I don’t know about you guys, but here at Gaming Today, we’re always up for a game that includes zombies. Of late, we’ve been playing Left 4 Dead, and keeping our eyes on Killing Floor, the upcoming release from Tripwire Interactive. Killing Floor isn’t exactly a zombie game, but genetically engineered zombies are close enough for us.

If you’re a Unreal Tournament player, you may remember Killing Floor as a mod for UT2K4. Since then, the mod team behind Killing Floor has teamed up Tripwire Interactive to bring their mod to retail release as a standalone title, and it looks to have some serious potential.

We recently had the opportunity to chat with a few of the people responsible for Killing Floor. Read on to find out a little bit more about the upcoming survival horror title.

Gaming Today: Let’s get the boilerplate stuff out of the way up front. Can you tell us who you are, what your role in the production of Killing Floor is?

Alan Wilson, VP of Tripwire Interactive. I get all the non-tech stuff to do. Some writing and design, bit of voice acting this time, project management, PR and trying to manage the testing.

I’m Alex Quick. I’ve worn a few hats over the course of KFs production, but primarily I’m working as a level designer, and texture artist. Oh, and the mod this game is based on was largely my undertaking, so I’ve been pretty active in gameplay design discussions for the sake of consistency.

Dayle Flowers, Senior Programmer at Tripwire Interactive. Aside from the typical working on game play, I get much of the highly technical stuff that many people overlook and simply expect to work. I was responsible for connecting Killing Floor to the Steam system to support Authentication, the Master Server, and Perks/Achievements. [Edit: and designing a lot of that stuff, too! AW]

Dan Nassick, audio designer and musician. I’ve worked on the Killing Floor mod since 2005 and my responsibility on the audio team has been to organize a complete audio overhaul in the transition from modification to commercial game.

Myles Lambert, part of the original mod team. I get to do a great mixture of work, environmental art and level design and when I’m not working on that I’m working on some future DLC map content.

GT: So, judging from everything I’ve seen, Killing Floor is a survival horror game featuring some very interesting adversaries. Can you tell us a little bit about these zombies?

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I’m sure you saw the story about the free play in Valve’s zombie shooter, Left 4 Dead, today. Well, Valve’s apparently enjoying watching all of you check it out, because they’ve extended the event through 5 PM GMT (1 PM EST) tomorrow. That’s about 23 hours from now.

You’ve still got just under a day to check it out, so get out there and survive the zombie apocalypse!

Oh, and if you decide that you like Left 4 Dead so much you want to purchase it and continue playing after this event ends, Valve’s offering discount as well. If you purchase L4D this weekend, you’ll get it for 40% off. That’s $23.99 for one of the best co-operative experiences available on PC.

If you are not prepared for the inevitable zombie apocalypse, Left 4 Dead is a good primer to get you on the road to preparedness. Seriously, go check it out. After all, it is free!

If you haven’t tried your hand at surviving the zombie apocalypse in Left 4 Dead yet, Valve’s giving you a chance to try it for free. Starting at 12:01 AM GMT tomorrow (8:01 PM EST tonight), you can play L4D for free for 24 hours.

This isn’t just a demo, this is a fully functional copy of the game. It even includes the recently released Survival patch, and all four Versus maps.

I can tell you from experience that if you plan to try this out, you had better not make any plans for Friday night. Left 4 Dead has an addictive quality that I can personally testify to. Plus, the satisfaction of setting a crowd of zombies on fire, or running through them firing a smoking auto-shotgun, well, that’s just great.

For details on how to take advantage of this promotion, as well as a copy of the press release, check after the break.

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THQ and Relic Entertainment delivered quite a different Dawn of War experience with the recently released sequel. Not every fan of the RTS series likely found the changes made good ones but one thing you really can’t knock the game for is its outstanding and moving soundtrack. If, like me, you’re a big fan or collector of video game music then you should check out the Dawn of War II soundtrack on Steam. (Scroll down on the game’s Steam homepage to find the soundtrack download link – its a 193MB .rar file)

The collection of 20 songs is available through the download service for free. The score was composed by Relic’s in house musical maestro Doyle W. Donehoo and Audio Lead Jason Ross with contributions by Noah Stacey and Noobie Noobinson. (Yes, I’m pretty sure that last artist is using a pseudonym).

If you enjoy the score or want to find out more about Donehoo’s process and inspiration you can even jump over to Game-OST for their interview. Thanks to Nobuooo for the heads up.

I assume that most of you are familiar with Tripwire Interactive. If not, perhaps when I mention that they were the company that brought Red Orchestra to retail you’ll realize who I am talking about.

Tripwire’s newest title, the zombie action game Killing Floor, has just been made available for pre-purchase on Steam. If you’re interested in checking this one out, you should grab it now, as you’ll save 25% if you purchase before the game’s launch on May 14.

