China Electronics Wholesaler

It looks like Valve's upcoming cooperative shooter Left 4 Dead will be harboring more than just the zombie plague when it releases November 17; the company's new Steam Cloud feature is also set to launch alongside the game. Left 4 Dead will be the first title to support the service, with updates to older Steam products scheduled to follow shortly after.

First announced toward the end of May this year, Steam Cloud automatically saves a Steam user's system settings, multiplayer configuration, and saved game data on Valve's servers, allowing players to quickly and easily retrieve those settings from any internet-connected PC. The press release notes, however, that game saves will not be making the cut in this initial version of Steam Cloud, and there's no mention of when to expect that highly anticipated feature's inclusion.

Once Valve finally gets all of this up and running, though, it should make migrating to a new PC -- or even just playing at a friend's house -- a breeze. Because the service is being offered for free to all developers that use the Steam distribution network, the once tedious, day-consuming process of transferring saves and settings will theoretically end up almost entirely automated -- for games that support Steam, that is. You're probably going to have to do all the legwork yourself when it comes to that pirated installation of Grim Fandango.