Skyrim mods via Steam Workshop... A dream combination? Yes indeedy!

Bethesda have announced that fully integrated modding for Skyrim will be delivered via Steam using Bethesda’s very own “Creation Kit”.

Features of Steam Workshop, which will be used to deliver and manage these mods, is going to include the ability for users to submit, browse, rate, and download mods.

This is the best possible scenario for modders, players and indeed everyone who’s interested in Skyrim in any capacity!

For full details head on over to Bethesda’s offical blog entry on the matter!

- Richard “Rax” Burley
@Raxous

The cost of this superb game has dropped... seemingly... as... if... through... a... sorry... Portal.

Steam, never ones to rest on their laurels, have come up with a particularly good deal for one of the best games of the year, Portal 2.

This one is pretty simple in our opinion; If you are a PC gamer and don’t already own Portal 2, but have some spare pennies, you should invest in it right now, you won’t regret it. Fact.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/620/

- Richard “Rax” Burley
@Raxous

Hard Reset is a very weird game. In terms of gameplay it seems like a game that has been yanked out of its time period and dropped in a strange and foreign land. Modern first person shooters are fun, but they are really different from their precursors, like Doom or Quake, who were more focused on insane action first and foremost, and realism later. Characters seemed to skate rather than walk; carried weapons mixed the standard with the insane, and enemies depended on horde tactics and firepower rather than a good AI.

This made old shooters insanely fast and brutal, but the experience of these older shooters isn’t exactly on the minds of most mayor developers nowadays. Enter Hard Reset, a game that is an old school FPS, through and through, with modern day graphics and physics.

Doing what Hard Reset does takes guts. The game’s developer, The Flying Wild Hog (formed by refugees from People Can Fly, the developer of the action packed Painkiller and the simply epic Bulletstorm), has made a huge gamble with this game. Hard Reset has no multiplayer. Yep, you read that right. No multiplayer at all, just a singleplayer campaign that pits our protagonist, Major Fletcher, against an angry horde of robots and terminator-like cyborgs.

The game follows a cyberpunk aesthetic, and dear god it’s beautiful to look at its depressing locales. The action happens in a huge megaplex, with buildings reaching up into the heavens, and neon lights giving the foggy and grimey streets an eerie light. Vending machines harass you even during fights, offering you discounts for being such a good customer, and announcements in Japanese are heard in the distance.

I cannot begin to express how spectacular the game looks, lights, explosions and lighting effects really want to give your eyes an orgasm. It’s simply breathtaking.

The story is presented to us in cinematics done in a very dark and edgy comic book stile and, while nothing spectacular, they fill their objective admirably, and fit with the general aesthetic perfectly.

Aesthetically speaking, Hard Reset is beautiful

The gameplay though is where the game really shines. As mentioned; it’s a true classic first person shooter. Enemies rush you in hordes, there is no cover system beyond hiding manually behind thick (and non destructible) scenery and health does not regenerate without the use of med-kits. As with many classic FPSs, you have a huge weapon selection, but they way it’s implemented is simply brilliant.

Major Fletcher only carries around two guns, an oversized assault rifle and a weird looking plasma pistol. However, through the game you’ll recover upgrade points from downed enemies and secrets within the map, which you’ll be able to use in an upgrade terminal to buy additional weapon modules allowing you, for example, to turn your assault rifle into a shotgun, or even an RPG, with a mere button press. Flipping through weapon configurations can be done with the mousewheel, but it’s kinda wonky and unresponsive mid-fight, making the preferred method to change weapons the numbers on your keyboard, like in classic Doom.

You can also buy addons for your weapon mods, like a laser tracker for your RPG or an X-Ray vision sight for your Railgun, or general upgrades for your character, like extra life from med-kits or extra shields. You’re also going to need all of these upgrades, and wisely using your upgrade points is imperative. Fights are brutally difficult, and not all weapons are equally effective, which can bring to many moments of frustration. This makes looking for secrets almost imperative, as without them your arsenal will be quite limited. Thankfully, said secret caches are usually shown to you through fences or ledges, not making them directly accessible, but telling you when you should start looking for them.

The game places also a big focus on doing “environmental kills”, the city were the action takes place is a workplace safety manager’s nightmare; everything explodes, crumbles or has dangerous electrical currents running through it. If you time and aim your shots right, you’ll see (with your jaw on the floor) how the whole area bursts into flames, sending robot pieces anywhere and everywhere (many times your own body parts will be included in the package).

However, as impressive as everything is, the game has some unavoidable flaws. Some are more on the nitpicky side, for example, as mentioned, changing between weapon mods with the mouse wheel is unresponsive, it’s easily avoided by using the number keys but many gamers may not necessarily be familiar with this way of changing weapons.

Also, and again, as mentioned, the difficulty is brutal. You can downgrade your difficulty level mid game, but if you do, the change is permanent, this game plays for keeps.

One of the most glaring issues is the distinct lack of quick saves

A somewhat bigger gripe it’s that for a PC game, it’s lacking a quicksave function, leaving you to depend completely on checkpoints. Because of how long and hard many fights are, you’ll be sometimes pulling your own hair in frustration because you have to re-start that whole area with the cyborgs with grenade launchers AGAIN. To add insult to injury, the game keeps track of the number of times you’ve been killed on the level, and grades you on it, as if it was pointing and laughing at you.

Enemy types are not that varied, sure they have some different aesthetics, but the real enemy count is probably around 5 or 6, though I’m counting from memory. Because of how frenetic the game is, this is rarely a problem, but some extra enemy types would have been welcomed.

The biggest problem, at least for me, is that the game seems to end in the middle. You have probably noticed through this review that I’ve barely touched upon the story; in part it is because it’s basically an excuse for the game, the other reason is this: while the story is formulaic, the way it’s presented makes it engaging after a while, and things seem to take more and more gravitas. However, after the second boss fight, we’re treated to a cutscene that would indicate the start of the third act of the game; however, that’s it and the credits roll. What?!

If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say that the developers run out of money and decided to wrap up what they had as neatly as possible and try to get enough money for a quick sequel with the rest of the story. However, I cannot prove this, so we will have to wait and see.

Graphics – 5/5: Aesthetics in this game are simply breathtaking. The developers would probably make pretty penny if they released their graphics engine!

Sound – 3/5: Both music and sound stay in the background, accompanying the action but going unnoticed. Good, but not great.

Gameplay – 5/5: Simply epic. Fast, furious and brutal. Playing it is an adrenaline rush I have rarely experienced since the times of Doom.

