I downloaded Crash Course this morning before going to work. I completed the entire campaign in about 22 minutes but I must admit I was rushing myself. Overall I think that it seems to be more of the same. There were no spectacular moments in this campaign, no brilliantly scripted events aside from a pretty witty line spouted by Zoey while walking past a steaming pipe. The environments had some nice variety and it looked like there were some places to branch off and possibly take different routes, but I was in a hurry to get to work so I plowed through without exploring too much.

Versus mode should be pretty fun on these levels because of all the different buildings and dark corners you come across. I did notice the item placement system got updated. You'll see quite a few extra handguns and various items tucked away in the not-too-familiar levels. What I'm trying to say is items seem to appear more frequently now.

The other day my friend stated that he doesn't like how long it takes to finish a campaign of Left 4 Dead and he said he's usually sick of it by the second or third level. Crash Course should be good news for people like this since it is a very short campaign. The 2 levels featured in the new DLC both seemed bigger than most L4D levels and it didn't necessary feel like it was lacking anything. I didn't walk away feeling unsatisfied, I actually want to play it again right now. Still I wish there was more to this. I'll try versus and survivor mode on these maps tonight when I really start to sink my teeth in.

What about you, what do you guys think of this new little adventure for Bill, Louis, Zoey, and Francis?

*Update*

Here is a list of achievements that come included with Crash Course, should extend re-playability a bit.

Crash-proof 15
Survive the Crash Course Campaign.

Quick Power 25
Restart the generator within 30 seconds of it shutting off in the Crash Course campaign.

The Littlest Genocide 25
Kill 5,359 Infected in the Crash Course campaign.

Smash Hit 25
Win a Versus campaign of Crash Course.

Truck Stop 35
Your team wipes all Survivors after the escape vehicle has opened in Crash Course.

20 Car Pile-up 20
As a Tank hit 20 Survivors with a car in the Crash Course campaign.

Jumpin' Jack Smash 25
Pounce a Survivor for 25 points of damage in the Crash Course campaign.

Slippery Pull 25
Smoker pull a bile-covered Survivor until you hold him during Crash Course.

Tank Stumble 20
Stun a Tank with an explosion in the Crash Course campaign.

Wipefest 35
Your team incapacitates three Survivors within five seconds in the Crash Course campaign.

Hello there Destructoid! You may have seen me around before but I tend to stay near the background of things. I'm thinking about making an introduction post since it's been so long since I've blogged but right now I'm here to talk about what makes online communities great based off of my personal experience. The other day I was playing 360 with a friend and we were talking about the good ol' days when MMO's were more a part of our gaming, but not for gaming's sake, for a social outlet.

Back in the day I used to play this game called Graal, at the young age of 9 years old I downloaded it in 1995 when it was listed under the name "Zelda Online." Legal issues between the game creators and Nintendo caused them to change the name but the game was very blatantly inspired by the 16-bit Zelda: A Link to the past. Graal was like nothing I had ever seen before, as a young and impressionable gamer I fell in love with its online community and Zeldaesque atmosphere. I began playing the game on the Classic Graal server where my inner Graalian eventually died, I could never get engrossed in the other servers so I naturally stuck to Classic. I used to be a really huge PKer (Playerkiller for all you n00bs out there) and on my 4th account I was up to around 46,100 kills before fading out. I made friends in this game that I could never make anywhere else. Zozma, Layzie, Nicholas KILL and KIO were some of the first friends I ever made in the game and they have probably changed my life in more than one way to this day. I still talk to them but only every once in a while (KILL where are you?). We started guilds together, formed alliances, built our guildhouses, custom skins, and everything in between. This game was cool because it was built around the community and all players had equal rights to become LAT's (Level designers and Scripting), GPs (Graal Police), GCs (Game Coordinator), and FAQs (Your one-stop-shop for questions and assistance). The community was the reason this game was so great much like the community here at Destructoid being the reason for this sites amazing accessibility.

From the summer of 1995 to around January 2007 I had worked on the Classic Server with two different accounts. I would plug in my weekly required 200 minutes of Hosting events as a GC and on one of my other accounts I was the Classic Server Levels Admin. I had designed locations and quests in the game working with wonderful people from all around the world to make it all happen. I did this for free, out of pure passion for the community that I grew up with.


