{"id":414,"date":"2010-04-23T15:20:20","date_gmt":"2010-04-23T23:20:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vidhero.wordpress.com\/?p=414"},"modified":"2010-04-23T15:20:20","modified_gmt":"2010-04-23T23:20:20","slug":"review-l4d2-the-passing-dlc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.solidfuelstudios.com\/blog\/2010\/04\/23\/review-l4d2-the-passing-dlc\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: L4D2 The Passing DLC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>I ranted on <a href=\"http:\/\/forums.steampowered.com\/forums\/showthread.php?t=1237600&amp;page=2\">some forum<\/A> about how the new DLC for L4D2 is great, because i couldn&#8217;t believe people were attacking it (sigh. Oh, internet). Since I&#8217;ll probably just be flamed, I thought it wise to save these thoughts on this here blog. n&#8217;stuff.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>(spoilers for the DLC in here! don&#8217;t read if you haven&#8217;t played!)<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;I thought this DLC was way better than expected. Crash Course was neat, but this one improved on all levels.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>&#8211; these games tell a story with the environment details (not with cut scenes). The &#8220;hero&#8217;s corpse&#8221; quietly dead in a nearby room is what this story telling style is all about. I didn&#8217;t even notice this the first few times I played (i wondered what louis\/zoey meant by &#8216;should we tell them?&#8217;). I got that he was dead, mostly because it was spoiled by rabid internet junkies. but for some reason I assumed his corpse would be up on the walkway with the rest of them.<\/p>\n<p>also, starting the whole campaign with a single first-game-character on the bridge is interesting foreshadowing. feels like a Half-life style idea. Arty.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; This campaign&#8217;s design feels more like a scary movie (like the first game), but also shows off some unique southern flavor (like the second game). I think the core L4D2 game nailed &#8220;the south&#8221; but didn&#8217;t really nail that &#8220;scary movie feel&#8221; which the first game had (probably because the first game feels like one big struggle to escape a city at night, and this games feels more like a romp through the south).<\/p>\n<p>-the new in-game blog, and weekly mutations: are excellent unexpected additions to the game that will keep me coming back.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; It&#8217;s specific set pieces are great. The tank that will chase you out into a parking lot full of cars. the witch alone at her wedding, which splits the group. the mad rush in the sewers. Crash Course let you fire a big gun (once. sigh.) and had the generator go out. but those felt more like gameplay gimmicks than stylish &#8220;scenes from a cool movie.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; the survivor Uncommon, who tempts people off on their own.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; the supply crates are genius. It&#8217;s a new flavor of fun to just shoot up with a needle 5 times in a row, like you&#8217;re a crazed druggie, before running off to kill. ditto throwing ridiculous amounts of mollys and pipes. it just feels like a welcome release from all the tension.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; i guess the golf club is neat. but really I love the ridiculously &#8220;large gun.&#8221; (whatever it&#8217;s called). yelling at someone to get out of the way, so you can unload it is a slightly new flavor of awesome. (because of the limited ammo, i guess. chainsaw was neat, but I didn&#8217;t see people grab it that much. this gun: everyone wants).<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; having a crescendo where NPC&#8217;s are covering you, and yelling at you to lure beasts out so they can shoot them is &#8211; AWESOME. also totally new experience for this franchise.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; i tried out the survival mode, and actually had a consistently good time. turning that frustrating &#8220;witch wedding&#8221; moment into a violent focal point is neat, conceptually, and the delicious spread of every gun laying around in the arbor is delightful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I ranted on some forum about how the new DLC for L4D2 is great, because i couldn&#8217;t believe people were attacking it (sigh. Oh, internet). Since I&#8217;ll probably just be flamed, I thought it wise to save these thoughts on this here blog. n&#8217;stuff. (spoilers for the DLC in here! don&#8217;t read if you haven&#8217;t&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.solidfuelstudios.com\/blog\/2010\/04\/23\/review-l4d2-the-passing-dlc\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Review: L4D2 The Passing DLC<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\" aria-hidden=\"true\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","category-video-game"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.solidfuelstudios.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.solidfuelstudios.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.solidfuelstudios.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.solidfuelstudios.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.solidfuelstudios.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.solidfuelstudios.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.solidfuelstudios.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.solidfuelstudios.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.solidfuelstudios.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}