Mention the word zombies in a room of gamers and two franchises instantly come to mind. Resident Evil and Left 4 Dead. While other zombie franchises have tried to claw their way to the top, these two from Capcom and Valve respectively sit atop the zombie food chain. With Capcom’s recent affinity for crossing over franchises with other publishers, it is great to see that they have come together with Valve to enable the Resident Evil 6 x Left 4 Dead 2 project.

In a completely free download, Resident Evil 6 PC players will be able to experience a new mode, “The Mercenaries No Mercy” featuring Left 4 Dead 2’s signature cast – Coach, Nick, Ellis and Rochelle – as playable characters. Each will have a custom weapon load-out for the mode. Also making their debut to the Resident Evil world alongside the foursome of survivors are going to be the Witch and the Minitank. This mode will be going live on April 5th.

Drunk History is back on the web, but this time they’re showing the holiday spirit with guest stars Ryan Gosling, Eva Mendes, and Jim Carrey.

The mother of all video game fan films has arrived as the Left 4 Dead flick hits the web. Be sure to stick around till the end for some awesome gaming cameos.

Speaking of fan films, we stumbled across the best real life gaming adaptation in the history of the web. Say hello to Battlefield 3 In Real Life.

It’s Christmas time everywhere in the world (well, almost everywhere), even in Arkham City. But instead of visits from a man in red, they get a famous caped crusader.

Anyone who comes to this site knows we love to pass along anything that touches the bottom of our geek hearts. Many times, these come in the way of fan films.

But today it’s a special treat with a free PC game. Through his website Eric Ruth Games,  a developer has posted his portfolio of 8-Bit style games which includes, you guessed it, a classic NES style version of 2008’s megahit, Left 4 Dead.

Entitled Pixel Force: Left 4 Dead, players step in to an 8-bit version of the four original campaigns of L4D. Either single or two player from one keyboard (sorry, no XBox Live or Steam connectivity here), gamers get to take a peek at what this genre defining game would have looked like had it come out twenty years ago in the days before graphics accelerators and first person shooters.

In the first half of The Best Video Games of 2009, we saw Best Portable, Wii, Playstation 3 and XBox 360 Exclusive titles. Now things are ramping up on the way to the Game of the Year.

Best Music Game

Tie – The Beatles: Rock Band and DJ Hero

The Rock Band / Guitar Hero formula has been done to death at this point. Players play songs in a set list to unlock more music. Repeat as many times as needed until all songs have been unlocked. But it was 2009 that the music game genre took two big steps forward. As loved as Metallica is, their Guitar Hero installment couldn’t hold a candle to the weight of the legacy that the Beatles would bring with them in The Beatles: Rock Band. For the first time, there was a career spanning take on the legendary act with amazing and unique visuals attuned to the songs being played out.

With the addition of harmonies for the first time in any music game, The Beatles: Rock Band stepped up the feel of being in a full band to another level. Along with the unrivaled set list that only the Beatles could produce, the game has a shelf life that can outlast the pop-centric songs of current game releases.

A little over a month later, music gaming took another leap but this time into the unknown. Many people grow up hoping to become famous musicians at one point in their life but nowhere near as many look to become famous DJs. DJ Hero from Activision brought in masters of turntablism with the likes of the original hip-hop DJ Grand Master Flash to DJ Jazzy Jeff to electronica legends Daft Punk in the ultimate mashup collection.

One of the biggest hits this holiday season has already been confirmed to be Left 4 Dead 2. The sequel to last year’s multiplayer hit, the game featured four new campaigns, each with full Story, Versus, Survivor and Scavenger modes.

The new game starred four new survivors as they try to escape from various Southern American environments. But there are still tons of questions left unanswered from the first game like how the infection began, and most importantly what happened to Left 4 Dead’s original four survivors.

