Its took a while but Valve has finally released some fresh campaign missions for its instant classic Left 4 Dead in the form of Crash Course. This new piece of story takes place directly after the rooftop finale atop the Mercy Hospital in the campaign No Mercy. It transpires the pilot who helps you escape from the hellish rooftop is himself infected and soon turned into an infected mid flight, upon which Zoey promptly shoots the pilot in the head causing the helicopter to crash land. One can only assume Bill with his military training was able to rescue some of the controls stopping the survivors from becoming bug splatter in the inevitable crash.

There are a few select introductions to this new DLC piece in the form of newly recorded audio from the main cast, which true to form are all hilarious. New voice work was even recorded for the fan made campaigns Dead Before Dawn and Night Terror which have been in production for quite some time and should see a release soon via the Left 4 Dead mod communities. You will hear Francis almost endlessly blaming Zoey for shooting the pilot throughout the campaign and is heard saying lines like, ‘Uh-oh here they come quick Zoey! Pretend they are all helicopter pilots!’ Sadly there is also a line which contains a reference to Valve’s download service Steam that is easily the worst pun in the entire game, let alone this new piece of DLC content. The self service may end there but the fan service is award winning, from Francis’ eternal hate of everything besides vests and lasagne, to new wall graffiti reminiscent of forum flaming of a love poem from a woman named Alison to her lover Jonathan. There are hidden extras aplenty to be enjoyed here.

However Crash Course is simply a two map affair, this may feel like a cheap campaign and some may whine they have been cheated out of two chapters, just remember it’s free so long as you update the game via steam. To the levels credit they are easily double in size of any previous chapters in Left 4 Dead, The only chapter I can think of which is equal in length as these new campaign levels is the Subway in the No Mercy campaign. This is possibly a wonderful precursor to the games upcoming sequel Left 4 Dead 2, surviving a nightmare of roaming witches, tanks, hunters and two new types of infected in the jockeys and spitters isn’t bad enough, length too can soon become an enemy in the long run. Such a thing will be most welcome to this gamer. In hindsight if Crash Course is what Left 4 Dead is capable in length, one can only imagine the brief under thirty-five second speedruns that have been made on back alley on No Mercy will become mere memories, though anyone willing to invest the time in Crash Course will come across numerous shortcuts and fun times to be had.

Sadly Crash Course has it fair share of release bugs. At the time of writing; main issues have been noted from phasing through cars and trucks, to versus players taking advantage of these in less than twelve hours making players think team mates are un-retrievable at times. To making survival times on the new campaign so high they baffle the casual player into think they are godlike, until they hear such times were attained by simply walking through a containment barrier as if it was merely an illusion, heading for the levels safe room forcing any infected that even manage to track you down in there along with the occasional tank, into a bottle neck of 4 players armed with assault rifles and hunting rifles. This soon causes ‘surviving’, into ‘how patient are you?’ times of anywhere between thirty minutes to hours. Left 4 Dead Crash Course only seems to have one persistent issue on the Xbox 360 in the achievement ‘Slippery Pull’ which simply requires you to pull a boomer bile covered survivor across the floor into your clutches, and has been the bane of many a 360 gamer I encountered looking to pertain this achievement.

With those easily patchable issues out of the way the question remains is Crash Course worth playing? Or the 560 Microsoft points asked purely by Microsoft for you to have? The simple and obvious answer is yes; yes it is. If the achievements don’t get you the hilarious dialogue will, and for the extra Francis misery rivals out there who hate achievements, comedy etcetera, the extra stages to play versus on and change up from the dated everyone-knows-the hiding-spots-and-choke-points-to-be-aware-of multiplayer should be the best part. Valve could easily of charged people for this piece of new content but didn’t, and it’s worth commending them for being such good Samaritans to their fan base... now if only Microsoft could do the same when someone wants there content to be free in future.