Longevity – 3/5: While the campaign is short, it’s fun enough to deserve a play through on a higher difficulty level, however it still tops at around 5 hours and it has no multiplayer for those who use it to squeeze more hours of fun from a game.

I really really want to love Hard Reset; it has so many successes in execution that I am pretty much willing to overlook its various small flaws, although the truncated ending feels like a betrayal to me. I really hope that the developers get their act together and put out a quick expansion or that they survive to make another game of this time, they certainly have the heart in the right place.

- Jose Luis Perez Zapata

Origin may be getting the front pages, but Steam is still innovating...

Steam have just launched an innovative new feature bringing a “Swap Shop” to digital platforms for the first time.

In addition to trading one game’s items amongst other players of that game, players will also be able to trade items across games, and indeed, games themselves.

So with the possibility of say… erm… trading a Team Fortress 2 hat for example, this might be tradable for; another hat within TF2, a hat from a different game (maybe a Brink bandanna?), or indeed a full copy of “HAT: A Warm Headed Tale” an exciting new hat trading game coming soon to Steam.

The possibilities are seemingly endless with the ability to “stock up” on amazing offers for later distribution / swapping things really do start getting complicated… and exciting!

Another move in the right direction of giving players as much digital freedom and flexibility as the want! Go Steam!

- Richard “Rax” Burley

Ooops... more fun being had... at us user's expense...

So, we’ve all heard of Crysis 2 dropping off Steam, and that Battlefield 3 may well be giving Steam a miss, but now Dragon Age 2 has mysteriously disappeared from Steam.

This is most likely a continuation of the “debate” between EA & Valve around who controls patching & user communication when Steam is delivering a game to a user, this is double-likely as the most recent DLC for Dragon Age 2 has just launched.

So where will this go? Will EA actually risk taking ALL their properties off Steam? Seems its heading that way. Although they will likely wait until Origin is a bigger player in the market. With Battlefield 3 looking like an Origin exclusive when it releases end of October, this may well happen before the year is out.

- Richard “Rax” Burley

The most fun you can have online? Erm... yes indeedy!

If you have a PC, and enjoy any of the following, you NEED to download this and get stuck in, we promise it’s 100% awesome;

- Shooting people
- Tactical gameplay
- Gaining achievements
- Working collectively
- Unique classes
- Ambushing others
- Building things
- Healing buddies
- Wearing hats
- Making stuff
- Collecting drops
- Oddball humour
- Sound effects
- Backstabbing snipers
- Sniping enemies
- Cloaked sneaking
- Big guns
- Melee combat
- Ranged warfare
- Fish slapping
- Flame throwers
- Rocket launchers
- Strategic thinking
- Laughing alot
- Seasonal events
- Fantastic communities
- Excellent developers
- Mods galore

Thank us later… why not buy us a hat?

Further details here: http://www.teamfortress.com/freetoplay

- Rax

The opening salvo of the looming war has been fired...

In what many are saying is in direct response to Steam’s announcement, yesterday, that they were launching a “Free-to-Play” initiative, EA have today mysteriously “withdrawn” Crysis 2 from sale via Steam. Furthermore they now list Crysis 2 as “only on Origin” in it’s product information page, despite the fact it can still be acquired from number of other direct download vendors… EA are clearly not particularly concerned with Valve’s “experience” of their mutual (for how much longer) relationship…

We say? Want an EA game on Steam? Buy it quick!

- Rax

Let's hope there's even more where that came from!

That purvayor of all things digitally gamingesque, Steam, has only gone and started doing free snuff stuff! Hurrah!

With 5 games now free to play on the platform one can only imagine that Valve will find some more free electronic goodness for all us loyal slaves citizens…

The current crop are: Spiral Knights, Forsaken Worlds, Champions Online: Free for All, Global Agenda: Free Agent, and Alliance of Valiant Arms… yeah we’re not that bothered either… but we’ll ceartainly be taking a deeper look!

I Steam, you Steam, we all Steam for more nice Steam!

- Rax

“Origin”, as it is currently set to be named, will feature a mix of features previously seen on Steam, and add in some of the stuff we are expecting from Activision’s Call of Duty Elite platform, to deliver straight to consumer sales, delivery, social gaming and extended play features.

Challenge Everything? Challenge Steam!

Clearly tired of being the biggest games company in the world, but watching others taking a cut of their assests ast the digitial distribution end EA are cutting out the middle-man…. all of them…

If done well this could result in a real shakeup in a market massively dominated by Steam at the moment, and as such, should be a welcome development for all gamers.

- Rax

As you have, likely correctly, surmised, from it’s wildly creative title, this new offer will renew, & thus feature a different game offer, every single day of the year for ever and ever and ever. (Well OK, for the foreseeable future… who knows what will happen to digital game delivery when our benevolent gigantic cyber-cockroach overlords take over the planet?)

Whichever way you cut this can only be good news. Let’s just hope the cuts Steam make are on the dramatic side of the scale so all us economically ravaged game junkies can catch a break!

Stay tuned to The Newb Review for more coverage on this game in the near future.

Don’t worry though, if that doesn’t appeal, the usual banter, abuse and shenanigans is back too.

ENJOI

MP3 Download / iTunes / RSS Feed

The topic of games that have changed your life is raised, there’s also a 60 second review of Fatal Frame, Adam’s been doing some thinking..and all the usually general chit chat as well.

MP3 Download / iTunes / RSS Feed

We’ve played the opening section of Portal 2 – who wants to read about it?

For those unfamiliar with the franchise, Portal was the critically lauded title from developers Valve, originally found in their deal-of-the-century offering, the Orange Box. The game combined extremely satisfying, and at times mind-boggling puzzle solving with the wicked sense of humour that has become the hallmark of Valve titles. With some dissidents seeing a sequel to such an overwhelmingly popular title as unnecessary; Valve have a lot to live up to with their latest incarnation.

Fear not, dear reader, this preview steers well clear of ominous spoiler country, but what I will say of the narrative is that it won’t disappoint. Largely following on from the end of the last game; you begin equally as bewildered by the surroundings and goings on within Aperture Science’s research lab. From there the narrative kicks in, as events necessitate you following the commands of a friendly personality sphere as you attempt to escape.

Perhaps the most striking facet of the opening of the game is the humour, and the excellent voice work of Stephen Merchant forms a prominent part of that. Whether he had a hand in writing his lines or if it’s the humour of Valve’s writers striking once again, there were several laugh out loud moments in the twenty minute section we were shown.