This used to be one of my social outlets.

By the end of my Classic Levels Admin career I had designed numerous quests, shields, swords, events, player houses, guild houses, overworld maps, and anything else that you can think of. This wasn't just a game to me; it was my hobby and my main creative outlet.

I used to fear that I would never find an online community as amazing and diverse as the one I knew and loved from Classic Graal... but Destructoid has proven that there are other tightly-knit online communities out there.


My old GC bosses hosting an event of Connect Four for the players. *Interesting note* DC got Sammy pregnant in real life after he rode a bus 12 hours to take her to her senior prom, they had never met in real life before that.

Where I am going with all of this...

I don't know what EXACTLY makes a wonderful online community but I'm pretty sure it roots from the base of where the community started. Neiro is our founder and therefore he is our foundation. He's got a wonderful group of people working under him and I don't doubt that a lot of his business decisions brought this site to where it is today. Part of the reason this community is so great is because its leader is actively involved with the community on a daily basis. The fact that I see his comments and open opinions under all sorts of blog posts shows me one very important thing, he does not put himself above the community. Leaders' that are actively involved within the community, to me, is the most important part of having an online community that does not suck.

The second most important part of having a strong online community is the community involvement. The fact that Nick, Jim, Colette, Reverend Anthony, Ashley Davis, and especially Hamza, respond and acknowledge our existence through comments and community events shows me that these are more than just editors and journalists; they are also our friends and just like us on multiple levels. The fact that my blog can be featured on the same front page, that these nice folks make a living off of, shows me that none of them are above their community. I can be as involved as I want to with this site; I'm actually ashamed that I haven't been more involved up to this point because of how rewarding a relationship with a strong online community can be.

When I was the Classic Levels Admin I did it for the community, if someone asked I would create and upload whatever I could for them, knowing it would better the community. Community feedback often helped me refine levels and make them better and more appealing to the players. A lot of players ideas got turned into events and a lot of "normal" players were even given the chance to work as Graal Staff. I see the same kind of activity here on Destructoid every day. Sometimes Jim will write a cblog and sometimes a cblog will be promoted to front page.

We are all different but the same and this is what the only two online communities I've ever sunk my teeth into have had in common.

Thank you all very much,

Holyetheline

Ok so I've been going through Call of Duty: WaW on Veteran since I got it. I think I am on the last mission now but fuck this game straight to hell. You know the mission where you have to take the castle or whatever? Second to last... possibly. Anyway I did that mission but I got to a checkpoint and had to quit one day (Because I have a life I can't just sit through every mission on Vet, it takes time.) and when I came back to continue (approx 2 checkpoints away from the end of the level) the game gave me a weird error. It said that I couldn't continue from my last checkpoint because save game information is incompatible with the current version of the game. Alright so I started from the beginning and went through the whole damn mission swearing the entire time. I get to the next mission and I went through most of it I think. I was at some part where you're in a big theater up on some balcony shooting Nazi's. Then you go down to the main floor and push through. Well I hit a checkpoint and had to go to the store so I paused, went to SAVE AND QUIT, and then turned off my xbox when it was done saving. Well I go to play again and I'm getting the same FUCKING error. Which means AGAIN all the shit I did in that mission I have to do over again. What the hell is the point of a save feature if the bitch doesn't work? I'm sorry, this really irritates me because if I want to beat this game on Veteran then I have to do it mission-by-mission straight through. Have any of you had a problem with this? It fucking pisses me off so bad!!!

So I tried to Google this error message but I'm not seeing it anywhere. Since I'm so fucking familiar with this error and every damn time I try to play my mission I get it I'll go ahead and write exactly what it says...

-----------------------------------------------------
ERROR

Save game data is incompatible with the current version of the game. You may continue from the beginning of your most recent mission or exit to the menus.

Continue
Exit
-----------------------------------------------------

So what the FUCK IS THIS FUCKING SHIT!!?!?!?!?!

