Does Valve have too much time on their hands? The developers of Left 4 Dead and Half-Life always seem to be whipping out some unexpected freebie to give away to their fans; whether it’s supporting older titles like Team Fortress 2 with constant updates, handing out free top-down shooters (Alien Swarm) or even making multi-award winning puzzler Portal free when their download platform, Steam, launched on Macs.
So it’s small surprise – but welcomed nonetheless – to find Valve putting out a free add-on for zombie genocide sequel Left 4 Dead 2.
The Passing adds a new, compact campaign to L4D2, in the same fashion as the Crash Course DLC souped up the first game. Just as with Crash Course, though, you’ll be expected to shell out 560 Microsoft points if you’re playing on the Xbox 360. PC fans are free of this charge, thankfully.
The Passing’s campaign is a bit longer than Crash Course; two levels instead of three, with the grand finale split up by a loading screen, which means you won’t have to traipse back through the level if you fail at the final hurdle; a welcome concession when playing on Advanced or Expert mode.
The campaign consists of a stroll through a zombie beset Georgian town, a spot of spelunking in a subterranean tunnel, and a final challenge down at the town’s port, where your team of survivors are assisted from above by Zoey, Francis, and Louis, three of the original survivors from Left 4 Dead.
It’s a nice gimmick to see those familiar favorites back, even in the absence of the (now heroically deceased) Bill. There’s also some amusing banter between the two groups, who need to co-operate to raise a bridge; chatty hick Ellis seems to have a sweet spot for dreamy infected-mincer Zoey, and southern girl Rochelle falls for tough biker Francis.
The gameplay in the campaign, however, is not as creative. Anyone at home with the co-operative horror/FPS action of Left 4 Dead 2 will find The Passing instantly familiar; maybe a little too familiar. The levels are as polished as I’ve come to expect from Valve, but they seem to lack a certain spark. More charitably, you could describe it as a sort of Left 4 Dead 2 greatest hits collection, with ideas from the original game scattered all over the place; the obstructive weather of Hard Rain, the park from The Parish, the gas-can grabbing climax from Dead Center.
The few new additions are welcome, but they’re really nothing out of the ordinary. The best is probably the introduction of the “Fallen Survivor”, a special infected carrying a med kit that has to be hunted down if you want the goods. There are also a couple of new weapons for taking on the undead hordes: the golf club for putting a hole in one, and a powerful machine gun that becomes useless when the single clip is depleted.
Despite the so-so story campaign, The Passing is still worth your time (and potentially your Microsoft Points), because the DLC also adds the splendid Mutation mode, a new special game type delivered for one week only, every single week. Many of the modes featured so far are pretty simple (Chainsaws only! Just special infected! Only headshots matter!), but they still keep the experience fresh, and every so often something special crops up. Realism Versus, for example, a mode pitting human controlled special infected against human survivors without the customary magic comrade-locating HUD, has been incorporated into the game full time. “Encore weeks” have also been introduced, leading to popular Mutations getting a second week, such as the surreal Last Gnome on Earth in which survivors are challenged with ferrying a garden gnome across the level.
With the introduction of the series of Mutations and a solid, if not spectacular, single-player campaign, The Passing adds plenty of gameplay to Left 4 Dead 2. If you’re a PC user, there’s simply no excuse not to revisit the game, and give the new content a whirl. If you’re a 360 gamer, you should still find yourself tempted by the durability of The Passing’s new game modes and the reasonable ($7, in earth money) price point.
The Passing isn’t perfection, but this is still quality DLC that I wouldn’t want to pass up.