 Much like the original Portal, the puzzles at the beginning of the game are somewhat rudimentary; used to allow the player to familiarise themselves with the surroundings and physics of the game world. Pretty soon they begin to ramp up in complexity, and with it the fundamental satisfaction of feeling the game mechanics working to help you solve the puzzles laid before you.

There’s also a certain amount of nostalgia to be had within the initial areas of the game. The world feels both familiar and totally new simultaneously, which is an impressive feat. Several of the test chambers are in fact taken directly from the original game, although notably in something of a transformed state. This new-but-familiar theme will go a long way to please both newcomers and veterans of the series alike.

Graphically the game is quite a step up on the original. The muted colour palette of Portal was eye catching, and the minimal graphics in general have meant the game has aged extremely well. Portal 2 takes the familiar locales of the previous title and transforms them, giving the opportunity for more variation in terms of colour. Also, everything looks a lot crisper. Playing the PS3 version, which is bound to be somewhat inferior to someone playing on a top end PC, the game truly did look great.

The good news is that you won’t have to wait much longer. Portal 2 is set for release on April 21^st in the UK. Look out for the full review here on newbreview.com.

- Tom Wallis

Gabe Newell & his alter ego Gordon Freeman?

Valve /Steam founder Gabe Newell spoke to Forbes Magazine in an interview they will be running in their February 28th issue detailing what it’s like to be awesome, clever, innovative and rich whilst also nearly going blind.

In an article pithily entitled “The Master of Online Mayhem” Forbes encourages Gabe to speak in detail about his company, his vision & his condition.

Along side his serious discussion of Fuchs Dystrophy, a disease that destroys the cornea and the double cornea transplants that changed his life in 2006 and 2007, he also touches on the move from retail to digital (topical considering digital game sales having recently overtaken retail sales), and takes us through the rise & rise of Valve itself and its now market dominant Steam digital distribution platform.

If you’d like to know even more, and you probably should, it will be good for you you know, grab the whole write-up, well in advance of the magazine’s publishing, right here.

Anyway, add this to the cross-platform capability of Portal 2 and Valve’s latest offering looks like going from strength to strength!

“This is big news for us: being on Steam means that Frozen Synapse has a much better shot at reaching a significant audience,” said Mode 7’s Joint Managing Director Paul Taylor.  “We’d like to thank Valve and also all of the members of our community who have championed the game.”

Valve have offered a free Steam key for Frozen Synapse to anyone purchasing it direct from www.frozensynapse.com, where it is currently available for pre-order. This will enable everyone to receive the benefits of the Steam version with no extra cost, as all existing Mode 7 customers will all also receive a key.

According to their press release, Mode 7 are currently working on the single player campaign side of the game, which will see players take on a variety of missions, from escorting VIP’s to defending against all-out rocket launcher attacks.  They have released some initial details and a new screenshot on their IndieDB page.

The developers are urging fans to support them in their bid to become IndieDB Indie of the Year – details available on the IndieDB page above.

Frozen Synapse will be released on PC and Mac in Q1 2011. It is currently available for pre-order, with all customers receiving instant access to the beta and a free full copy of the game for a friend.

Mode 7 co-founder Paul Taylor wrote an article for us giving his advice for aspiring game designers on how to get in to the games industry, which you can read here. We also have an indepth interview with Mode 7 Games discussing their plans for Frozen Synapse, which can be read here.

Okay, how many of you stopped reading at this first sentence? Obviously you can’t reply, as you wouldn’t have read the thing you needed to reply to, but I’m going to assume the mere mention of role-playing inside the gaming arena is enough to put most gamers off. Role-playing in sex, now that’s a different matter. If this article was about pretending to be naughty nuns and giggling schoolgirls you’d all be leering over your monitors with your flies open. Sadly for all you mucky pups out there, it isn’t. But neither is it entirely about pretending to be a dwarf or elf getting drunk in a tavern. The beginning’s about that, the rest isn’t. If you’re interested in what comes next, put your junk away and read on.

Of late I’ve been nursing a chronic addiction to Neverwinter Nights. Every time I sit down to play something else – or eat or read or do pretty much anything – my attention wanders to the realms of Faerun, where men are men and women are wenches. In pursuit of this addiction – while chasing the dungeons and dragon, as it were – I’ve turned my attention to some of the more unique corners of the game, the kind of thing that hasn’t had much press because, let’s face it, who wants to talk about a game that’s so old?

Well, me, that’s who. I started looking at persistent worlds or PWs; mini-massively multi-player worlds based on fan-run servers, to see what they offered that more modern and popular games do not. There are plenty of PW reviews on Bioware’s forums and IGN’s NWN Vault, and after a little research I picked one in which to pop my role-playing cherry.

I beamed in at the world’s entrance, where I was met by a friendly player who took me through the basics of the game, then bade me enter a tavern for a spot of what he called ‘RP’.

Role-playing in this instance turned out to be little more than a fireside chat. He and another player playing as a barmaid talked about a few things that had happened previously in the game, and I listened and nodded and awkwardly tried to join in. Once he’d said his piece, the character threw a toothpick into the fire and departed through the tavern’s teleportation portal.

"Two pints of Stella and a packet of Nobby's Nuts... that'll be £8.20 please"

I said my goodbyes – again, awkwardly – to the barmaid, left the tavern and, soon after that, the server itself. I haven’t been back since.

Whatever I’d been expecting, this hadn’t been it. Where was the adventure? Where was the dynamic storytelling? Where were all the things I’d come to expect from Neverwinter Nights after countless hours exploring the modding community?

I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt; maybe it was a slow night. Maybe I didn’t stick around long enough for something exciting to happen. Or maybe they just prefer to shoot the shit in a virtual pub. Hey, if that’s what they want to do then more power to them, but speaking as a gamer and not a role-player, power is the power I crave. I want to do the Conan thing. I want to crush my enemies, see them driven before me and hear the lamentation of their women. It’s called Dungeons & Dragons, not Pubs & Prattle! I want POWER.

In role-playing video games, that power is choice. Choose your character, choose your stats, choose your weapons and choose your path through the game. Recently Final Fantasy XIII drew fire for not offering the kind of choice RPG fans have grown used to. Conversely, Fallout 3 was widely lauded for offering so many choices, a player would have to spend hundred of hours playing it to explore every nook and cranny of the game, and play multiple playthroughs to explore every branch of the storyline.

