Experience Half-Life 2 like never before. Return to City 17, held within the iron grip of the Combine and the Consul. Reunite with old friends, and enemies. Traverse vicious canals, make new allies, and brave the horrors of the Quarrytown. Immerse yourself in a revitalised combat system featuring old arsenals made new again, with added features to raise the bar in gameplay. You've been waiting for quite some time, now. It's time to climb aboard.
Have played about 80% of the demo and i have to say that i can clearly see that the makers have put much work and effort put in to this. Believe i did read somewhere that it was tested for several months with several men. That really does surprise me because i did find quit a lot of errors and unclear scenes in the mod. From weapons that were 'given' to the player by dead combines. Just to disapear minutes later out of players hands and to be replaced with a large 'red error' sign above the player that moved with him. Right from the start in i believe map 2 i did get stuck. A citizen tells me to follow him to a closed gate, a combine opens the gate and one comes from behind. The citizen says then to wait a second. Waited for hours there, played the whole part 3 times. With noclip i then noticed that door at the other end of the map was opened ??? So i moved to there.
The mapping was very inconsistent. Some parts were very well done and others were looking less. Like different skilled mappers worked on this. The Barney part were he takes his mask of felt like a real HL2 rip off. We all remember that scene ofcourse from HL2, probably was that the idea, but to take it so right out of HL2 felt odd and well, i say it, like it was just a copy apste job. There were many other issues. The city clearly was made to make the player feel hunted by the combines. But, in many cases i stoud right beside people who did get shot or were taken away. And not one combine did something to me which felt really VERY odd. Some npc's did act very strange, some were frozen in there animation, others were just.... well, it was all very odd. So, i really hope that this demo will not be a sign of how the mod will be. Seems there is still lots of work to do guys. Sorry, as mapper/modder i know how harsh my words are, but, i just can't say it any other way. Sorry,
Leon
It lacks soooooo much polish. The maps feel very wide, open and absolutely barren. The maps themselves don't live up to the term "eye candy" with any significant landmarks or events that pop out; the events that do happen are very confusing and don't tell much to the player, or just skim over sequences very quickly in an odd retelling of what we know about them. The NPCs that aren't main characters hardly do anything, and guidance throughout the maps either. Walls on many buildings are just flat textures without much else to look at, and it feels incredibly basic and blocky, as if the maps were made in GoldSrc or the Quake 1 engine.
The voice acting... I can live with it. It's a mod, not a triple-A title, however the *models*, specifically viewmodels, look great, although the animations aren't as nice- Passable I guess? It's a stark contrast to a bland, featureless mapping environment. I understand the beta's all about being bleak, but this is a slap to the beta's face currently with the lack of polish.
I wish I could say much about the mod being enjoyable. I guess the combat was fun, although, again, the maps were too large and featureless to provide any interesting gameplay; and again with the lack of guidance, it just dragged on towards the end of the mod.
I want to like it, and I certainly believe it can get much better if the development team sticks to it and learn from the feedback! But as it stands, I'm not particularly thrilled about playing the next chapter.
Play Dark Interval its better
bruh moment
for me it was underwhelming, I enjoyed dark interval more just because of the flow, the custom models were really good though
This is a nightmare - an absolute nightmare.
I've seen plenty of beta mods in my time, some good, some bad, and others in-between, but none have come this close to being downright insufferable. To put it simply, Raising The Bar: Redux is a greatest hits collection of beta themed setpieces that should've sat in the oven for far longer than was given due. While walking through the eerily empty and impossible streets of City 17, I quickly came to realize that this sense of space, rather than being intentional, was a byproduct of aimless direction, and downright lazy game design; there is no sense of atmosphere or soul, only the advent of haphazardly tossed together levels and downright nonsensical design choices. Now, I will give credit where credit is due: many of the individual efforts of project contributors are fantastic and worthy of such praise, but the sub-par utilization and management of such contributors are astonishing, and ultimately prove to be the straw that broke the camel's back.
Should the leads continue to ignore and dissuade any form of criticism as they have in the past, there will be no hope for a brighter future, and no reason for Raising The Bar: Redux to be remembered as anything more than just another failed beta recreation with no understanding of what makes such a project unique in the first place.