Hey guys. You might already know the passing has been released on every platform, though you’ll have to pony up for the Xbox version. Here’s my micro commentary/review…

So with the new DLC for Left for Dead 2 every thursday a special “mutation” will be announced for the next week. For the first go around we’ll see realism versus, which sounds like it’ll be a lot more fun for the zombies that for the survivors. There’s also an achievement tied to this, where you have to participate in so many of these mutations.

Kinda gimmicky. I mean, doesn’t it sound kind of like an official server hack? I recall when they first implemented the survival mode, which totally made sense. And they had the map to back up the mode. But this… Its interesting to compare the development and implementation of DLC in Left 4 Dead vs Team Fortress 2. Every time something is added to Team Fortress 2 it just seems so much more credible. Still, I can’t really say, it could be a ton of fun. Keep an eye out for the DLC coming this week, and the mutations every Thursday in the following weeks.

For everyone rabid for some more of the same zombie whackin’, you’ll be pleased to know that The Passing DLC for Left 4 Dead 2 will be released next week. For me personally, as an owner of Left 4 Dead 2, I’m only vaguely tickled by the news, the game seeming to exist on some other far off planet… You know what I mean? I might boot it up to see what its all about, but it might just get swept up in the undertow.

Also, the new episode will only feature 3 of the old survivors, which is slightly backwards to me. I mean, there is something to be said for innovation, but won’t that mean we’ll know which survivor died? I think the linear story arc hasn’t been worn out enough to warrant the revelation of the dead survivor before we see how they die. But perhaps I’m wrong.

Check out the original blog posting here, along with some pretty cool Valve game mashups.

You may not be surprised (especially ’cause you’ve probably already seen it) but the passing has been delayed to an ambiguous date of “spring” as revealed on the Xbox show, “Sentuamessage.” Besides wondering if that was an official show, my first reaction wasn’t really of overwhelming dissapointment. As I watched the footage of presumably more New Orleans streets spotted with the living dead, overturned cars, and four survivors sprawing bullets everywhere, I felt not even a twinge of excitement. Let me tell you that I’d probably accept a cage match for anyone that would begrudge Valve the title of one of the best game producers ever before I further my reflection of my non-reaction.

You see, to me, Left 4 Dead 2 represents a rarity in this day and age for me, if not the majority of folks, where game buying is hyper-informed. You and I don’t buy Crappy Castle Adventure because teh webz told us from two hundered sources that the crappy in the title applied to more than just the Castle that you visit in-game. I queried, and the collective gave me a green light. I even played the demo. But I played the game for like a week. Shame on me, you say, for buying a game that you didn’t end up caring about after so much research. Touche. A well earned touche. But I can still say something about the hindsight of all this…

Apparently one of the survivors is going to die, for real, in the new DLC The Passing, to be released soon for Left 4 Dead 2. This comes from Valve’s Chet Faliszek, who said that one of the original survivors will have to bite it.

This is cool and all, but there are definitely some flaws with this type of idea. Left 4 Dead is a game not unlike the RPGs of yore, the pen and paper games where characters were inextricable to the play experience. In other words, the only way for a player to interact with the game is through a character, and if that character were to “die,” or have something more like permadeath, then the game stops being fun. In fact, it stops being a game. In D&D this means the player gets in his/her car and goes home. So I mean, in Left 4 Dead this might work a little better, since what, you would just go back to the server browser?

But the problem, more concisely, is that the survivor’s death doesn’t, at this time, seem to impart any kind of significant emotional impact to the player. Who cares? When you’re playing a pen and paper game you usually try to kick the players out of their “I can do anything because I know if I die I won’t play and the DM doesn’t want me to go home” syndrome by have an orge that cleaves them in twain. Over a volcano, so they can’t be resurrected. But with Left 4 Dead all this means is that the survivor won’t be selectable on certain maps, something I’m sure can be modded in.

Character death is obviously way more important in a game like Mass Effect 2, where you care that Rex won’t be in the next game. As it is it barely seems like Valve will be picking the character anyway, since it’ll probably be the players choice as to who dies when the time comes. Then they browse for a new server or start playing a survival match or something.

I would say that the most value I’ll get out of this is a nice Valve cutscene. In another direction, it would almost seem to me that Valve is trying to imply some new angles with the Left 4 Dead franchise, where others are most certainly exhausted.

Bottom line? Portal 2 and Episode 3 will be where the storyline magic happens, and Left 4 Dead may just be a good multiplayer experience.

So some of you may know by now the awesomeness that is the second Left 4 Dead 2 trailer. For everyone else, check it out right here. Somehow, this video alone sold me on the game. Does anyone else think Valve’s facial animation is the best they’ve ever seen? How about the part where the undead horde is cloven in twain by a chainsaw wielding Coach, freeing an ensared Ellis? Man, Valve, make a movie. And more games.

Supposedly these are two legitimate posters from the remaining campaigns set to be unveiled for Left 4 Dead 2. The first, Dead Center, seems to be appealing to popular demand by featuring what looks to be a shopping mall. The second seems to be using the newly implemented weather effects in Hard Rain.

I’m probably the most interested in Hard Rain, since the weather seems to me the most compelling addition in terms of creating tension. It makes me think of the screen shots they released earlier to the public of the zombies coming through the dense sheet of rain, and how cool that seemed. I think it will add a lot to the atmosphere for sure. Dead Center, well, I’m sure it’ll be great, but I got a lot of the shopping mall interest taken care of with Dead Rising. I guess the truth has yet to be known, like what will the special infected be for those two campaigns? I’m excited to find out.