Choice defines your character in Borderlands, and how you build his or her skill tree. Some journalists have even called Modern Warfare’s online multiplayer mode a role-playing game because you can choose your load-out for each match, and build and customise it through the accumulation of experience points and levels. “If any other game gave you that kind of choice,” they say, “you’d call it an RPG.” Only the fast-paced action and modern military setting mask Call of Duty’s RPG trappings.

The true role-playing hardcore would scoff at this insinuation. All the stats and experience points in the world won’t make it a role-playing game if it doesn’t have role-playing in it, they might say.

Most, if not all games have their players play a role of sorts. Whether you’re Master Chief clubbing Covenant grunts with the butt of your rifle, or a frog trying to make its way across a busy road, you’re playing a role… but that can’t constitute role-playing, otherwise every video game would be an RPG. But then, not every role-playing game has a flexible storyline that can be influenced by your actions. Come to that, not every role-playing game lets you play the game through as a good AND a bad guy, as lawful AND chaotic, as a paragon AND a renegade. Some RPGs have pretty much everything set in stone as soon as you start playing. Can such a game really be called an RPG?

My second proper role-playing experience took a very different form. It still took place inside the world of Neverwinter Nights, but this time I was playing the original campaign with a couple of mates. NWN’s campaign is largely a hack ‘n’ slash adventure that owes as much to Gauntlet as it does Baldur’s Gate, and we could have played it as such, with our cleric, bard and fighter doing their thing while us players kicked back and chatted shit as video gamers are wont to do. But we didn’t. Because we role-played.

You know something? It was fun.

Item management, is it really that important in an RPG?

This wasn’t a set of sombre fireside musings; this was madcap action hero shit. My character was Ox, a dimwit who’d sacrificed brain cells for brawn, and who couldn’t process much beyond who to hit and how hard to hit them. At one point we were tasked with quelling a prison break. Ox waded deep into a crowd of prisoners, braining them with his fists, slicing them with his swords, and remaining upright even after his companions had been beaten and bloodied. During the battle the bard was killed – temporarily, as it turned out – and when he returned he found me stood in the middle of a massacre with corpses strung out five deep in a wheel that hinged around me. “My God!” he exclaimed. “What manner of creature ARE you?”

And I grinned.

Later we encountered a floor that was checkered like a chess board, that was absolutely riddled with traps. Ox being Ox, I charged into the middle of it, miraculously missing every trap, halting only when both my companions screamed for me to stop and wait for them to guide me across it. It was a fun role-playing moment, and it was exactly what I wanted from the game. But there was something else there too, something familiar, and though it took me some time to weasel out that familiar feeling and identify it, I managed to do it in the end, and this is my point:

Left 4 Dead is a role-playing game.

No, it doesn’t have stats. No, it doesn’t have experience points or levels. And yes, I am being serious here.

There are of course roles to play in Left 4 Dead, but they aren’t the characters you pick out at the start of the game. Physical appearance and voice acting aside, the characters in Left 4 Dead are identical. Zoey isn’t – in the time-honoured mysoginistic tradition of beat-’em-ups everywhere – weak but fast. Bill doesn’t have to contend with rheumatism. People are welcome to play these characters as actual characters, but by and large, they don’t. That isn’t to say I haven’t seen players deliberately choose Zoey because male players are more likely to heal a female character than a male one, but when they have, they haven’t spent the rest of the game affecting a Pythonesque falsetto and trying to stay in character.

No, just like when I was playing Ox, Left 4 Dead players construct their own characters.

There’s the leader, fearless, topping the accuracy rankings at the end of each round. There’s the medic, who’s always first at your side when you need a medic or a set of pills. There’s the guy who’ll always pull you to your feet when you’re incapacitated, and who always goes on a one-man rescue mission when a teammate is smoked into the undergrowth on Blood Harvest. These niche roles are indicative of a person’s preferred game-playing style… indicative of their real-life stats, if you prefer. And they’re not exactly role-playing, either.

What IS role-playing is when you’re preparing for a crescendo event, and you’re clearing out the room in the warehouse, checking for zombies between the generators, making sure the guy on the turret has someone guarding their back in case something erupts from the hole behind him, having someone hanging out by the lever that operates the door, having them pelt back to the group after they’ve thrown it and the Horde is screaming for your blood. And then someone’s been pounced by a hunter, a Smoker’s snared someone else from across the room and is lynching them from a window ledge, someone else has thrown a molotov in the wrong direction and you’re screaming down the mic asking in the least polite terms what the fuck just happened.

Left 4 Dead almost cons people into role-playing. Being game-playing nerds, we’ve all been through the zombie apocalypse on many occasions – in books, comics, films, other games, we’ve done it and we know how to respond. What would be a straight action game in single player turns into something special in co-operative multiplayer. The conceit of the game is that you have to work together as a unit in order to survive. You need to watch each other’s backs. And while you won’t ever be Zoey, Francis, Louis or Bill, you are a survivor just as much as they are. You search the shadows with a flashlight, hide in a corner meleeing blindly when gooped with Boomer bile, warn your mates when you hear a hunter prowling somewhere in the stairwell behind you, not because these are the rules of the game but because as a part of your team it’s your duty to, it’s your role.

I’ve played games where my teammates have started off cracking wise when attacked by the special infected. “Non-smoker!” one of them would cry as he blew a smoker’s head off. And over the course of the game as we were pounded by the undead, as we ended each round limping to the safe room on waning pill-health, our bravado faded, the quips dried up, and it was only once we were all wiped out that there’d be any respite or relief. Death meant restarting, which meant this was only a game after all. It threw us out of our assumed roles, if only temporarily. Every time we died we stopped being survivors and went back to being gamers.

Death is only the begining Bill.

Left 4 Dead is far from the first game to do this to its players, but it is the definitive team-based co-operative game, and one many forthcoming games are hoping to copy. Co-op games are enjoying something of a renaissance at the moment, with emphasis being taken off competitive gameplay in favour of a more collaborative experience, and I’d argue that it’s collaboration that invokes role-playing better than stats and levels and everything else that has become synonymous with RPGs over the years.

When you and your friends start plotting tactics over your headsets you’re tapping into the minds of your characters. When you’re watching each other’s backs, or risking your life in order to revive someone in the heat of battle, you’re role-playing. When do you ever do that in a single player game? In a single player game, every other character is there as back-up, right? You never apologised to Yorda for letting her be swept away by a shadowy bat-beast in Ico: you cursed her. But as soon as your mate’s trapped by a Smoker you’re there, auto-shotgun blazing, trying to save him because by God, that’s what you’re supposed to do. Those marines in Halo? They’re a bunch of stupid dicks who keep getting in your way. But your Left 4 Dead teamates, however rotten they are at the game, they’re your mates, and you’ll do your utmost to keep them safe.

