LORE 4 READ
Some of the best comics based on Valve’s excellent games
everything nearly went to shit in
Blood Harvest’s cornfield sprint.
After mastering the campaigns,
we entertained the idea of trying out
the versus mode and, yeah, that had
me worried. See above. Yelling.
Fragility. I tensed up at the thought,
but Left 4 Dead’s versus mode never
dipped back into that volatile
competitive mood. Coordinating the
basement IT office lit up with
whooping and back claps like a damn
mead hall. God I miss it.
LAN 4 DEAD
It’s odd, seeing the LAN culture fade
so quickly after one of the best LAN
games I’d ever played was released.
Forces beyond our little IT office’s
control, I suppose. But it’s OK.
Sometimes we’ll manage to get a
fragment of the group together for
some modded nightmare run of a
custom L4D2 level, Teletubby hordes
chasing us through Mario’s palace or
something else normal like that. And
with Back 4 Blood on the horizon, old
text threads are creaking back into
BELOW: Not what
you wanna see when
you’re on your
lonesome.
BOTTOM: A
collective ‘ooooh’
from the room with
every pipe bomb.
perfect Smoker pull and Hunter pin
combo to split up the survivors
always carried more of a pranking-
your-pals energy than any spectre-of-
my-disappointed-dad vibes. Versus
was cunning and playful, hewing
closer to hide-and-seek than the pure
reflex-driven play of most
competitive shooters. We stayed
jubilant and friendly. The dingy
L4D
The Sacrifice, a story that ties L4D
and its sequel together.
l4d.com/comic
TEAM FORTRESS 2
Read the catch-up then check out
Ring of Fired.
teamfortress.com/comics
PORTAL
Lab Rat tells the story of a man living
in the walls of Aperture Science.
thinkwithportals.com/comic
motion. I wonder if we’d be so adamant about keeping in
touch if we kept playing Quake and DotA, pissing the bed
with every bad game. Would I even lament the slow death
of LAN, or would it be a relief to me?
Left 4 Dead made finding positive social connections in
games a guiding principle for me, something I take into
consideration with every multiplayer experience. Some
genre fiction paved an avenue for amazing friendships.
How great is that? And, yeah, we’ll never be in the same
room together again, but that’s OK. A lobby’s a lobby.
THE DINGY BASEMENT IT
OFFICE LIT UP WITH
WHOOPING AND BACK
CLAPS LIKE A DAMN
MEAD HALL