Left 4 Dead 2: The Passing Review
WARNING: MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
With the Left 4 Dead franchise being known as one of the best games for the Xbox 360 and PC, its no wonder why Valve wanted to give us more DLC’s. Whereas everything is very nicely polished, and with Left 4 Dead 2 being an epic sequel, even with the DLC, there’s still something that bugs me…. Why can’t I aim?! Yeh, it adds to the challenge to shoot without aiming, but what’s the point of a gun if you can’t aim?
THE STORY
So the story of “The Passing” sits between the first two campaigns of Left 4 Dead 2, which were “Dead Center” and “Dark Carnival”. The L4D2 survivors stop at a bridge, and they meet one of the original survivors, Francis, who tells them they cannot get the bridge down because the generator is not working, so it up to the L4D2 survivors to go around the bridge, start up the generator so they can bring their car through the bridge and carry on through with the car (which explains why they still had their car in Dark Carnival). It’s a good back-story to follow through, but the “generator not working” challenge is a little bit too old. I did expect Valve to come up with something better for us to do, something new. I don’t know what, but Valve didn’t exactly surprise me that they would bring back the “generator excuse”, hence it already being used in Crash Course, the first Left 4 Dead DLC. Either way, a good scavenge is always fun, except when the NPC’s let you do everything, which they still should help! The story also feels weird, because we find out who died in the DLC (I will not spoil it for you), but we just don’t know how. There has been speculations on how the person died but not the true story. It would have been great if the Left 4 Dead 1 DLC was released first, and then the Passing.
STORY RATING: 7.5/10
THE GAMEPLAY
Before I carry on, there was something I was a little bit disappointed with as well. When I was playing the campaign, in the final mission (which turns out to be a Scavenge for fuel mission), we managed to get 15/16 gas cans. The 16th seemed to be stuck on a roof and we could not get to it. We spent a good 10 minutes trying to get it, but there was no way, so obviously the first DLC glitch has been discovered.
Anyway, I played again (yet another glitch) which I wont go into detail. Let’s just say I completed it after the third try!
The gameplay was the usual you’d expect from a Left 4 Dead game. By that, I mean great! I sincerely loved in the second chapter where you have to run to the safe room which gives you a chance to use the M60 or Golf Club if you have either to gain the achievements. It’s also fun trying to chase after the new common infected “The Fallen Survivor”, who will run from you when you see it. He needs to take a good beating before he is killed (most likely because he is wearing padded armor) but he drops some useful stuff, like Molotov’s and Pipe bombs. The idea of a footlocker is great, because they contain unlimited of one item. E.G. You might open up a footlocker full of Pipe bombs, or Molotov’s.
GAMEPLAY RATING: 8.5/10
THE ACHIEVEMENTS
In the DLC, you are given 10 extra achievements, 7 of which can be gained through the campaign or versus. As always, Valve would give us an easy achievement to get, this one being “Killing Em’ Swiftly To This Song”, which requires you to play the new midnight riders song, giving you 20G. Generous? Well the achievements get a little tougher. Apart from the obvious “Completing the campaign” achievement, there are a few that are a little more difficult to obtain. “Wedding Crasher” is one of them, which requires you to become a charger and crash them through 8 wedding chairs. The reason why this is difficult is the wedding chairs can only be found in one chapter, and the fact that you might not even become the charger before the survivors move onto the next area. The other reason is that a survivor might move out of the way before you crash into them, and the fact the survivors might not be anywhere near them when you charge. But the most difficult of all is “Kite Like A Man”, which requires you to do nothing (in a way)…. That’s why it’s so hard. Basically the way to do this is to get a team of 4 players, and make sure they can hear you because they might not do what you say. The Tank needs to be in the line of sight of the original survivors so that they can kill it. If the tank receives one shot from the L4D2 survivors, nobody gets this achievement. Even if you solo the campaign, the L4D2 survivors will try to shoot the tank, so you got to make sure your team resists at shooting the tank and let the original survivors kill it. This can only be obtained on the final chapter. Overall a great selection of achievements that varies from difficulties.
ACHIEVEMENTS RATING: 9.0/10
NEW FEATURES
Apart from the overall “New Campaign” features, the DLC gives us a few new things into the game. The first being “Mutations”, which is a new type of game mode. Mutations is a versus campaign/scavenge/survival mode of the game, only something has been “mutated”. What this means is that they have changed something. For example, in this weeks, they have disabled the ability for the survivors to see each other (because you can normally see them from a highlighted outline). The infected, however, can see you through the outline. In a way, I expected a bit more from this, as if it was a totally different gameplay style. Valve kept this secret on what a Mutation was during the 24 hours we waited for the next blog post after the announcement of the release date, and it was a little bit of a letdown seeing as it was just your average gameplay, only changed by a “bit”.
The next new feature is the “Original” Left 4 Dead survivors. You first meet one of them in the first chapter. The person you meet can vary (minus the character who died). Again, a little bit of a let down, because yes you see them throughout the campaign, and they help you out in the final chapter, but they do so at a distance. They stay at higher ground, while we (the L4D2 survivors) have to do most of the work. It would have been great as well if we could have played as the original survivors, because then it would have give us something to be excited about. But the upside to this is that they would throw down items, such as guns, pipe bombs and more, so it’s helpful in a way.
Two new weapons were added as well, which were the M60 and a Gold Club. The M60 is really fun to use, as it has a huge impact on a zombie when you shoot at them. Just a few bullet and the zombies are down, and it’s really fun. The golf club is really fun too, where you get to use it and see the zombies heads go flying. It’s really funny and makes you laugh a bit.
Two new common infected were also added, which were the “Midnight Riders Fans” and “Wedding Guests”. You would normally find Midnight Riders fans in little groups, since they are fans and most likely before they died, they had their “gatherings”. You can also only find the wedding guests at the wedding which you come across in the first chapter.
The new features are quite good and adds some more purpose to the DLC, but again there are some minor disappointments.
NEW FEATURES: 7.0/10
OVERALL
Overall the DLC is interesting, going from new common infected to new maps. If you are an achievement hunter like myself, then this DLC is definitely for you, and the DLC is definitely a must buy for hardcore Left 4 Dead fans. Few minor disappointments and glitches, but with upcoming projects from Valve, hopefully they should do better.
Story: 7.5
Gameplay: 8.5
Achievements: 9.0
Features: 7.0
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