Nobody would ever try and sell Left 4 Dead as a role-playing game. But whether they know it or not, it’s the role-playing experience people play it for. The collaboratively woven fantasy of surviving a zombie apocalypse isn’t a hundred miles away from being a group of hapless medieval adventurers facing a city overrun with escaped prisoners. That shaky post-Tank banter isn’t so different to finding your comrade knee-deep in the gore of his enemies and wondering aloud just what manner of creature he is.

There are a few games, such as Space Station 13 and Jason Rohrer’s Sleep is Death, that are trying to reintroduce role-playing as a collaborative gaming process. I’d argue Left 4 Dead’s zombie survival is just as valid an RPG as either of them. It’s a game that runs not only on the in-game mechanics but on the imaginations and personalities of its players, and it’s that that keeps people coming back to it, playing the same old content, week after week, leaving behind the daily drudgery of their lives to become a hardened team of zombie survivors, if only for a few hours.

I think back to the tavern on that Neverwinter Nights server, and the role-playing that occurred within. While I came away from it nonplussed, it wasn’t so much the conversation itself I had an issue with, but that there seemed to be something missing. And I wonder . . .

When the barmaid was getting ready to leave for the night, when the cloaked tale-teller spat the toothpick from his mouth and flicked it into the fireplace; what if at that precise moment somebody had burst in through the tavern doors, his face ashen, his lips quivering with dread, and his voice raised to yell:

“Shambling corpses! The walking dead! The village is overrun; please, you have to do something!”

What if I’d stood, peeled back my cloak to reveal a set of pistols jammed into my +1 belt of protection against evil, pulled them out cross-armed, cocked the triggers and said, in my very best role-playing voice: “I hate zombies.”

I wonder.

-Campfire Burning

2009 was a great year for games. We had Batman: Arkham Asylum, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Left 4 Dead 2 amongst others, and this year seems to be a continuation of that. It’s incredible to think that already this year we’ve managed to get our hands on Mass Effect 2, God of War 3 and Super Mario Galaxy 2, with games from the Halo, Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed, Fallout and Castlevania series all still to come.

With a constant flow of big titles coming out there’s fierce competition and with that comes fairly big titles losing out on sales and somewhat slipping under the radar. No game this year sums this up more than Alan Wake.

Despite all the time, money, effort and publicity pumped, and is continuing to be pumped into Alan Wake, it’s safe to say the game didn’t sell well…. not at all really. This could be down to a number of things. The fact that the game came out on the exact same day as Red Dead Redemption (which sold TONS by the way) obviously had something to do with it but to place the blame for the game under selling solely on the fact it came out on the same day as another popular game is just being plain delusional. Perhaps people got tired of all the hype and delays over the years that when the game actually came out not as many gamers were interested. Who knows? But you can’t change what has already happened.

Pinning the blame of poor sales solely on Red Dead Redemption is perhaps a little bit ignorant

So Alan Wake sold badly and this has thrown the possibility of a sequel, that the game so richly deserves, into doubt. But whilst the gamers didn’t flock out in their masses to pick up the game, I was one of the very few who actually did and for me Alan Wake will go down as THE most underrated game of 2010. Despite no one buying it and it’s reviews seemingly missing the point, the fact remains that everyone that I personally know that has played it has loved it, and that includes me too. Alan Wake was refreshing, compelling and intelligent, something that games rarely are these days, so when it was announced that, despite it’s sequel being in jeopardy, 2 bits of DLC were being release, I embraced the news with open arms.

With “The Writer” DLC yet to come, Alan Wake’s first piece of downloadable content “The Signal” sports as much attention to detail and polish as the original game itself. Attempting to bridge the gap between the first game and a possible second, The Signal picks up right where the original game finished, this time giving previous Alan Wake players the opportunity to experience the involvement of some of the more mysterious and unknown characters of the original, namely that of diver, Thomas Zane, thickening the plot and adding depth to an already weighty story.

The Signal allows you insight into the role of the mysterious, Thomas Zane

If you were one of the very few that played Alan Wake and enjoyed it, you will undoubtedly enjoy The Signal as essentially it’s just more of the same. The gripping, psychological storytelling that made the original game so compelling is still there, at times coming across a little more harrowing than the original and the same combat mechanics are there.

That’s not to say Remedy haven’t made SOME changes of course. As someone who played the original on normal difficulty, The Signal felt a lot more difficult, a lot more like the full game’s harder difficulties. More enemies attack you at once and in more confined locations too, perhaps the whole sense of the DLC feeling more harrowing is down to the fact that throughout The Signal you are constantly fighting for survival; not only are there more enemies and less places to hide but equipment, such as ammo, seems in short supply adding more focus on rationing and survival. The intention of making The Signal just that little bit harder is then hammered home by the fact that there is an achievement for not dying or restarting from a checkpoint.

Possessed cars, trucks, people, debris, poles, bits of machinery, it's all out to get you and it's everywhere

What, I hear you cry, the DLC contains more achievements? Indeed, achievement whores, it does. In fact The Signal comes with a whole host of new features which is a testament to the effort being put in to the I.P considering Remedy could’ve gotten away with just tacking on some DLC with minimal effort. But no, The Signal reeks quality and attention to detail. There are more achievements to unlock, collectibles to collect, more of the overall Alan Wake story to experience, a new unique end boss to fight, and a brand new world to explore (still set in Bright Falls, but the environment is much harsher and much more dangerous this time around).

Despite the DLC not costing a single penny/dollar/whatever the currency in your country is, (THAT’S RIGHT, IT’S FREE! So long as you kept your downloadable token when you bought the game new, because we all bought the game new right?), it’s also not very short either, giving more bang for your buck (wait, no, that doesn’t work does it?). Whilst being feature packed, The Signal is about as long as your average chapter length in the original game. One play through, neglecting achievements and collectibles, will clock in at around an hour on it’s own, which means that although The Signal is a piece of downloadable content, on it’s own merit, it provides at least 2 -3 hours worth of play to unlock and collect absolutely everything.

Alan himself was even shocked by the notion of The Signal being free

The Signal contains all the trademark features that made the original, full game different and so special, and it all ends so perfectly leading up to The Writer (sadly though, that piece of DLC won’t be free, 300 odd MSP though so still not bad). And as David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” (yes that’s right, SPACE BLOODY ODDITY), plays over the credits, you draw the first breath you’ve taken in an hour, an experience.

