Comments - Raptor-Seven

--SPOILERS BELOW--

This demo is... good, but it's nowhere near as good as the rest of RTB:R. First of all, it feels incredibly rushed. The ending sequence where an antlion guard charges into Eli & Alyx feels really static, as Eli & Alyx just don't move. They talk, but they don't move, Alyx doesn't shoot, it feels really rushed.

The level design is really good IMO, the maps look beautiful for the most part (aside from some crude brushwork in some spots). The gameplay is not perfect though, there are large clumps of soldiers constantly attacking you, cremators are still completely useless and not a threat, and hunters are a lot less challenging than they are in EP2. Also there's a puzzle where you have to get antlions on a platform to lower it, please change that puzzle, it sucks.

Alyx is weird. Firstly, her dialogue feels way too cheery and unnatural. HL2 Alyx was also cheery, but not as much as RTB:R Alyx. RTB:R Alyx also tends to say things... I don't quite know how to describe it, it's like she says things like you already know them and she's just stating the obvious. Secondly, her AI sucks. In one of the maps, the map after rescuing 2 vorts from vorticells, her AI breaks completely. She starts running ahead of the player and right into enemies (one point she ran into a cremator like a little girl running into her father's arms lmao). I *think* what might be happening is that she is ignoring enemies, ignoring the player, and just running to a specific point on the map, probably somewhere she needs to be for a scripted sequence. During this strange running problem, she also tends to get stuck on a lot of objects.

I don't have much to say about the weapons: they look good, they feel good, but they might be a bit overpowered.

Overall, the demo is good but it feels very rushed and not up to RTB:R standards. I feel like if the devs hadn't locked themselves into releasing the demo in the last day of April, and spent more time on it, it would've been much better.

I love how this mod is looking so far. It's so polished and detailed, but still manages to keep the aesthetics of 2004 HL2. Like, even though it's so detailed, it still kinda feels like a 2004 game. It honestly might be the best looking HL2 beta mod I've seen, above RTB:R and maybe even Dark Interval.

The first map, Pitstop, is pretty bad imo. The start is a parkour section with gas-spewing scanners, which is pretty annoying, then you get into an elevator and you're surrounded by metrocops. If you killed the scanners while doing the parkour, you might not have enough ammo to deal with the metrocops. If you left the scanners alive to save ammo, you might not have enough health to deal with the metrocops. After the metrocops, you do a simple battery puzzle to activate another elevator, and then the map ends.

Nomad looks amazing, it has very pretty views of the wasteland, and the character's models & voice acting are pretty nice. But the map falls apart during gameplay imo, most combat sequences are just nearly endless waves of enemies.

Canal Gateway is the best map in the pack imo, the visuals are simplistic but the gameplay and music are great, and it's a nice break from the previous 2 maps.

Nova looks very nice, and the initial combat against zombies and a couple soldiers is good, but then the main building has enemies coming in from all entrances, turrets basically everywhere, and wasteland scanners which either shoot lasers or vomit grenades. I had to use godmode to get through this combat section. The map ends very abruptly as the developer didn't have enough time to properly finish it.

You're Not Supposed To Be Here is a decent map, definitely second best imo. There's nothing super good about it but nothing bad about it either, so I don't have much to say.

Dark Interval's Odell sounds pretty close to Odell in the leak