The Passing

Valve’s new DLC for Left 4 Dead 2 was released tonight – free on the PC, but rather later than the 360 version.  This meant avoiding the forums for the majority of the evening, as others would have played the game and knew which of the original survivors died.  As is normal with any popular release, the Steam servers seemed to be struggling to cope with demand, but eventually the download was complete and we were able to play.

So..  The Passing takes place between Dead Centre and Dark Carnival, in an odd little town where you come across the original survivors.. or three of them at least.  One of the original survivors, [spoiler]Bill[/spoiler], sacrificed his life to save the others.  We’ll find out how this happened in more DLC said to be coming for the original game..

The campaign starts off on a riverbank, sends you underground through some sewers, and then back above ground for the finale, where you have to scavenge for gas while the remaining original survivors watch your back from nearby buildings.  [spoiler]Bill’s body can be found in a room close to the generator.[/spoiler]

There are a few additions – suitcases and footlockers containing weapons, the golf club – I have yet to get the achievement related to this – and the powerful M60 machine gun.  This weapon is already causing a little friction..  This is similar to when we first discovered how easy it is to take out witches in L4d2 (see how in videos here and here), and became rather competitive, running on and trying to get to the witch first. 😉

Speaking of witches.. I’d cry if I had to walk around in those ugly, grey granny-panties too, you know!
She’s been given a new Bride model, and we first encountered her here, at the site of what appeared to be a wedding.  Wonder what happened to the groom?

Due to the lateness of the download, we didn’t get to the first mutation yet – Realism Versus.  That said, we have a week to play it before the next comes out, so plenty of time yet 🙂

Check out Gamecrit’s walkthrough of the new campaign on YouTube: Part 1, Part 2, Part 2.5, and Part 3.

Spoilers:

[spoiler]Bill died.[/spoiler]

[spoiler]You can give Louis your pills when you meet the three remaining survivors.[/spoiler]

[spoiler]You can find Bill’s body through the doorway to the right of the generator, after you’ve come down in the lift.[/spoiler]

Are you Serious?

Steam keep on making great offers, and I keep on taking them up.  This time it was Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter..

Via Steam, there are a few achievements I decided I’d aim for.  Not sure how the “I am Invincible” achievement will go – complete the game in single player without firing a single bullet or shell – but some of the others won’t be too hard.

After a bit of a run in the single player, I went for some co-op with a friend.  I was pleased to find that you have infinite retries in co-op, as it allows for a more crazed game without having to restart levels.

We also discovered that you can climb on top of other characters, and for a short time, even walk with them standing on your head.

This did lead to a friend trapping himself though..

After climbing on my head to get on an otherwise inaccessible ledge, he went through the door up there, and then found it wouldn’t open to allow him back through!  Some doors won’t open unless you’ve dealt with whatever is in that section..  We were able to pick him up again, after clearing the next room 🙂

In this game there are also a good number of secrets, and there is an achievement for finding 50 of these.  Let’s just say I’m quite determined to find them all 😉

Dreamkiller

Dreamkiller, from Mindware Studios, wasn’t a game I’d even heard of, but a friend told me about the free weekend on Steam.. and well.. always worth a try.  I justabout managed to complete the game over the weekend, though I didn’t get to try out any multiplayer.

The game is this: a first person shooter set within the disturbed minds of people suffering a variety of nightmares.  You’re a psychologist called Alice Drake, and your task is to enter these nightmares and kill the creatures therein, with weapons created by the minds of the patients.

On the first level, this means spiders – in later levels you’re dealing with straightjacketed lunatics with horrible, chomping, metal-toothed contraptions on their heads, or winged demons.  Later levels find you in Alice’s own dreams, of her childhood in a mental asylum with rather creepy lab-coated shrinks coming at her with needles, as well as creatures from all the patients’ dreams so far – and the finale: a giant floating head!

The idea seemed great, but the game was a little repetitive; open door, shoot things, go to next door, and boss fights pretty much being a matter of clearing away some minions, shooting at the boss, running to health pickups, and clearing some more minions before shooting the boss some more.  AI just weren’t that bright..  The beserk mode was also a little offputting – enemies turn red and everything else greys out a little.. in other games this indicates you’re nearly dead, so here it just doesn’t fill you with the sense that you’re doing lots of damage now.

I did like the teleport type feature – sending a representation of yourself running off into the distance and warping to it.  Very useful for dealing with the minions during a boss fight, leaving them at one end of the room and giving you time to fire off a few more rockets.

Overall, it was entertaining in a go-mad-shoot-everything way – reminded me of Serious Sam, though I think that was the better game.  It was also quite fun comparing progress through the levels with a friend, though I only caught up with him right at the end. 🙂

Left 4 Dead 2 Demo

I’ve just had my hands on the Left 4 Dead 2 demo, after looking forward to it most of the day 🙂

I pre-loaded this last night, so I’d be able to play once getting home from work.. glad I did as I hear the Steam servers are struggling – oh, what’s new?  I’ve come around to Steam and the whole digital download thing (getting at my games from multiple locations helps!), but seriously, the servers really need some work.  Every time there’s an update, add-on, free weekend or demo of anything fairly high-profile, chug, chug, chug..
As for chugging, I think I need to reinstall my machine.. performance isn’t great at the moment, and it was really noticeable when I loaded up the demo.

So, as to the demo..

It feels like a completely different game to the first, more like HL2 and episodes.  It feels less serious, less creepy.  I think that’s due to the daylight – but it probably isn’t helped by my current pc performance issues making me turn the settings down a touch.  Other than that, the bodies seem to disappear too quickly, which again makes it feel less serious.  I’m glad I don’t live in Aus though, with the censorship issues going on there at the moment.  I’m not a fan of censorship used in place of parenting 😉

I don’t know how much the demo can be relied on as a sample of the full game – the new specials were interesting, and I was relieved to see that the old ones were still present – but has the tank been downgraded a bit?  It seemed a bit too easy to kill, somehow.  One fun instance already though – being jumped by a jockey while entering a maze and fighting off a small group of infected: the jockey quickly dragged me round a corner, and I was taking a bit of a beating till my team mates fought their way round the corner too.

Looking forward to versus mode!

Crash Course

I love this new DLC for Left 4 dead.. I was almost starting to feel a bit fed up with the same maps, so this came at a great time for me.

Once downloaded – and that took a while, with everybody else hammering the servers!  I took my time playing it through and examining everything.   I see they’ve sneaked in a few additional comments here and there.. the dead helicopter pilot (shot by Zoey, because he turned!) and new dialogue.. one little exchange in particular shows they all LOVE Steam! 😀

Holed up in the safe room at the start of the second chapter, there’s a whole wall of poetry, and a bunch of comments too.. made me giggle 🙂

Versus mode though – that’s where it’s at!  So far, it looks like the map is heavily in favour of the Infected, for reasonably balanced teams of course.
I don’t know about ridiculously skilled teams – I’m going from personal experience as always – but somehow, despite the whole thing being shorter, there just seems so much more packed into it.