The Alleys

The Alleys is the first chapter in Crash Course.

The Infected
Boomers: There are numerous areas in The Alleys in which Boomers can go completely undetected even if they are directly in front of a Survivor. Some of these areas include the dark shadowy portions of the rooms found in the first alley with the empty moving van. If a Boomer manages to spawn and crouch inside the dark patches of the small hardware room beside the truck, he/she can go completely unnoticed by Human-controlled Survivors often mistaking the camouflaged Boomer as a black trash bag until the Survivor finds the time to examine the dark spot. Another useful strategy for Human-controlled Boomers would be to mislead survivors by breaking the last or second skylight panel in the warehouse but refrain from unloading your bile. Once the survivors find the shattered panel as a false alarm, try vomiting on them from the open skylight that you consider the least expected opening above the warehouse or simply leap down from the open skylight panel that had been already passed by the survivors as being secure and catch the group off guard. Another more common method would be to camp in the Witch's spawning area(s) in order to vomit on survivors too reluctant to crown the Witch. If that is not possible simply "use the Witch as a hostage" by standing close to her making your explosion as a trigger to startle her.

Hunters: The Alleys is by far the best section to put a Human-controlled Hunters skills to the test. The first narrow alley is extremely useful for Hunters to practice and demonstrate their "wall-jumping" skills/techniques. If a group of skilled Hunters have mastered all possible techniques for pouncing on survivors in the beginning portion of the level, they could gain make themselves into potential threats to the survivors trek. Halfway through the level past the warehouse, the Witch has a tendency to spawn around that area. Hunters could use this to their advantage by performing a technique already known to many long term players of the game as the, "witch barrier". This technique mainly involves harboring as many of the Human-controlled Hunters as possible around the Witch but avoid crouching down to charge your jumps until the survivors body profiles are within line of sight since the Hunter will begin to growl and ruin the element of surprise. Once the survivors are irritably close to the Witch's personal space, have all of the Hunters charge at any survivor they find as being a safe and clear pounce. Also, try to pounce once the Witch has been startled.

Trivia

 * The body of the Chopper Pilot can be found directly behind the starting point of this chapter. Each Survivor will comment on this, excluding Bill.


 * Francis thinks that the Survivors are in Canada.
 * There is a possibility of a Tank appearing just after you leave the helicopter wreckage.
 * When entering the Warehouse, Safe room Graffiti can be found in the small room adjacent to the entrance. Judging by the fact that the graffiti is found in a room that is not an official "safe room", the graffiti found inside the room supports some theories that a group of bikers were using it as a makeshift safe room.
 * Judging by the graffiti mentioned above, the bikers mentioned in the graffiti are believed to have taken a similar view on the Infection in a manner much like that of Francis since the graffiti features a tally made by a biker gang which more than likely represents a Infected kill count for each biker. The tic marks on the tally marked with different colored marker probably represent Special Infected killed. In conclusion, the bikers' reaction to the outbreak can be seen as being more practical than serious due to their aggressive and violent nature.
 * Some graffiti features the title "Angels of Death" and skulls below with names on them, as well as a large group of tallies (660). It may indicate that, most likely, a band of bikers (according to the name and the skulls) stayed there till their death and counted their kills as they held out.
 * There is a note next to the sketches of the gang skulls mocking them saying, "World is coming to an end and they are drawing pictures." The writing above it inscribes, "SICK Bastards", probably agreeing with the previous comment on the bikers moral values.
 * Francis mentions working for a delivery company after passing by a delivery truck. He continues and claims he quit because of the shorts.
 * The new starting menu screen takes place of the fallen helicopter of The Alleys. However, this menu screen update may be exclusive to the PC version of the game since the menu screen for the X-box version appears to be completely unchanged.
 * It is possible that this level is a test of the new director abilities to be seen in Left 4 Dead 2, at least in part. For example, the alarmed cars can be in different places around the level, and random weapon spawn where they aren't always in groups, a trend seen in beta footage for Left 4 Dead 2.
 * This chapter was named "The Train Station" from Blood Harvest's chapter 4. Which was then changed to The Alleys
 * There is a fire extinguisher under the blades of the crashed helicopter which leads some fans to believe that the Survivors made an attempt to put out the flames from the wreckage but decided to simply give up.