Review Round Up

Graphics: 4/5 – Facial animation is still a little bit weak, but the way they’ve changed the environment in conjunction with the progression in story is great. Contains all the polish and attention to detail as the original, full game.

Sound: 4/5 – Space Oddity FTW!

Gameplay: 3.5/5 – The Signal is harder and more harrowing than the full game, but nothing has changed drastically, more of the same. Something a little bit different would’ve been nice though.

Longevity: 4.5/5 – For a piece of DLC, it has a lot of replay value.

Overall: 4.5/5 – Overall The Signal gets 4.5 possessed toasters out of 5.

[starreview tpl=16]

- Kieran Roycroft

Left 4 Dead 2 was a very popular game among critics, particularly among us here at The Newb Review. This year Left 4 Dead 2 won the prestigious BAFTA (the UK’s equivalent of the Oscars) for Best Multiplayer Game of 2009. So you can imagine out excitement when Valve confirmed that they would be releasing a number of add-ons for this fantastic title. The first piece of downloadable content is The Passing, which has our band of survivors coming across the survivors from the original Left 4 Dead. The tag line for this new act is “no one survives forever” which teases the death of one of the beloved characters… But who?!

Fear not, we will not spoil it for you here.

The Passing features one new act, made up of three new chapters that take place after the survivors escape from the shopping mall in the supped up race car, and before they are forced to abandon it outside the Dark Carnival. Having followed the road straight out of town, our tenacious survivors (Coach, Ellis, Nick, and Rochelle) find themselves at a raised bridge, which is being protected by the original survivors. After a brief cut scene (which on occasion failed to actually load up for me) we are told that the generator that controls the bridge is out of fuel, and that you will have to refuel the generator if you want to get across. Of course, in typical Left 4 Dead Fashion, there are about 1 Billion zombies between you and your objective. By the time you reach your objective you will probably be drenched in Zombie blood, bile, vomit, and an array of nasty bodily fluids. Why are things never easy in the Zombie Apocalypse?

'I think there might be some zombies out there...'

The three chapters feature everything you have come to expect from Left 4 Dead 2: dimly lit streets, a raging storm, and Zombies… Lots and lots of Zombies. All of the Special Infected return, including the veteran Boomers, Smokers, Hunters, the dreaded Tank and Witch (who has had something of a makeover for this act) as well as the new kids on the block, Spitters, Chargers, and Jockeys.

On your quest to restart the generator, you will come across lock boxes filled to the brim with supplies, as well as two new weapons; a golf club, and an M60 Machine Gun as well as a new type of uncommon infected, the Fallen Survivor. Basically, the Fallen Survivor is a survivor that was not as immune to the virus as he might first have thought. This new zombie takes an awful lot of shooting, but also carries a lot of items, such as health packs, Molotovs, pipe bombs, etc, so coming across him does have its rewards, as well as risks.

The Action is as fast paced and frantic as ever

Also returning are the Survivor messages written on the walls of the safe houses, with one note in particular that will bring a smile to the faces of fans of Capcom’s Dead Rising series.

As well as new achievements, there are some new Avatar costume pieces to unlock, including your very own Gnome Chompski, which will doubtlessly capture the imagination, and trouser contents, of Valve’s more hardcore fans.

All three Maps can be played in the story mode (on your own, in 2 player split screen, or 4 player online), Versus mode (which features a team of survivors VS a team of special infected zombies), Survivor mode (a time attempt to survive as long as possible against the zombie hordes) and Scavenger Mode (in which you must collect as many canisters of gasoline as you can within a set time limit). Arguably the biggest new feature added in this DLC is the Mutations Mode.

The Zombies are clearly big fans of Jazz

A short blog post that is attached to the main menu explains Mutations Mode thusly: Mutations mode takes already established game types, such as Versus, and adds special conditions to them, like a chainsaws only mode. Think of it as being like Golden Gun mode in Goldeneye, or Riot Shields only Modern Warfare 2 matches. Each mutation will last for one week exactly, and once every type of mutation has cycled through, players will be asked to vote for their favourite one. The top user voted Mutations will be made playable again. The first Mutation is Realistic Versus Mode, in which there are no respawns, and no outlines on players or items. In short, Realistic Versus Mode takes away all of the advantages on the Human’s side, making it a very Zombie friendly game mode. With at least six types of mutations confirmed, it is clear that Valve is dedicated towards breathing more life in to Left 4 Dead 2’s multiplayer.

Review Round-Up

Graphics: 4/5 While the Source Engine that powers Left 4 Dead 2 is showing it’s age, a lot of effort has gone in to making the game look at good as possible, particularly with the design of the levels and characters. Faces look particularly gruesome, and the streets are dauntingly atmospheric.

Sound: 3/5 The music, sound effects, and voice acting are on par with the main game, as you would expect. However, on occasion, I have had a few problems with the noise produced by the raging storm being far too loud, drowning out all of the other sounds in the game. I do not know if it is intentional, but I found it very irritating.

Story: 2/5 Anyone that is playing Left 4 Dead because they are looking for a fantastic in depth story should probably look elsewhere. The story is very basic, and on occasion, a key cut scene at the beginning of the expansion failed to actually let me know what was going on. It’s a good thing that Valve have announced an expansion for the original Left 4 Dead to fill in the gaps in this add-on.

Gameplay: 5/5 While you can play it in single player, Left 4 Dead 2 is best played with other people. A welcome addition included in the 360 version brings an update, which has been available to PC players for some time, that allows any empty spaces in your multiplayer Versus or Scavenge games will be filled with computer controlled bots.

Longevity: 4/5 Your first play through of the Passing will probably last between half an hour and one hour, depending on your skill level. Achievements and Avatar Awards incentivise multiple play throughs of the DLC, while the Mutations mode breathes new life in to the multiplayer modes, both locally and online.

Overall 4 Exploding Boomers out of 5. While there are a few niggling issues: unclear narrative, and the odd sound problem, The Passing brings with it a lot of new features that are fun, engaging, and downright addictive. PC players can install this update for free, while Xbox 360 Owners will have to pay 560 Microsoft Points (about £4.80) for the privilege.

[starreview tpl=16]

Few games this year seem to have been more contentious than Left 4 Dead 2, announced at E3 2009 to what seemed to be a reaction of joy from one section of the crowd, and calls for boycott from another. The key concern from those who were not happy about the announcement was over the short time between the original game, released last year, and this title. The worry was that it would essentially be a full price expansion pack as opposed to a proper sequel (Even though the distinction between the two is hazy at best). So how does Left 4 Dead 2 compare to the original? Is it a full sequel or just an expensive expansion pack?

