On Wednesday I spent the day in Bellevue, Washington, at the offices of Valve Corporation. In four hours I played through about half of the story mode of Left 4 Dead 2, the co-operative first-person shooter video game about surviving a zombie apocalypse.

Mind you, the three others who were playing with me were people who developed the game. We were moving more quickly than the average person or group would. To say I was a liability to our group of four wouldn’t be an exaggeration.

While we were playing, Kim Swift, one of the brains behind the inspiring game Portal and a level designer on Left 4 Dead 2, explained the new co-op mode in the game, which releases on Nov. 17.

Realism Mode, said Swift, is for advanced players only, a way to make the game more interesting for gamers who don’t feel challenged by the expert difficulty level.

Turning on Realism turns off the glow that normally haloes players and special infected creatures. “Communication becomes really important,” said Swift. “Players need to stick together.”

The game is designed such that getting separated from the three other survivors is life-threatening. The glow normally helps players find their way back to the group, or helps find team members who may be incapacitated. Swift said that when players need help in Realism Mode, they need to be able to accurately and clearly describe where they are in the game environment so that the other players can locate them.

And health and items “don’t glow until you are right on top of them,” said Swift, which means that while regular game play might involve dashing from one safe area to another, in Realism Mode searching and exploration are essential to survival.

Swift said that Realism Mode also affects damage, so chest shots on the infected are not as effective, and players need to make head shots. “Just like in the movies,” added Valve’s Yasser Malaika as his Left 4 Dead 2 character killed a zombie that was about to finish off my character.

There are five campaigns in Left 4 Dead 2, each with multiple levels, and Swift said that all of them can be played in Realism Mode. And it’s possible to scale down the difficulty to Easy in Realism, for those players that want to see what it would really be like to be in the midst of a zombie apocalypse, but don’t want to be killed too quickly.

Just in case you want to be ready for when the infection hits.

Cross-posted in the Georgia Straight

Dragon Age: Origins is less than two weeks away, but you can step into the world created for the game now, thanks to a free, browser-based game.

Dragon Age Journeys is set in the dwarven kingdom of Orzammar. Players can customize a character by selecting gender, race (human, elf, dwarf), class (warrior, rogue, mage) and an origin story.

Presented from a top-down perspective, movement through the underground caverns is mouse-controlled. Combat is turn-based, and is also controlled by mouse clicks. It’s a simple interface, and because the game is Flash-based, it is operating system and browser agnostic.

Journeys is a full-featured RPG with ability progression and loot to be discovered. Playing and succeeding at Journeys will benefit your playing of Origins when it releases. For example, earning all five achievements will unlock the Helm of the Deep when you finally play Dragon Age: Origins, coming November 3 from Edmonton’s BioWare, a division of Electronic Arts, .

It’s just further evidence that with Origins, BioWare is bringing us not just a game, but a complete world. And with other content like Journeys, crossover comics and novels, and downloadable content, not to mention the sequels that are already rumoured, this is a world we’ll be adventuring in for some time to come.

Cross-posted at the Georgia Straight

In today’s Georgia Straight is my latest “Trigger Happy” column, which this week is a round-up of reviews of some of this fall’s best games.

Included in the article are Brutal Legend, Lucidity, Mini Ninjas, and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.

This fall isn’t quite as jammed with big video-game releases as the season has been in recent years, but what it lacks in numbers it more than makes up for in quality. Here are four recently released games that will have you hacking, jumping, sneaking, and falling your way to gaming bliss.

The second game in this superhero action series succeeds because it kept the core of the experience the same – if it ain’t broke, you know – and added a branching narrative feature to allow players to have some choice over the story being told.

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 starts with Nick Fury leading an invasion team into Latveria, which he has branded as a haven for terrorists. Players start by assuming the identites of Captain America, Spider-Man, Iron Man, and Wolverine.

After that prelude, the game – and the story – opens up. While new playable characters – including Deadpool, Gambit, and Ms. Marvel – can be unlocked, the major addition in this game is the chance for players to choose a side after the government passes a Superhuman Registration Act. The ending of a game and the characters with whom players will battle depend on whether the player has selected Pro-Registration or Anti-Registration.

The game play is quick and smooth, and combat has been enhanced by the addition of fusion attacks, two-character combos, which are unique to a particular pair of heroes. As before, up to four players can co-operate, so book some time with some friends to play through this one.

Cross-posted at the Georgia Straight

It may feature the characters from Pixar’s popular Toy Story films, but this game does nothing to promote the Toy Story brand.

It lacks the fun and careening feel of the films, the clever humour that references the toys of youth, at the same time reinventing and celebrating childhood.

That Toy Story Mania! is presented in 3D – two sets of the red-green paper-frame glasses are included – does nothing to make this worth the effort.

The game was supposedly inspired by the new midways at Disney’s California and Florida theme parks, but it’s nothing more than a collection of poorly recreated carnival-themed mini-games.

Throw darts at balloons, throw pies at targets, throw rings at objects.

Ah, just throw it out.

Cross-posted at the Georgia Straight