Hands-On With Left 4 Dead's New Crash Course DLC

After the inexplicable rage surfaced over the announcement that Valve was – gasp – making another Left 4 Dead video game, VP of Marketing, Doug Lombardi was quick to announce that the DLC promised for the original Left 4 Dead was still on the way. It wasn’t enough to quash the L4D boycott hosted on their own forums, but for those who never understood the controversy in the first place, it was icing on the cake.

The promised DLC came in the form of Crash Course, which launched on XBLA last week to little fanfare. Being slightly obsessed with video games that allow me to practice for the inevitable zombie apocalypse, I decided to check it out with my brother, and figured I’d pass on our impressions to those who are on the fence – or downright skeptical – of Valve’s latest offering.

This picture isn't actually from Crash Course, but looks similar – so use your imagination, capiche?

The first thing you need to know about Crash Course is that it’s shorter than the four original campaigns; the campaign comprises just two chapters, which the XBLA description tells you before you purchase it. Given the fact that one of these chapters is the finale, it might scare off potential buyers, so let’s get this out of the way – Crash Course is roughly the price of a burger, and it’s worth it. Yeah, it sucks that Microsoft essentially made Valve charge for it when they wanted to give it away for free (PC owners luck out again), but if you’re still playing L4D, Crash Course is a solid addition your play list. Now let’s get onto the info!

Crash Course takes place between the first and second campaigns. Ever wonder how you went from leaving the hospital by helicopter in No Mercy, to being stranded on the side of the road in Death Toll? The answer is decidedly uncreative; the helicopter crashes and you wander through the city streets until you find a pimped out armored van a la the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake. Although it’s only two chapters, Crash Course is actually pretty long; the first chapter feels more like two chapters from previous campaigns, and the run up to the finale is also longer than what veterans will expect, which makes the final encounter all the more intense. The average play through is probably around 20-30 minutes, which isn’t a bad thing (more on that later).

You will fight your way across a bridge in Crash Course. Just not this one.

The new DLC is also less linear than previous campaigns, and can be fairly compared to the street sections before the boathouse finale of Death Toll; the areas are open to exploration, and you’ll cut through so many buildings and parking lots that you’ll probably get lost at least once. The amount of asset recycling that occurs won’t help convince boycotters that Crash Course wasn’t a rushed answer to their manufactured backlash – but I’m willing to call B.S. on that one right now.

Instead Crash Course feels like the lopped off remnants of Valve’s initial vision for Left 4 Dead, which was a full, open city players could navigate in the way of their choosing (this was revealed in L4D’s audio commentary, and if you haven’t listened to it yet, it’s worth it). At some point in the development they switched to a more linear experience, and presumably a lot of areas – including those that make up Crash Course – were dropped. I would have loved to play Valve’s original version, but I can’t exactly argue with the finished product, and even if we have to pay a little extra, it’s nice to see Crash Course’s content brought back from the dead (no more zombie puns, I swear).

Like the previous campaigns, the most memorable moments in Crash Course are the midpoint event, and the finale. The midpoint event involves shooting an artillery cannon at a blockade on a bridge, which – surprise – isn’t a good way to avoid massive zombie hordes. Veterans shouldn’t have any problem surviving long enough for the flames to die down, and will quickly be on their way towards the one and only safe house.

This factory isn't in Crash Course, but the Hunter sure is! Also, zombies.

The finale, however, provides a unique twist; after 5-10 minutes of more city streets and back alleys, the four protagonists spot an armored van on a hydraulic lift inside of a truck depot. To get it down you need to start a nearby generator, but instead of just flipping a switch, you need to hold in the action button for a few seconds. Then comes a wave of zombies, followed by a pissed off Tank – standard stuff, really.

Then the lights go out, requiring you to restart the generator while the next wave of zombies rains down upon you. Getting back to the generator was a feat in itself (my brother and I were holed up in the garage next to a minigun, while our A.I. partners ran around in typical useless fashion), and suddenly the few seconds it takes to activate the generator takes forever when you can’t defend yourself. We ultimately survived, but the new finale serves as a nice transition between the “pick a stronghold and defend” gameplay of L4D, and the forced mobility L4D2’s finales will feature.

That’s about everything I can remember from our night of Crash Course. There seemed to be a hell of a lot more Special Infected, and even though it was smaller than what I had hoped for, the new campaign serves as a good fit for when people are almost ready to call it a night but still have a little bit of gas left in the tank. I really hope Valve can find a way to carry this campaign – as well as the four previous ones – over to Left 4 Dead 2, as they’ve expressed interest in doing. But even if they can’t, Crash Course is a good appetizer to get fans of the series primed for the main course coming in November.