Steam Community :: 8BEATER

3.4 hrs on record

I love this mod, however I think that it has some flaws, that can be easily solved.

Let's start with good things.

Gameplay is very diverse. It has normal combat against humans, zombies, stalkers, vortigaunts , stealth, stalker escort in the darkness , great puzzles, epic bossbattles and much more. The music is great, and the updated shooting mechanics are too. The story is good, with a lot of mystery and twists. The opening scene is just top notch, you really feel like a metrocop, while storming the building. The city being deserted by the combine because of the flu is also pretty original. The collectables are pretty interesting, I might collect them on my second playthrough.

I can't say everything I love about this mod, you have to try it yourself to understand it.

However, there are some problems, that can be said.
After every loading, there's a line, saying "NODE GRAPH OUT OF DATE. REBUILDING".
There are some inconsistencies in level design. In some moments of the first chapter, you have to put wooden crates to climb up. There's a problem, you have weapons. Of course, the wooden crates are unbreakable, so the player wouldn't get stuck anywhere, but I don't like this inconsistency, where the wooden crates can break, and where they can't. How about changing them to metal crates, so that you can guess which ones are breakable and which ones are not?
Most of the interactable objects don't stand out much, you should've probably lit it or put a simple light glow to it make it stand out.
You have to use night vision goggles 90% of the time because everything here is very dark.
On one level, (probably first chapter) there is a diagonal ladder, but you can't climb it, and it doesn't seem to be used by anyone else, it should be removed.
Somewhere in the beginning, if you touch a painting on a wall, it will fly with high speed.
The car barricade area is pretty dumb. I don't understand how did the rebels find so many cars to build it and then transport it. I don't know how they put cars on top of each other. It is pretty confusing, there is no clear path, it feels like spaghetti. And also you can climb up almost every car, but it all has got clipping, so you can't go anywhere.
The stunstick is very weak, I never actually used it in the game.
There are too few weapons for me. I know that it's all meant to be for combine, but I'd add some others, like the revolver.
Manhacks' path finding is pretty bad, I rarely ever used it, outside of distracting enemies.
The final boss, if you can call it, is pretty boring. You just do the same thing for 3 times and fight against a bullet sponge vortigaunt . The lasers do a lot of damage, so I constanly quicksaved and loaded (I played on medium difficulty).
The hunter is also a big bullet sponge, with unfair activating laser gates and dropping platforms.
You often have to look up in some puzzles. I know that you have tried to make the player look up by using some tricks, but I often forget to do so, and get stuck for a few minutes.

I think that this game would've been much better with some more testing, but considering there's only one guy working on this mod, I understand it.

Overall, I love this mod, even though it has some flaws. Thanks you, John Richardson for this amazing journey.

Posted 19 May, 2020.

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