8-bit Left 4 Dead leaves modernity behind

by Alexander Sliwinski { Nov 16th 2009 at 5:30PM }

Thanks to Eric Ruth and his PixelForce NES "de-make" of Left 4 Dead, we now have an idea of what the zombie apocalypse simulator would have been like had it released in the '80s. Valve is apparently aware of the project and finds the concept "hilarious." Ruth reveals that he plans to release the full game as a free download in early January 2010 for PC. It features all the campaigns from the original game, including 8-bit incarnations of the special infected, for two players to play through -- it is a NES game after all, fancy four-player wasn't standard.

Check out a video of the game after the break. The only thing we'd wish this "de-make" had was a sprite flickering zombie rush, so all the youngins could experience the glory of NES flicker when there were too many things on the screen at once for the system's 2KB of RAM.

Update 2: Check out Eric Ruth's interview with sister site Big Download

Update: Changed "didn't exist" to "wasn't standard." Nintendo released the NES Four Score adapter in 1990. Remember the one for the original Game Boy?

Tags: left-4-dead, left-4-dead-2, valve

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)

joeybeast @ Nov 16th 2009 5:33PM

I don't think most kids can conceptualize 2KB.

xenocidic @ Nov 16th 2009 5:39PM

512kb should be enough for just about anybody...

Phix @ Nov 16th 2009 5:39PM

I bet most kids think the original Xbox (HOLY SHIT, THAT's A CLASSIC!!!) probably invented gaming.

Man, I'm glad I grew up in the '90s.

xenocidic @ Nov 16th 2009 5:40PM

bah i fail at remembering it was 640kb

Darth Bradwart, The Dark Lord of the Sith-ATDF Co-Founder @ Nov 16th 2009 5:42PM

I thought Sega Genesis invented gaming...after all, it did what Nintendon't!

(Yes, I'm aware Sega didn't invent gaming)

koehler83 @ Nov 16th 2009 5:42PM

I think kids today aren't quite that disconnected. I'm sure most of them are smart enough to think that gaming started on PlayStation 1. (At the very least, I'd assume they could deduce it's existence by counting backward from 3)

WiredKnight: Keeper of Threads @ Nov 16th 2009 5:43PM

lol at consoles inventing gaming.

WiredKnight: Keeper of Threads @ Nov 16th 2009 5:48PM

On a more serious note, I always wonder what it would be like to live in a later generation where games have just always been there. I imagine it'd be very different from now, where we've lived through and witnessed the birth of a new medium.

Peter Moore @ Nov 16th 2009 5:53PM

I invented gaming.

You're welcome.

Darth Bradwart, The Dark Lord of the Sith-ATDF Co-Founder @ Nov 16th 2009 6:03PM

If you invented gaming, that means you're responsible for Kotick...

Levi @ Nov 16th 2009 6:15PM

hell, I started gaming back in the NES days, and I still can't conceptualize 2kb...

CaramelZappa @ Nov 16th 2009 6:17PM

@Wiredknight

Could you imagine being born before music existed as a medium? Or, (more recently) film? Both are so infused into our culture now it's hard to imagine a world without them. I wonder if in 50 years or so people will think the same of video games.

cylet @ Nov 16th 2009 6:35PM

HOLY SHIT WE'RE OLD!!!!!!!!!!!!

WiredKnight: Keeper of Threads @ Nov 16th 2009 6:39PM

@CaramelZappa

That's exactly what I mean! It's such a strange concept to get your head around. In 50 years I would think games would be, as you said, infused into the culture, but I wonder what new form of medium will take root in that time.

Punkrawk Bbob @ Nov 16th 2009 6:48PM

My friend's sister (he's 25, she's 15 now, 12 at the time of story) came home and told us she was playing the original Nintendo. She has a GameCube and isn't heavily into gaming. Has a DS now. We were both thinking "wow, you know someone with a working NES?"

Then she continued on. "He had a bunch of weird games. There was this one with Pikachu where you take pictures, some James Bond game, and he had this one like Mario where you're a bear and a bird". We both face palmed, sat down and told her about the bits and the bytes. N64 was their third console, dated by Nintendo by like 11 or 12 years in America.

She also had no idea who Pac-Man was.

The Dark Wayne [Planeteer: Power of the Batusi] ATDFs Financier and Batman @ Nov 16th 2009 6:54PM

what do you mean lol @consoles invented gaming? I hope you arent talking about PCs because they certainly didnt. Hell, the first game ever was on a huge ass radar machine!

Traceur_Ryuk [Founder of The Anti-EMCB(tm) and co-leader of ATDF] (PSN: Ryuk_shinigami) @ Nov 16th 2009 7:00PM

"lol at consoles inventing gaming."

Sure that gaming may have started on PC, but consoles it what got it mainstream and revolutionized it.

Josh @ Nov 16th 2009 7:09PM

That kind of stuff is sort of disappointing...

But do you think I know shit about old movies? Old music? etc.

Then again, I'm probably at least vaguely familiar with the movie and music equivalents of "the original Nintendo"...

CheeziePotato @ Nov 16th 2009 7:12PM

I started gaming in 1986 when I was 2. Dad got a NES for the family and I remember playing Super Mario Bros and Duck Hunt. My 11 year old cousin whose living with me right now knows his video game history, I MAKE SURE HE DOES!
He knows about every console from the Odyssey to the current gen consoles, Commodore 64, Apple II, MSX 1 and 2, and other gaming computers. He loves playing NES, Genesis, SNES, PS1, and N64 as much as current gen consoles. But other kids these days are all about graphics.