So what has Valve done to make Left 4 Dead 2 stand on it’s own a proper game in it’s own right? Quite a lot actually, true there is no drastic overhaul of the Left 4 Dead formula but Valve have thrown a huge amount of new content to make the new title worth it. For the benefit of those who are unfamiliar with the original game you play as a survivor in a zombie apocalypse and you have to shoot your way through the zombie horde and escape with your life. Whilst the original had plenty to do Left 4 Dead 2 packs in so much more content.

First of all it features 5 completely new full campaigns that can be played bothsingle player and co-operatively with 4 other people online. Each campaign takes around 1 hour to play through, which may make the game sound very short, but don’t be fooled. Valve are quite possibly the champions of level design, each map in the campaigns is very well thought out and visually interesting so you won’t get bored seeing them numerous times, also like the previous game it features an AI director, which customises each play-through based upon how well your team is doing to ensure that each time you play the game is unique. Also the AI director has been updates to alter lighting and weather affects, whilst the first game only took place at night time this game has some campaigns in the day and one in particular, Hard Rain, has a brilliant weather system which changes rainfall and visibility based upon how well you are doing in order to make it harder to fit your play style.

Of course as well as having new maps there are also new zombies. Each of the campaigns have their own ‘uncommon common’ infected, these appear more often than the special infected and do different things but are, for the most part, as vulnerable as a standard zombie. To go down the list there are clown zombies, who attract all nearby zombies, Mudmen who hide under the swamp water to ambush you, CEDA agents who wear bio-hazard suits and carry around jars of boomer bile and Security guard zombies who are armored and can only be hurt from behind. Also there are three new special infected, all of which seemed to be designed to split your team up. First is the Charger who runs through the survivors and knocks them aside whilst picking up and running away with one survivor to take them away from the others and does severe damage bashing them into the ground. Then we have the Spitter who, funnily enough, spits a hazardous pool or acid at the survivors causing them to scatter to not get damaged. Finally there is the Jockey who leaps on a survivor and can guide them away from the team and into harms way. All these things put together shows that even in just the offline component, which is only one of four modes has a lot more to offer than before.

To add even more to people who have spent a lot of time playing the original Left 4 Dead and have managed to get very good at it a realism mode has been added. This is a new selectable difficulty which changes many things. First of all the only way to kill a zombie is with a head-shot so you’re going to have to learn to be much more accurate, also there are no messages on screen or any outlines so it can get hard to tell where things like weapons and ammo are as well as telling friend from foe when the zombie horde descend upon you. These changed at first appear slight but drastically change the game into what can be at times frustrating but an incredibly fun mode especially for the more masochistic among us.

Making a return from the last title is the Survival mode, this is very much the same as it was before. It uses the new maps and the new zombies of course but still retains the same basic game-play from the previous game. For those who have not played Left 4 Dead survival mode you are placed in a map where there is no way out and no end what you have to do is survive for as long as possible as wave after wave of enemies come at you. Strategy is key in this mode and it is just as fun as before. Also versus mode is carried across and handles much like it did in the first game. This four vs four competitive multi-player mode pits a team of survivors against other players who play as the infected. It is a lot of fun to play as the infected and creates a whole new style of play as you have much less health as a special infected but can re-spawn so you do have to work together to win the round. Of course you can play as one of the three new special infected as well as any of the original special infected. This mode is still as fun as before.

One of the main differences in Left 4 Dead 2 is that the game takes place during daylight hours

Valve have added an entirely new competitive multi-player mode into the mix, scavenge mode. This mode is prefaced in the first campaign finale where the survivors have to collect fuel tanks to fill up a car to escape. This is the premise of scavenge mode but uses the same multi-player setup with two teams of players, one survivors, one infected, against each other in a short and fun multi-player mode. One problem that the traditional versus mode runs into is that it takes place over the course of a campaign and so does require players to be involved for around an hour or possibly up to two hours, which shuts out people who just want to kill ten minutes or so in a quick multi-player game. Scavenge resolves as it is a time based game where the players take it in turns between survivors and infected and initially have ninety seconds to gather fuel cans with thirty seconds added to the timer for each fuel tank added. This makes it perfect for those who just want to jump in for a quick game to just play a few rounds in scavenge mode.

So is Left 4 Dead 2 worthy of being considered a full sequel in it’s own right? Of course it is. Valve have added so much to the game all the changes that are made are excellently done and add so much to the game in terms of game-play. If you’ve never played Left 4 Dead before there is so many different modes and each difficulty plays differently and the AI director ensures you never have the same experience twice. If you are a Left 4 Dead veteran there is easily enough new content to justify the upgrade.

REVIEW ROUND-UP

GRAPHICS: 5/5 – Top notch not only are the levels all detailed and really interesting the game also manages to put literally thousands of zombies on screen as well.

SOUND: 5/5 – Also top notch a lot of the sound is very subtle but absolutely incredible, the sounds of the zombies as well as the Louisiana-inspired music complement this game perfectly.

GAMEPLAY: 4/5 – You point your cross-hair at a zombie, you shoot the zombie. The game controls as you’d expect and does it very well nothing groundbreaking but if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

LONGEVITY: 5/5 – The game is designed to be played online, there are loads of different modes, plenty of maps and so much time to be spent, each play-through is different but if you are not connected to the Internet, you will only get 1/5th of the game.

OVERALL: 5/5 – Amazing, takes one of the best games of last year and improves on it, I will be playing this game for the next few years (until Left 4 Dead 3 comes out) just about everything in the game is perfectly designed and perfectly balanced. It is worth noting that if you do not have online access you will only have access to 1/5thof the total content. It is designed to be played online with friends so if you have internet access and have friends then you need this game.

[starreview tpl=16]

We here at The Newb Review recently got our hands on an early access code for the soon to be released demo of Valve’s latest game Left 4 Dead 2 on the Xbox 360. The demo allows you to play through the first two chapters of the Parish campaign mission with three other players online, two player split screen co-op, or just by yourself with A.I team mates. From the get go this game is very familiar to players of the original, but at the same time quite different. For instance, all of the recognisable music from the original returns, but this time played through a jazz filter to reflect the new setting of New Orleans. There also seems to be a more developed narrative in the game, as when the level starts your team gets off of a boat, and it is implied that the captain of the boat rescued you at an earlier date – perhaps at the end of another campaign mission. It seemed strange to be playing as anyone other than the characters from the original game, but the banter soon started to flow and my feelings of uncertainty began to subside.

