OXCGN’s Left4Dead Community PlayDate

Another Resounding Success Story

©2009 Grant Smythe:- EIC

OXCGN’s PlayDates are part of Microsoft’s Official XboxLIVE Calender for the various Xbox Community sites and other gaming entities to participate in each month. It offers the perfect opportunity to get gamers mixing and talking with those that supply the information about gaming, community events, issues and various other gaming media information.

OXCGN is proud to have other sites joining us on the evenings and will ideally eventually have some publishers joining us on nights where their games are being played. That way the gamers can play against the various publishers such as Atari, THQ, Ubisoft, 2KGames etc. This really breaks down the walls between gamer and publisher, getting the average gamer to see that those who publish and develop the games are not just faceless names but people who love gaming just as much as anyone else. They are not just in it for the money, but also for the love of gaming.

So enjoy the feedback from this months OXCGN Playdate, Left4Dead, which saw the various rooms full all night, and run 2 hours overtime and finish at 1am.

Check the XboxLIVE Calender for the next XboxLIVE Playdate this month, which is run by one of our affiliate sites, OzBoxLive, with Burnout Paradise being the game of choice on the evening for Mark and the crew.

OXCGN’s Left4Dead Community PlayDate A MonsterMash

by GrathiusXR:

©2009 Arthur Kotsopoulos:

Coming off the success of OXCGN’s first OXCGN Playdate where we blasted at each other in Far Cry 2, we launched into our second with Left4Dead.  These are designed to get the community in on the action with us and my oh my what a turn out it was.

From 8pm up until 1am we had 2 full rooms of Versus mode going with plenty more eager gamers wanting to play and get in on the action. Here’s a list of all the gamers that had joined in my game at some point in the night:

• CrushedTEALc    • Betheo    • masterJIMBO96    • Mintonism
• sarejosh    • Smatt Man    • The Karate Kid 4    • DVS DINGO
• Nik2905    • Raijinryuu    • Jordan2409 • RookyMUM
• xAUSS13 K1LL3Rx    • TeChTiGeR22    • Serblander • Coza888

As you can see we had a few females members of the gaming community as well which is good to see.   We even had s a few couples that were on the same 360 together playing some gory and very bloody Left4Dead with us. This is what we like to see, just don’t tell Jack Thompson, he’ll know the world is coming to an end now that couples are using murder simulators.

PlayDate Perspective: From A Gamer

by Nikolas Steponoski

There was frustration and anger, but most of all co-operation and fun. Friday’s Left 4 Dead Community PlayDate gaming night with OXCGN was an amazing experience packed full of laughs, a few screams (by me) and then more chuckles (probably at my expense for yelping!).  There was also a lot of sprinting while screaming: “Behind you!”.

I have done two OXCGN community gaming nights, including Far Cry 2, and to me they are the best.  They are just so much fun because anyone at any age can join in and have the time of their lives and everyone is friendly.  All it takes is to be online at the right time with an Xbox Live Gold subscription, to ask for an invite from one of the staff players, and of course a copy of the game being played.  In my opinion everyone should try to get into one of these gaming nights to meet some new people and have a blast.

“I highly recommend that the next time there’s a gaming night everyone jump in and have a good time.”

Thumbpad Says Thank You

by KarateKid 4

©2009 Mike Levacsics:

Well the Left 4 Dead games night was awesome! The Thumbpad team that attended was: Me ( The Karatekid 4),   Jamie (DVS DINGO),   Oggie (OGGIE ROCK),   Occy,    Craig (DBOI),  Kane (KaneIT3000), and Aleks (Serblander).  So pretty much the whole team attended and we had our own room playing versus the whole night.  I believe the game kicked us off and we weren’t able to play with some of you and TWODOGSz.  But that was the only disappointment of the night.

To actually have played with the OXCGN guys when I got home was awesome (killing each other unreal tournament style was a lot of fun).     You guys (OXCGN) did a fantastic job setting up the game and telling the community about the night and even when we weren’t in the game with you guys, you always tried to get us in.  So basically you had 3 full rooms playing versus killing each other and having a lot of fun!

So when you guys have the next games night, which I believe is the Chronicles of Riddick: Assault On Dark Athena game, the Thumbpad team will be there to support you; and that is the way we want it to be, supporting each other.

Thanks again to you guys for hosting an awesome night and to Grant also for involving me with this night.  He really is such a nice and down to earth bloke and I can’t speak highly enough of him!!!

Keep an eye out gamers for our show premiere, which is either tonight (Sunday 12 April) or tomorrow!

KarateKid 4 and the Thumbpad team

Left 4 Dead Playdate Feedback

by TWODOGSz:

©2009 Aaron Bertinetti:

I love Left 4 Dead in fact, alongside Fable 2 and Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, it’s a personal favourite of last year.

But there’s one thing that irks me from playing Versus mode. The matchmaking is horrible! And so just like Team Fortress 2 was quickly abandoned by Aussies and New Zealanders, so the fate seems for Left 4 Dead. Or so it seemed… until our readers came to the rescue like a swarm of zombies hungry to play with their fellow countrymen.

A week out I was getting messages and friend requests and a week later nothing had changed with people continually adding me as the night got underway. If a sign of success for a Microsoft Community Playdate is that the community overwhelms the staff, then our readers passed with flying (bloody) colours. You guys rock!

With several rooms going all at once, I got to frag and be fragged by a lot of my fellow zombie/OXCGN fans. The pleasure of playing without a room full of Yanks, pre-pubescents and lag was certainly a highlight, as was the general level of skill and teamwork that readers put on show.

The community really proved that Left 4 Dead’s reliance on teamwork is absolutely unparalleled.

The campaigns got played twice over in epic Versus matches that totalled over 3hrs, before players split up with their newly found friends for some Expert difficulty campaigns. I don’t know if any of the teams actually beat Expert that night (mine certainly didn’t), but I’m certain that everybody who joined in made some friends to have another crack at it down the road.

I’d like to thank everybody who turned up and apologise to anyone who missed out given the unprecedented demand. An extra special shout out to the following community members who kept kicking on into the early Easter hours: Aaron the Scott, Metrodome, KiwiMrT, Pennicuik, AbA iM, Smatt Man, & XTROROX.

It was so much fun that we might just have to have another Left 4 Dead Playdate after the Survivor Pack DLC drops on April 16 with a new Survivor mode (think Resident Evil 5) and ten new maps from the Death Toll and Dead Air campaigns. Or if the community wants to play something else let us know about it in the comments below.

In the meantime, while we’re so smitten with the community, feel free to hit up OXCGN staff anytime you’re up for some freelance fragging! We’d love to.

Please join OXCGN for our next Community PlayDate on Friday May 1st at the usual time of 8.00 – 11.00pm AEST for Chronicles Of Riddick: Assault On Dark Athena.

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