I never had to deal with shit like this in CoD 4 or CoD 2!

So why now? Did Treyarch publish a broken game? Probably... fuckers.

I GET THIS ERROR EVERY FUCKING TIME I CONTINUE MY SINGLE PLAYER CAMPAIGN.

It gives me no options to update the games "current version" so I'm shit out of luck.

Fuck you Call of Duty World at War!

This morning I was sort of reminiscing about the good old days when I was a kid and would make extremely simple games with a program called Klik & Play. I was around 7 years old when I would play with this software and I used it up until about the age of 13 when I ended up moving on to Flash. My memories of K&P and time spent with that program are extremely fond though. I made a lot of really fun things and got a lot of good self expression out. I remember this one game I made where you went around killing all the Power Rangers and everyone's favorite purple dinosaur Barney. You were some kind of makeshift army man and the characters would bounce around the screen with various obstacles and holes you could fall into. When you shot them their bodies would explode and their heads would fall into a pool of blood.



I am terribly sorry to anyone who loved Power Rangers or Barney back in the day. No harm done, right?

I was scanning the internet today for this game and came upon the developers website thanks to good old Wikipedia. I read about some newer software that Clickteam had been working on. One thing that caught my eye was The Games Factory 2. The program appears to be as user friendly as K&P and most likely offers the same level of creativity. One thing about K&P that I liked was modifying objects in the game and just re-drawing everything without having to worry about "programming" or "scripting." It's unclear if you can do this with The Games Factory 2 also but I am assuming it's possible.

I also came across a link where you can download the original Klik & Play for free... presumably. I am at work right now and don't feel like actually downloading this and trying it out but I'll know right when I get home tonight.

I like to get creative with programs like these quite frequently. I was wondering if any of you have ever used anything like this? Also if you're into 3D modeling the program I like to use is Milkshape but I doubt I could incorporate those models into something as simple as The Games Factory 2. I also do Flash animation and mess around with scripting and whatnot in that. I mostly do music videos but I haven't submitted anything for a long time to Newgrounds where I put my flash up. You can view my work here just look for the name Tim Urlacher. I love me some Radiohead.

So anybody here every try any of these game development programs? If so, what did you think. They seem like a simple and fast way to express oneself as far as I can tell.

So I was browsing the internet today out of boredom and came upon some really strange information about the Iphone. Apple has a screen saver created by Armin Henrich called "I am rich" featuring the image of a glowing red gem. Oh and guess how much this Iphone screen saver is? It's $999.99 because obviously there's douchebag's out there who are wealthy enough to afford this sort of thing.

Various blogs were able to get the official description, however, which reads in part: "The red icon on your iPhone or iPod Touch always reminds you (and others when you show it to them) that you were able to afford this. It's a work of art with no hidden function at all."

This application appears to not be on sale in the USA for some reason but is readily available overseas. When I see things like this I just think "what the hell is wrong with this world?"

Seriously.

W T F ?

For Christians who've always wanted to dabble in "Guitar Hero," but can't bear riffing to songs like "Cheat on the Church," "Cowboys From Hell" or "The Number of the Beast," finally, there's a video game for you.

Look out gamers! There's going to be an extremely crappy version of Guitar Hero coming out exclusively for MAC and PC! Aside from the ridiculous $99.95 price tag this game features Christian bands that most likely none of you listen to. Due in September 2008 Guitar Praise will feature 52 songs by artists like Toby Mac, Newsboys, and Skillet.

Yay?

Personally I don't listen to Christian bands, but I have nothing wrong with them except they suck and just aren't my style of music. I am by no means God-bashing or hating on their message though, it's just not music I can get into. There's a news report about this on Fox News. I know in the past there was a Dance Praise game that ripped off DDR very similar to what this is doing to Guitar Hero. As I understand Dance Praise was the suck.

If you hit that news article you can view some pictures of the game. The notes are triangular instead of round like Guitar Hero or rectangular like Rock Band. Triangles hurt my eyes.

What I would like to see is some more Radiohead in Rock Band. That's the only thing that will give me a true music video game fix! Do you think any gaming sites will even review this soon-to-be catastrophe?