Valve has announced that these questions will be answered in early 2010 when Left 4 Dead 2‘s first downloadable content will be released. Valve’s press release states: “Dubbed “The Passing”, the first game add-on for L4D2 brings the original Left 4 Dead (L4D1) Survivors down south for a meeting with the L4D2 cast, while delivering new single-player, multiplayer and co-operative gameplay for the PC and Xbox 360. “The Passing” takes place just after the “Dead Center” campaign of L4D2.

Anybody who’s been to a theater in the past year or so knows that zombies are all the rave today. From Sony’s Zombieland bringing in nearly $65 million in a matter of weeks, to the sudden resurgence in the work of George A. Romero, zombies are neck-and-neck with vampires these days.

With that said, of course the craze is bound to hit the video game world, as it did in spades with last year’s Left 4 Dead. The game managed to cram every zombie movie scenario into a first-person shooter to make you feel like you were really fighting for your life against an army of the undead, as scary as that sounds. While there were some pretty haunting moments in the game, there really isn’t anything as cathartic as blowing up zombie heads.

Like clockwork, game developer Valve (along with EA Games) is releasing the sequel to the highly-praised game this year around the same time. The characters are all new, as are the settings, but the most important is the new storyline. Many games these days are more compelling than some films, and the newest trailer for the game only proves that further.

Check out the Zombie Survival Guide trailer after the jump, and be sure to race to the game stores on November 17th when the game gets a nationwide release.

Much like it will when the actual zombie apocalypse comes, the internet was abound with zombie discussion as Left 4 Dead had a dashboard update for users who logged in to the game today. Many were expecting to see the new “Crash Course” campaign but instead were treated to a revised Heads Up Display for the Infected during versus mode. Though some speculate that the update might also offer some of the code foundation for when “Crash Course” does go live.

The main noticeable change is the Infected HUD. Now, during matches, infected players can see the recharge meter for their teammate’s special attacks. While this seems like a minor change, it will end up adding a huge degree of strategy and planning to the often chaotic Infected teams. Without knowing their teammate’s standing, many players will often go full steam ahead repeatedly instead of specifically planning out attacks. This change can lead to a much more coordinated effort, increasing the challenge of completing levels for the Survivors.

More interesting to note though is the groundwork seemingly laid out for the addition of 10 new achievements added to the XBox 360 version. As reported by Kotaku, the game’s in-game achievements list now says a player has whatever number of achievements they have gained out of 60 instead of the original 50, though these ten new achievements are not listed anywhere in the menu.

Strangely though, XBox.com and the XBox 360 Dashboard still list a player’s current achievements out of 50. As a result, Valve message boards have been flooded with speculation as to what this means, or if it was just a mistake in the coding.

Stay tuned to the Flickcast for more Left 4 Dead, “Crash Course” and Left 4 Dead 2 news as it becomes available.

With Left 4 Dead fans eagerly awaiting the release of the game’s sequel on November 17th, Valve shows they have one more trick up their sleeves for the original with the release of a new single player, multiplayer and cooperative campaign available for the XBox 360 and PC. The new campaign, called “Crash Course,” takes place after the events of the game’s original campaign “No Mercy” and fills in the gaps of what happened to Francis, Zoey, Louis and Bill before they reach the “Death Toll” encounter.

According to Valve’s press release, “Crash Course” will include “new locations, new dialogue from the original cast, and an explosive finale.” The game will contain full co-op campaign and Survival mode, the focus of the expanded downloadable content will be to give a more streamlined 30 minute version of the game’s versus mode. Added features to this new Versus mode include recharge timers for Infected teammates as well as a rebalancing item spawn behavior to help further balance the gameplay.

Gabe Newell, co-founder and managing director at Valve said about the upcoming release: “Since the release of Left 4 Dead last November, the design team has been excited about creating new experiences for this world and allowing players to do the same, by releasing much of our internal toolset, like the Survival Pack and Authoring Tools… We’re working with the fans toward the ongoing entertainment value of the product.”

“Crash Course” will be available sometime in September as a free download to PC players and also available over XBox Live Marketplace for 560 Microsoft points ($7.00).