Courtney @ Nov 16th 2009 7:17PM

@Traceur, Wayne, etc

I'm not sure you could really differentiate what took it mainstream very well. Arcades, early consoles and PC gaming all really arose so close to one another, that each of them could be said to have heavily contributed to taking gaming mainstream.

WiredKnight: Keeper of Threads @ Nov 16th 2009 8:53PM

@Wayne

I said "lol at consoles inventing gaming" because it's like saying the piano invented music.

WiredKnight: Keeper of Threads @ Nov 16th 2009 8:54PM

Also, I'm quite familiar with my game history, thank you. Tennis for Two was awesome.

Quiggy @ Nov 16th 2009 9:21PM

Just to be clear: you're not implying that you've played Tennis for Two, are you? Y'know, a game that was invented in 1958 for the oscilloscope (no, seriously, it was nothing more than a specialized analog computer hooked up to an oscilloscope) and never released commercially? And that when they tried to remake it in 2008 it took three months to do it because they couldn't find the parts?

joeybeast @ Nov 16th 2009 11:22PM

jesus chris....... i should have unchecked "E-Mail me when someone replies to this comment"

Note to Joystiq: desperately need forum.

RenegadeRSO @ Nov 17th 2009 1:09AM

"lol at consoles inventing gaming." playing outside invented gaming. sure, we could imagine lots more than games could show, but it didn't hurt to actually have something visualize our thoughts. i'm 21 now and i wish more people my age would go outside and play cops and robbers with me or maybe kick the can.

supersonic00712 @ Nov 17th 2009 2:48AM

I remember back when Playstation looked so damn realistic!

XBL: xGeneral DEATHx PSN: Deeth82 [Planeteer | Power of General Hostility and Angst] @ Nov 17th 2009 9:32AM

I remember playing Eggmania, Berserk, Pac-Man, Asteroids, and Defender on the Atari 2600. Damn, I'm old.

Oh, and JoeyBeast, sorry about your inbox. :-p

Jordan @ Nov 17th 2009 10:17AM

I have an original working NES with the original Super Mario Bros (no Duck Hunt) that I received as a wedding gift. Me and the wife play it almost every night.

Zing @ Nov 16th 2009 5:37PM

Hell yes!

Monica Dickey @ Nov 16th 2009 7:47PM

That was my response too hehe

Very cool, and lots of nice touches. I especially liked the character select screen with the 8-bit-ized portraits.

Stevetrop @ Nov 17th 2009 1:21AM

Damn if this was 88 all over again and this was for sale nes I'd be stressing mom for this till christmas

larry raines @ Nov 17th 2009 11:01AM

I think Monica is a dude trying to get people to register on a dating site called Fling

Jonafun @ Nov 16th 2009 5:36PM

Like Left 4 Dead, just take out the fun!

Avatar @ Nov 17th 2009 7:00AM

I hope a zombie eats your brains.

Nick @ Nov 16th 2009 5:38PM

there were 4 player NES games

WiredKnight: Keeper of Threads @ Nov 16th 2009 5:44PM

YES! Yes there were! What's the matter Sliwinski, you forgetting your childhood!?

ytilanigiroon @ Nov 16th 2009 5:58PM

Super Spike V'Ball, Nintendo World Cup, NES Play Action Football, Gauntlet II, BomberMan II... just to name a few...

WiredKnight: Keeper of Threads @ Nov 16th 2009 6:40PM

No one else seems to remember RC Pro-AM, but it was so much fun with 4 people!

PhydeWice @ Nov 16th 2009 10:06PM

Gauntlet II. So much fun.

Tetsuo @ Nov 16th 2009 10:14PM

WOO! RC Pro-AM was cool as tits. I'd still play that game today, if I had it sitting around somewhere. Emulator time!

CJLopez @ Nov 17th 2009 10:47AM

RC-Pro AM had 4 players????

are we talking about this RC-Pro AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.C._Pro-Am

I had that game as a kid, I love it, but enever was able to play it with more than myself!!!!

Man, when i saw Rock And Roll racing i was like "OMG, its a sequel to RC_Pro Am!!!!!"

shame it wasn't and RC-Pro Am 2 sucks

CubeGuy @ Nov 17th 2009 8:17PM

They could get by with 2 players, but they'd have to change the name to "Left 2 Die".

ziggen @ Nov 16th 2009 5:37PM

HOLY SHIT... AWESOME !!

maveric101 @ Nov 16th 2009 6:16PM

if you want to take it to an extreme, there's Left 4k Dead. the whole game is 4 kB.
http://www.mojang.com/notch/j4k/l4kd/

Sly @ Nov 16th 2009 5:38PM

WHOA that's cool. i can't help but wonder what it would look like in first person though. an 8-bit first person horror shooter would be AMAZING.

CaramelZappa @ Nov 16th 2009 5:44PM

Well they do have DOOM for the SNES and the GBA. Not exactly 8 bit but closest I can think of.

Darth Bradwart, The Dark Lord of the Sith-ATDF Co-Founder @ Nov 16th 2009 5:46PM

Faceball 2000 for the original Game Boy is what you're looking for.

Hex @ Nov 16th 2009 5:54PM

Golgo 13 had first person sequences. God that game was awful and incredibly difficult. My brothers and I played it for hours and I don't think we ever finished the first level.

Levi @ Nov 16th 2009 6:21PM

I LOVED GOLGO 13

I could never get past the submarine part... I shot it for like a year, swam around it, I could never figure it out. I heard the ending is terrible. The Mafat Conspiracy, which is the sequel, well... Maybe it's cause I didn't play it until a couple years ago, and so I don't have fond childhood memories of it.... but yeah, it blew XD

9600baud @ Nov 16th 2009 5:39PM

that looked like friggin gobs of fun, i'd pay for that

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