It’s Sunday and I’m about to go to bed as I’m up for work early in the morning; but before I head off to the land of nod I’m going to show you a video that will help you sleep peacefully tonight, complete with a satisfied smile.

What’s scarier than hordes of extremely fast zombies running out of the darkness towards you? What’s scarier than a Witch than can incapacitate you with one swipe? What could be more terrifying than hearing a tank bounding around the corner behind you? Well, what? Hearing “La-La!” as you walk around a dark city, that’s what.

L4DMods (the credit goes to Flameknight7) have put together a mod for Left 4 Dead that replaces the infected in the game with characters from the children’s TV series, Teletubbies. Yes, you can finally shoot Tinky Winky in the face before taking a look at just what’s in that handbag of his, and why the hell he has one in the first place anyway.

My mum was a childminder, so Teletubbies was on in the house all the time as I was growing up. Having to sit through years of them saying the same thing over and over again, plus a sun with a baby’s face, I can safely say that I’m going to relish the opportunity to blow Po’s head off. Unfortunately that freaky bear that sticks its tongue out isn’t there, which is disappointing because I’ve always wanted to put a few slugs into it. Noo-Noo also doesn’t make an appearance, which is a big oversight because he could have replaced The Boomer and unleashed custard instead of vomit.

You can download the mod for yourself here, finally accomplishing what most of us have always wanted to do (unfortunately you can’t put Dipsy’s head on a stick and parade it around town manically laughing). Now if only we could gun down The Tweenies…

It looks like the Left 4 Dead 2 boycott movement I wrote about back in June has been dealt a major blow as two of the founders recently published a post that raised more than just a few eyebrows. In an attempt to show the boycott group that Left 4 Dead 2 maintains the same quality that made the first game such a joy to play Valve flew the two group members out to their offices in Washington, which at least gives them a chance to say they’ve played the game before they continue to ‘boycott’ it.

So, what was their verdict?

“As for L4D2, things seemed balanced and ‘tight’ and did not feel like a rushed job. While we were visiting their offices we personally witnessed what can only be called a small army of artists, coders, mappers hard at work, which explains the rapid transformations in artwork that we’ve all seen.

What we can say with confidence is that the quality of gameplay in Left 4 Dead 2 is not in question; and it will only get better (from what we understand, almost daily testing of game builds by most of the staff at Valve).” - Source

266 comments later (at the time of writing) and they had been predictably labeled as ‘sell-outs’ by the majority of the group, even after the two guys were adamant that Valve isn’t dropping support for the first game. I suppose it’s hard to trust the word of two guys who’d just had an all-expenses paid trip across the US, even if they did help create the group. However, I had already made up my mind long before this new development.

So, what do you think? Sell-outs? Simply appreciating a good game? Don’t care? I think that I regret the comments I made in my previous post on this issue. After reading updated previews and seeing new videos since that post I believe that Left 4 Dead 2 will be worth it if you enjoyed the first game, and I am now genuinely looking forward to it. If Valve continues to support the first game then you’ve got two great games in your hands, and what could really be wrong with that apart from finding the time to play them both? I also need to note that I never agreed with a ‘boycott’ in the first place; I was simply a little annoyed because I thought that Valve would only be releasing a tiny bit of content for the first game, but from seeing more of the sequel I’m not sure that I’m even bothered about playing the first game anymore (to be fair I have enjoyed the content we did get). I probably won’t buy the game full price, but that’s because I have more than enough games to keep me occupied at the moment and it’s always good to pick up a bargain somewhere down the line.

I suppose the most important question here is “What the hell is that on Gabe’s shirt???”.

Related posts:

• Valve Responds to Left 4 Dead 2 Boycott

EyePet, this cute little monkey type furby thing with big ears… You know, I have absolutely no idea what it’s meant to be, but even with the risk of shattering my non-existent tough guy image I have to say that it’s still really cute. Anyway, as I was saying… What? Now it’s hopping around trying to get me to play with it? Ok, just for a few minutes.

….

Damn loveable monkey thing!

Right, let’s get back to business. EyePet, the PS3’s new virtual pet, will be out on 23 October here in the UK – which has only just recovered from the great Furby invasion of the 1990’s (the things I saw in those years, Furby’s taking over entire towns and enslaving their populations. Those times are far too horrible to talk about) – so you can stop watching videos and actually play with the thing yourself pretty soon.

Oh, go on then, here’s one more video. Well, actually it’s above this post so you’ve probably already clicked on it, but for those of you who didn’t then I’m politely asking you to continue to read until the end of this post.

Still with me? Good, let’s continue. EyePet makes use of the PlaystationEye (yes, it IS actually useful for something), meaning that the monkey hybrid thing will appear on whatever surface you have the camera pointed at (it won’t actually appear in reality of course, but it will on your TV). You can then interact with the pet, such as reacting to a tickle, or scaring it when you make a loud clap. There are far cooler things you can do with it of course, such as drawing an object on a piece of paper, holding it up to the camera and having the pet draw a copy. If, for example, you draw the parts of a plane then a plane will appear and the pet will take off with a cackling laugh. You will then never see the pet again, and you will be about £50 out of pocket. Ok, the last part doesn’t happen but there are still plenty of things to keep your kids happy with. There will also be a wide range of customisable options; such as changing the colour of your pet’s fur, or dressing him up in cute little outfits.

Although I begged for one for months I never had a Furby, and I was always a bit sad that I missed out on that craze. Maybe I can relive my childhood fantasies with EyePet, even if it is just a virtual monkey thing on my TV screen.

Because I’m nice you can have one more video. This one is a developer giving a demo, so it actually shows how the game works and doesn’t just throw a cheesy promotional video at you.

(Image source)

Apparently THQ doesn’t seem to be aware of the state of the economy right now and has sent our beloved Queen a gold plated Wii in order to promote their latest game. The shiny gold Wii and Wiimote, along with a copy of Big Family Games, arrived on the Queen’s doorstep at Buckingham Palace.

Apparently THQ thinks that 24 classic family games will appeal to the Royal Family, and will have the Queen flailing her arms in the air in no time at all. THQ product manager Danielle Robinson explains why they felt the need to pull such a tacky marketing stunt.

“The Royal Family is arguably the most important family in the country so we felt that they had to have a copy of the new game. But we thought that Her Majesty the Queen wouldn’t want to play on any old console, so an extra-special gold one was commissioned. We hope that she and the rest of the Royal Family enjoy the game!”

Gold it may well be, but I’d rather not have something so incredibly tacky in my living room. They also had the cheek to send the Queen shovelware, not that she’ll notice the quality of the game as it’s not like she’ll be playing it (although she has apparently shown interest in the console in the past).

Meanwhile we peasants have to make do with the regular old Wii, which wouldn’t be that bad if Nintendo would actually release colours other than plain white.