According to the Valve press release, the game will feature, “over 40 Steam Achievements, persistent perks to level up your character and a solo game mode for offline play.”

You can get more information by visiting the game’s official site, Steam site, or you can stay tuned to Gaming Today, where we’ll have an interview with the team behind Killing Floor coming very soon.

Like so many other people, I was smitten with Valve’s zombie shooter, Left 4 Dead. There’s something viscerally satisfying about gunning down hordes of zombies, especially when you feel that you’re the last hope for the survival of humanity. Earlier this week, Valve graced us with the first major update for Left 4 Dead. This update included not only Versus mode for the two maps that were previously unavailable, it also included the long-awaited Survival Mode.

The basic premise is a simple one. The players are up against a wall, facing off against never ending waves of zombies, including a number of special infected. There are plenty of supplies, ammo, and explosives, but there’s absolutely no way out. The goal, as the name would suggest, is to survive as long as possible.

But does it actually work as a game mode?

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Along with the resurrection of the site.. we’ll be bringing back out regular editorial content as well. To kick off our first weekend back I thought I’d get The Analog Gamer back up and running quickly as well. First out of the box I wanted to take the opportunity to highlight a game I’m sure many of the mainstream RPG players have never heard of – Untold.

I’ll let the following interview with one of the game’s creators explain exactly what Untold is but lets just say this is not your normal pen and paper RPG concept. Click through to the jump to read through my interview with Brannon Hollingsworth, Untold’s co-creator and one of the talented folks from The Wandering Men Studios. You can also find out more about Untold itself on its official website.

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GamerDNA has kicked it’s new Discovery Engine into high gear to help gamers find new compatible titles.

Think of it as a dating service for gamers and games. Members describe games in terms of how they feel about each title in five different categories: Setting, Tone, Enemy Archetype, Hero Archetype and Game Features. You can select from a list of answers or provide your own. The discovery engine processes their answers and recommends titles they might not have run across before.

GamerDNA is a free social network for gamers. It’s wired into XBL, Twitter, Xfire, Steam, tmblr. and friendfeed, so if you like to keep up your friends or are a little competitive gamerDNA makes it effortless. Check out the Discovery Engine on gamerDNA and see if there are any gems you’ve over looked..

Valve has been hard at work on a new Team Fortress 2 patch, which should be going live within a few days time. This is not only good news for PC users, but for those who purchased The Orange Box for the Xbox 360 as well because Valve is also working on an update which will include all the goodies that were included with the PC version.

The patch for the PC will see the Teleporters being able to be leveled to 3 with the cool down decreasing as the character levels. Spies will be have the ability to recharge their cloaking skill when they pick ammo up off of the ground. Dispensers will also be able to level up to 3 and will not only heal faster, but generate metal faster as they level. Valve has also added a particle system and has upgraded the HUD to show stats such as death by critical hits, players that are over healed, and providing more information to medics when they are being hailed by other players.

In addition to these new changes and additions, gamers who have not had the opportunity to play Team Fortress 2 can now get the game for $10.00 over on Steam. If you have loads of money to burn, you can also get the complete Valve package for $99.99 which includes: Counter-Strike, Team Fortress Classic, Day of Defeat, Deathmatch Classic, Half-Life: Opposing Force, Ricochet, Half-Life, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, Half-Life: Blue Shift, Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Half-Life: Source, Day of Defeat: Source, Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, Half-Life Deathmatch: Source, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Portal, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead, and Peggle Extreme.

Left 4 Dead will already run you $49.99 so spend the extra $50 and get not only a good deal but a enough games to max out the memory on your PC.

We will be sure to let you know when the patches for both versions of Team Fortress 2 are to be make available, so you may wanna check back with us.

(Thanks VG247)

Ubisoft has listened to PC gamers over the past year and figured out that they hate DRM. So the company is releasing the retail version of Prince of Persia with no DRM. The Steam digital download of PoP will still be locked into Steam’s authentication system. It sounds really good on paper, but is Ubisoft really doing this for the PC gamers’ benefit?

The community manager of the Ubisoft Prince of Persia site has told ars technica that the move to publish DRM free is a challenge to those PC pirates who claim they would buy the title if it weren’t for the DRM. He says has no faith that these gamers will put their money where their mouth is and expects to see figures on piracy of PoP to come in higher than ever.

It’s a pretty good strategy on Ubisoft’s part. If gamers buy the PC DRM version of PoP, then Ubisoft makes money. If they don’t then Ubisoft can say I told you so and justify putting DRM on future titles. Read the full article, PC Prince of Persia contains no DRM. It’s a trap!, on ars technica for all the sordid details.