If Haggis were a zombie...

For the past couple of months, the Red Army has been playing a weekly versus campaign on Left 4 Dead 2 against their arch-rivals of old, Lowstress. It was a tough, hard slog, and the Red Army picked up the bit exactly where they left off in playing clan matches, typically failing to impress at every turn. Nevertheless, it was for the most part a close-run thing and often a very tight affair, with everything to play for going into the finale.

The first campaign started with some early surprise victories for the Red Army, but eventually we lost on cans in the finale round. And despite technically levelling the series after the second campaign, our victory was only thanks to some splendid play by two temporary allies in the struggle. In the following weeks Lowstress trampled all over us to romp home very easy victories on Swamp Fever and Hard Rain, a combination of our disorganisation and their fielding a strong team. However, things returned to their original tight, tense equilibrium for the final original campaign, The Parish, which was again decided on The Bridge finale, albeit in spectacular style.

Whilst there are still a couple more campaigns to run through, the series has already been taken by Lowstress, so I’m popping this post up now before I forget about it (and whilst I have time on my hands!)

Thanks to Luth, Lütte, P, Rez, [CzR] Dave and [=LS=) Talarin for playing for the Red Army. Many thanks and fair play to our nemeses for keeping the gaming ever fun and friendly, and offering up sacrificial lambs to the slaughter (i.e. mercs) for when we were down a man. Finally, thanks again to Talarin and the rest for helping to organise the matches, and congratulations to all on the well-deserved series victory! We're pulling the Iron Curtain down for now, but it'll be up again for you to kick us in the goolies before too long!

Campaigns

Dead Center — Red Army 1386 - 1531 Lowstress (Match report)

Dark Carnival — Red Army 2464 - 2184 Lowstress (Match report)

Swamp Fever — Red Army 1012 - 2837 Lowstress (Match report)

Hard Rain — Red Army 1300 - 2354 Lowstress (Match report)

The Parish — Red Army 2003 - 2387 Lowstress (Match report)

Awards

The "Methuselah" Award for Longest Time Played

Comrade Lütte & Comrade Chez — For playing every minute of the series.

The "Aldrich Ames" Award for Best Spy

[=LS=) Talarin — For gallantly helping us to win our only campaign on Dark Carnival.

The "Black Sheep" Award for Most Willing to Play

[CzR] Dave — For assisting the Pink Army to victory on Dark Carnival, defeat on Swamp Fever, and turning up to play for Lowstress on Hard Rain before being asked to leave again.

The “Forrest Gump” Award for Most Unaware

Comrade Rez — For typing in after five minutes of play “Versus?” on Swamp Fever.

The “French Army” Award for Most Useless

Comrade Chez — For spending 4 minutes running around as a Jockey on The Park of The Parish, before finally jumping in and dying with 0 damage inflicted.
The Red Army — For dying before even reaching the Tank on Swamp Fever. Repeatedly.

The “Leave No Man Behind” Award for Rescuing Teammates

Comrade Lütte — For leaving the safe room in a valiant attempt to rescue teammates on The Highway of Dark Carnival (amongst others).

The “Jägermeister” Award for Best Hunter

Comrade Rez — For his valiant and failed attempt to jump across the river in the Plank Country of Swamp Fever.

The “Frankie Dettori” Award for Best Jockey

Comrade Luth — For her impressive early kill on The Hotel stage of Dead Center, with just 4 hours’ playing time under her belt, and the super cool call on comms: “Come on you, out the window!”

The “Light Brigade” Award for Best Charger

Comrade Lütte — For the spectacular charge down the narrow alleyway on The Park stage on The Parish, without grabbing a single Survivor.

The “T-34″ Awards for Best Tank

Comrade P — For whipping over the wall with a “Surprise fuckers!” on The Quarter of The Parish.
[=LS=) Talarin — For his sniper rock to finish the round on The Coaster of Dark Carnival.
Comrade Chez — For his CS-style hide-and-seek play on Town Escape of Hard Rain.

Videos [Incomplete]

A selection of videos from my perspective from the earlier campaigns.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you want to try it out for yourself, you’ll need the original Doom/Doom 2 WAD files, a copy of Skulltag and the requisite MW2 WAD files.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Download links:

Skulltag
MW2 WAD files

[Via FPSTime]

Valve's Dark Carnival

Ever wondered where to get your inspiration for the apocalypse? There are plenty of abandoned places out there to choose from, but none perhaps so mordantly fitting as Six Flags, New Orleans. Check out the gorgeously shot video with its excellent background theme by Godspeed You! Black Emperor below.

Opened in 2000 under the name Jazzland, the park was taken over by Six Flags in 2002, only to be closed before the oncoming storm Katrina in 2005. The park was flooded, with damage to the majority of the buildings, much of it beyond repair. The only ride to truly escape the rising waters was the Batman rollercoaster, later removed to another site by its owners. Various plans and offers have come through to redevelop the site, but as things stand the park remains a closed reminder.

This is truly the real Dark Carnival!

Click here to view the embedded video.

[Via Level Select]

Note: I should probably point out that The Hidden during this scene was being played by someone who actually knew what they were doing, i.e. not one of us.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

[Via Gamer Melodico]

For whatever reasons I have some fond memories of the first film: maybe it was the fact that I was a big fan of the games at the time, or perhaps the Enter the Dragon nod of the plot, or perhaps just watching Christopher Lambert trying to be funny. Whatever the case may be, on the basis of that preview Tachareon certainly deserves to be given the reboot reins, if indeed Warner Brothers have any plans in that regard.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.