Left 4 Dead 2: Race Cars and Rock Stars

Left 4 Dead 2 galore today! While I still have yet to pick up a copy due to not yet being best buds with Valve's PR department and/or being a poor bastard (see Contact and Donate respectively), it's definitely on my "To-Do as Soon as I Rob a Bank" list. Two new pieces of pieces of L4D2 to peruse, one an easter egg of sorts and another a meta-foreshadowing of future DLC? Ponder with me below:

Jimmy Gibbs Jr., Race Car Driver, Zombie

Jimmy Gibbs Jr., apparently a much loved Nascar driver in the L4D-verse, was apparently set to make an appearance in one of the levels. While again, I haven't gotten a chance to play it personally, Gibbs is apparently the owner of the race car alluded to as being used to escape from the Mall level. Some players have also spotted posters around the mall advertising his appearance. An enterprising player, while poking around the game's code, discovered the stock car legend's in-game model, and sadly, he's dead. Well, sorta... you know. If you're playing on the PC version, you can drop him into a game yourself by enabling the console and typing the following command:

map atrium
sv_cheats 1
z_forcezombiemodelname common_male_jimmy
z_forcezombiemodel 1

Aside from having a bit of extra HP, Gibbs also triggers some fun new dialouge options including:

"Sorry about this Mr. Gibbs, but we need your car." -Coach
"Dibs on Gibbs." -Rochelle
and
"God damn that Jimmy Gibbs Jr.!" -Nick

Mad props to samm5506 for his discovery.

Metaltastic: Midnight Riders

So apparently the ending to the Dark Carnival level is pretty freaking mindblowing, involving a heft bit of pyrotechnics thanks in part to a metal band's previous on-stage setup. Well the aforementioned band just got themselves a website, The Midnight Riders. Aside from having absolutely no content, the website does bring up some interesting possibilities. As of now this is all speculation, but with Valve, that's half the fun. According to many players, graffiti scrawled on the walls of Whispering Oaks' safehouses seem to imply that the band escaped, buying their way onto the evacuation, but not much else is known. To add to this mystery there’s an achievement for completing all six campaigns, yet the game only shipped with five. Four band members... four... survivors?

Again, this is all speculation, and we have no idea what Valve plans on doing with their DLC. All we do know now for sure is that the site is officially registered to Valve, so there's that.

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