed (albeit briefly pending respawn), and the low health voice acting is excellent - barring the current glitch of a the slowed, weakened characters using the same responses to voice commands (eg cover me! sounds the same 100% and 1% health).

All up, Left 4 Dead breaks a bunch of rules to make a better game than I anticipated - and I preordered the second the game was available on Steam.

• I nominated http://www.tweetlater.com in the @mashable Open Web Awards. Nominate here: http://tinyurl.com/6o838z #

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• @JackDOSKelly I do tend to appear in the strangest of circumstances #

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