Upon taking control of the characters, I saw the usual table with health packs, shotguns, and machine guns. This time, however, a new type of weapon greeted me, and was too tempting to resist. This new weapon is one of 10 melee weapons that will be available in the final version of the game. Melee weapons replace the standard unlimited ammo pistol, although if you are taken down then you are able to use the pistol from the ground even if you have a melee weapon equipped. The weapon that greeted me was a machete, which I used to lop off the heads and limbs of the hordes of zombies that await us around the corner. After a few moments of blissfully hacking away at the zombies I was greeted by one of the new uncommon infected, a zombie wearing riot gear. As he was wearing a bullet proof vest, the best way to kill him was to shoot him in the back. While these uncommon zombie types are nothing more than the average zombie that require a specific way to kill them, there are three new special infected zombies in the game. The first special infected I encountered was the Jockey, a little beast that jumps on players backs and takes control of them, steering them away from their friends and in to the arms of death. The Jockey steered me around the corner and in to the path of another new special infected, the Spitter, a lanky, long necked creature that shoots a corrosive projectile that can form pools on the ground. Both were quickly dispatched by my computer controlled team without serious issue. Before long we encountered the final new special infected character, the Charger, a sort of half formed Tank from the original game, whose only aim is to break up the group, charging in to us and taking one poor member of the group and slamming them in the ground repeatedly. Thankfully the charger is fairly easy to kill, unlike the Tanks. Speaking of the Tanks, they return to this game, as well as the original special infected. For those not the know, we have the Hunter, who pounces on humans pinning them to the ground, the boomer who spits zombie attracting bile on the players, the smoker who has a 50ft long tongue that he uses to drag opponents in to his arms, and the witch, the sobbing woman who just wants to be left alone. Disturb her at your peril. It is clear that these new special infected have been designed to break up the group, and separate them, as in order to successfully survive in Left 4 Dead cooperation is key.

One of the main differences in Left 4 Dead 2 is that the game takes place during daylight hours

As we progressed through the level I came across three other types of melee weapon, the guitar, a nightstick, and the frying pan. Also encountered were the adrenaline shot – an alternative to the pain pills that will increase your speed – and the boomer bile – a canister that you can throw on zombies that will cause other zombies to attack whoever is drenched in the foul substance. Like in the original there are multiple types of each of the guns, ranging from the Combat Shotgun to the Silenced SMG. In the second and final chapter of the demo, towards the end of the mission you are tasked with breaching the security walls of a safety zone. By breaching the walls you set off the alarm, which summons dozens of zombies. In the original, such a scenario would require you and your team to buckle down and defend the area until it was clear of enemies. In Left 4 Dead 2, however, you are tasked with running as fast as you can through a winding path of fenced off areas to make it to the guard tower to disable the alarm. The frantic nature of these end of level moments, coupled with the fast paced Jazz drumming, creates a whole new level of tension in this game as you frantically try to run away from dozens of zombies and get to your objective. The longer you take in achieving your goals, the more zombies will attack you and your team. After successfully disabling the alarm, and picking off the last few zombies, we were able to continue through to the bus station and reach the safe house, which ended the demo.

Not a particularly inspired screenshot, but at least you get to see one of the new guns

The real beauty of Left 4 Dead is that no single game will ever be exactly the same thanks to Valve’s sadistic AI Director, which dictates how many zombies there are, what types of zombies you will face, and item locations. On my second play through I was greeted by the previously mentioned Witch soon after leaving the docks. The Witch can now walk around freely, rather than sitting in a stationary spot as she did in the original, so it took me a little time to actually find where she was, as all I had to go on was her distinctive weeping. The Witch sounds less sinister and far more desperate than she did in the previous game, and as such I took pity on her and decided to put her out of her misery by chopping her head off with my machete. Despite sounding helpless, the Witch is a deadly as ever, and she quickly took me down. Thankfully my team were close on hand to revive me and patch me up.

The Left 4 Dead 2 demo will be available to all Xbox Live Gold Members from the 3rd of November. Those who have pre ordered the game from certain retailers, such as GAME, should have a download code emailed to them by the time they see this article. The game itself is out on the 20th of November, and we here at Newbreview cannot wait.

FORMAT(S): PC, Xbox 360

DEVELOPER: Valve

PUBLISHER: Valve

Valve have just released a new DLC pack for Left 4 Dead called Crash Course. This adds a new campaign designed for versus mode (but fully playable in campaign mode) and 2 associated survival maps based off the new campaign. Being quite a big fan of Left 4 Dead myself I took a look at the DLC to give my own honest impressions. The new campaign is about half the length of the standard campaigns that shipped with the game, however it is split into 2 sections each of which seems longer than a single section from a standard campaign.

As the campaign is about half the length of the campaigns that shipped with the game but it does seem to pack in just about the same amount of zombies, causing this to be a bit faster paced than what you may be used to. In around half an hour of gameplay my team encountered roughly the same amount of enemies I would expect to encounter during a ‘full’ one hour campaign. Also, the longer sections can cause some frustration as there is much farther to travel following a bad encounter with a tank so if you play on the higher difficulties you might find yourself repeating sections many times.

This quicker pace and generally more frantic atmosphere does have an effect on the feel of the game. For example whilst playing a standard campaign the quieter moments in a campaign are the moments when you really take in the atmosphere of the game but I feel that having a much quicker pace stops you from taking in the atmosphere as you’re simply too busy dealing with the many enemies who are undoubtedly charging towards you. Also there is the AI, which struggles at the best of times, it really has a hard time coping with the new campaign given that the areas are more closed in and the frequency of special infected such as witches and tanks you can see your AI teammates making some really dumb descisions and getting killed for it much more than they would in a standard campaign.

Having said all that I do enjoy this campaign, so long as you get four good people together you will really enjoy the faster pace as you don’t have to worry about what the AI is doing. The 2 new survival maps are taken straight from the campaign and are as good as any of the other maps, and if you’re into versus mode this campaign was made with that in mind and will quickly become a goto map for any dedicated versus mode player. So if you enjoy Left 4 Dead you should probably give this a go, it doesn’t do anything drastically different and if you want a more action oriented campaign then this has you covered.

Crash Course is avaliable now on PC and Xbox 360, If you own the PC version steam downloads and installs this automatically so you already have it and for Xbox 360 owners it is avaliable on Marketplace for 560 Microsoft points.