‘Pind.

The new Left4Dead DLC “The Sacrifice” lives up to its name

Valve’s new DLC poses players with a threat and a choice

 

 

By TK Kwon

for it is their commitment to

updating and adding new features
for all of their popular hit titles, whether
it is Counter-Strike: Source or Team
Fortress 2. Their latest zombie-fest
blockbusters, Left4Dead and Left4Dead
2, are no different.

When Lejft4Dead was released in
late 2008, it was met with praise from
critics and gamers alike for its intuitive
game-play style and player stress-based
AI system. However, when Valve
announced that in exactly one year’s
time that they would be releasing the
sequel, Left4Dead 2, with a brand new
storyline and a host of added game-
play features, the purchasers of the
first game felt that they had gotten the
short end of the stick. Valve luckily
caught wind of this and promised to
the community that they were going
to continue to support and update the
original along with the sequel to make
sure that the fans were content, and to
stay true to their promise the studio
released a new DLC campaign called
“Crash Course” roughly a month before
the debut of the sequel. Due to their
dedication to deliver on their promises
players, who had joined to boycott the
sequel, were purchasing the game at a
greater rate than those who had not.

I: there is one thing Valve is famous

The sequel released to the same
acclaim as the original, and just as
Valve had done with its predecessor
they continued to update and polish the
game long after its release. Seeing as
how Left4Dead had already gotten a
new campaign, they wanted to give the
sequel the same treatment, so in April
2010 Valve released Left4Dead 2’s first
DLC campaign titled “The Passing.”

In the new campaign the new
group of survivors band together with
the survivors of the original with the
exception of one, who is later found to
be deceased near an objective point,
to successfully complete it. Fans were
ecstatic about the new campaign, but
couldn’t get one question out of their
mind: “what events led to the demise
of the character?” and Valve was ready
to answer that question, with another
DLC.

Shortly after the release of “The
Passing,” Valve announced that they
were busy at work on the campaign that
would act as the prequel and explain
what had happened to the cast of the
first game. Prior to the release of the
new DLC, Valve also released an online
comic series that delved into the pasts
of the characters as well as the chain of
events that would lead to the campaign
that would later be known as “The
Sacrifice.”

The premise of the new campaign

is simple; the survivors exit a train they
had rode to escape an infested military
facility and are now trying to make
their way south in search of reclusive
safety. The stage starts off as it does
with any campaign, the survivors are
given basic weapons and a health pack
to aid them on their journey to the
level’s checkpoint, or safe-house as it’s
called in-game. As players progress
they will discover stronger weapons
and useful items (such as molotovs and
pipe-bombs) to get through the hoards
of the infected. Some will notice that
near the end the campaign the levels
begins to look very similar to those
from “The Passing,” this signals to
veteran players that the climax of the
stage is approaching fast.

The final stage is roughly the same
as the climax of “The Passing,” where
the survivors are to collect gas tanks
to fuel a generator, although in “The
Sacrifice” the survivors must split up
to active three different generators
that are already fuelled. After fighting
through the endless hoards trying to rip
your face off, all four survivors can find
some refuge on the top of the bridge
as the generators go to work, that is
until one of the generators stalls and
a message is relayed to your already
haggard team: one player must go
restart the generator. So one brave
player must make his way down while

his teammates offer cover-fire to restart
a generator that he knows he will not
come back from, who this sacrificial
lamb will be is up to your team to
decide.

“The Sacrifice” DLC is available
for both Left4Dead titles, albeit the
original will lack melee weapons
and the new special infected, and
is available now for free on Steam
for PC users and for 560 Microsoft
Points at the XBL Marketplace for
XBOX 360 users. Along with the new
campaign, owners of Left4Dead 2 will
also be pleased to find that Valve has
ported one of the original campaigns
“No Mercy” to the sequel due to fan
reception. So whether it’s Zoe with
a chainsaw or Bill with his M16, the
choice is up to you.

Rating: 4 out of 5

  

 

 

The Social Network will exceed expectations

The world’s first movie based on Facebook isn’t about Facebook. And that may be why it’s so damn good.

By Knowlton Thomas

Sitting inside the musky lounge of
The Thirsty Scholar, located on-
campus of the prestigious Harvard
University, Mark Zuckerberg (Jessie
Eisenberg) engages in conversation
with his girlfriend, Erica Albright
(Rooney Mara), over beers.

It goes awry, and within an
hour, a now-single and exceedingly
intoxicated Zuckerberg retreats to his
dorm, where he converts his bottled
frustrations into LiveJournal blog
posts, lashing out at his ex-girlfriend
over her personality and cup size.
But blogging isn’t quite satisfying
enough. That’s when he gets an idea.

Facemash.com is created then,
on a rainy night in 2003. Zuckerberg
hacks the school’s databases for
headshot photos and launches his

website, which allows students to
compare campus girls and rate who’s
hotter. The site’s popularity explodes
overnight, causing the Harvard
network to crash. Zuckerberg gets
heat from the administrative board,
but he also earns the attention of
twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss
(Armie Hammer), affluent twin
students who belong to one of the
exclusive clubs Zuckerberg is so
desperate to get into.

They explain their concept; a
social network for Harvard students
called HarvardConnection, but need
Zuckerberg for programming. He
agrees, but ends up doing his own
thing: The Facebook. This is where
things spiral out of control.

Amidst a firestorm of legal
complications, a life-changing
meeting with Napster founder Shawn

 

Fanning (Justin Timberlake), and the
social effects of unanticipated campus
fame, Zuckerberg finds himself at the
nexus of a chain of events no one can
forecast: The forging of Facebook, a
half-million, 25-billion dollar social
revolution.

But what makes The Social
Network so excellent is the fact
that Facebook, as we know it today,
is actually irrelevant. The core of
The Social Network is founded on
some of the key pillars of student
life — popularity, recognition, and
relationships—and how they collapse
under the weight of something so
much bigger than anyone initially
expected. Bleeding friendships stain
the intricately woven fabric that
makes up The Social Network, as
flashbacks deftly immerse you in
Zuckerberg’s world before a more

 

modern reality sucker-punches you
into realizing just how big a deal
Facebook is.

You don’t have to like Facebook,
or hate it, to enjoy this movie. You
don’t even have to know what it is—
although you obviously do. You only
have to watch it. Skeptics welcome.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5