Warning: this review WILL have spoilers in it.
a few days ago Valve released its long awaited The Passing campaign, is it worth the $7 on the 360? is it good? what’s it about? well lets take a step back for a moment here.
A little bit after the release of Left 4 Dead 2 Valve released the Crash course campaign and was a major dissapointment to most of the people, almost as big as a dissapointment that Team fortress 2 has yet to be updated on the consoles. the campain conssted of 2 levels, no new guns and reused areas. now, fast forword a year and you have a superior DLC pack.
First most it pays homage to the origonal Left 4 Dead in terms of level design, Dark, close quarters for the most part, those who belive the new special infected steal the show in the main maps are in for a surprised as those who are familer to the old 4 infected are able to be more deadly then some of the other specials (thats not to say the Jocky, Spitter and Charger are useless as theres a few sections dedicated to them as well).
Second most you actually interact with the origonal survivors from Left 4 dead…or 3 of them at least as one of them died to save the other 3.
The story of the death of one of the origonal survivors untill the next Left 4 Dead DLC is as follows:
Franics, Zoey, Bill and Louis escape the military (for whatever reason) and begin to head south however, during a fight near the bridge Louis got himself wounded (presumibly by a Tank) and Bill was mortally wounded, In order to save the other 3, Bill ordered them to get onto the bridge while he stayed below to raise it, if you look by his dead body you see he must of crawled over to the main generator and gaurded it untill he died of his wounds as he is tightly cluting his M16 (which you can pick up) .
As The Passing is cannon it is clear Bill is never coming back in any possible Left 4 dead games unless his player model is used for community levels, its also clear that the origonal surviors (Zoey especially) are incredibly hurt by the loss of there friend.
Now with the good its time for the bad, one problem is (for us europion players especially it seems) the dedicated servers on the 360 version still lagg terribly, Valve have stated it would be lagg free now but this is pretty much a lie on there part
Second is that you can’t play as any of the origonal survivors, that have new soundfiles for community levels but minus modding you can’t play as the characters, I personally would love to choose between 8 of the survivors, i mean who doesn’t want to see Ellis and Zoey’s love affair? or Francis and Nick nearly coming to blows with each other constantly?
Finally the fanallie is rather week its the same “find X gas cans and fill up Y to win” Sure the cans are far away but Theres Zoey and Francis with Shotguns/Rifles and Louis with a big ass machine gun, its not that its overpowered its the fact the horde is so small even on expert that its pretty much neigh impossible for you to get hit by the common infected.
So, The Good
- Much better then crash course
- New weapons Golf club and M60 (Campaign only)
-Only 1 witch in the level (wearing a brides dress, points for origonality)
-Get the meet the Origonal survivors again
- Added the mutation gametype
-good for all Infected
The Bad
- Finalle is too easy in Campaign
- Bill dies
-Servers still lagg unless local
-No ability to play as the origonal surviors
The funny
- New lines
-Francis and Nick hating each other
-Ellis loves Zoey
- “Rochelle and the biker dude sittin in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!”
- Level makes great “WTF” moments
- Ellis refers to Team Fortress 2 like Louis refered to Counterstike in the origonal
-Cruel, Cruel joke involving a Jukebox and the Bride-Witch
-Valve secretly take the piss out of Microsoft forcing the price for the 360 version “$7 for an under the river tour? from Con man to con man I say, Bravo Mr Reymond, Bravo.”