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?
The sad part is I'd be more interested to drop $5 on this for XBLA or PSN just to get online co-op and some achievements/trophies then I am to spend any amount of money on any other XBLA or PSN game (I haven't bought one since Pixel Junk Eden last August).
The first time I ever got to be the tank I got lost and eventually timed out. My team kept asking where the tank was and I just sat in shameful silence.
You are old when you actually paid to play Space invaders , Donkey Kong or even Pacman on a original cocktail mode 2p table... Awesome ...!!! You are even older when the name "Gotlieb" makes your finger unconsciously move.. Probably you are going to visit your grandchildren for dinner..
"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."
This is wrong. The problem is not related to the amount of ram on the CPU. When the PPU (Picture Processing Unit) draws a scanline, it stores information in temporary memory about up to 8 sprites to draw on that scanline; additional sprites will not be drawn. Note that the NES can handle up to 64 sprites on screen at a time, but thus only up to 8 at the same scanline will be drawn at a time. The PPU only has space to store information about those 8 sprites, however, it is likely that this limit was chosen because the PPU would only have time to fetch the bitmaps for 8 sprites in one scanline. So, the problem is not really the size of that ram in the PPU either, it is the speed that the PPU could fetch sprite bitmaps with.
i dont have much confidence in the existence of common sense in the average gaming public... I had a customer at bestbuy the other day try to convice me that the xbox 360 was in 360 bit just like the N64 was in 64 bit...
