I’ve made it to “Forget about Freeman.” It’s been a lot of fun. Here are some issues I’ve noticed. I’ve broken them into objective feedback (bugs) and subjective feedback. This is for the Early Access version as of 5/6 (not version 1.01).
Bugs:
- Got stuck in the vertical shaft after the first helicopter battle (where the soldiers rappel down). It doesn’t seem like there’s a way to climb out of there. Reloading fixed it.
https://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/34119231572138761/57934840CBF7465221A994A46BD20535D57E1FE2/ - Got stuck while inside the Icythosaur cage after it fell and landed. I was seemingly half-in and half-out of the cage. Interestingly, the game didn’t think I was underwater (no O2 depletion). Reloading fixed it. Note: I was swinging back and forth in the cage before it fell. I didn’t have this problem when I held still and let it fall on its own.
https://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/34119231572136467/59AF2FE21920CF71A5CBBEA4C51F6798D5F4C685/ - Got stuck when using the ladder to climb out of the trash disposal at the end of Apprehension. That seems to be a point where you go from climb to duck. Reloading fixed it.
https://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/34119231572137296/7DCC85B4496F4EF925F95D6A4E5D34E5F6A7D562/ - While zoomed in with the crossbow, the skydome freaks out in outdoor areas, like Surface Tension. It goes miniature, like I’m looking at the true-to-size version of the skybox instead of the scaled sky_camera view.
Before: https://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/34119231572134093/C8302DF1410101C374ABF615B5D7001CF1850527/
After: https://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/34119231572133986/486E9B4BAFC158130A67E688E8F99D24C079A56C/ - Near the end of Surface Tension, at the part where the Osprey is deploying soldiers and you encounter the Alien Grunts in battle, I actually got decals in the sky.
https://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/34119231572132420/E0B18AEC1FB2EA70D7CC3ABC50E4DA2A3B7E1CC4/
Subjective Feedback: - The Tentacles didn’t seem too responsive to Grenades. It felt more exaggerated in HL1. Here, it wouldn’t surprise me if someone didn’t understand the cause-and-effect because it’s really subtle.
- In On a Rail, it felt easy to accidentally lose control of the cart while it was moving on inclines. Pressing S was more likely to move me backward (and off the cart!) rather than slow the cart down.
- The two sets of three crushers along the conveyor belts in Residue Processing are a real pain. The only way I found to get past them was to hug the walls while sprinting. If you sprint up the middle, you die. It’s probably because of the circular shape of the crushers. Instant death traps are a pain, in general, because of the long load times. I’m happy that BM developers removed quite a few of them, but this is one part that felt unnecessarily difficult.
- Grenade physics feel a bit wonky. Taking down the snipers from their nests in Surface Tension was unexpectedly difficult because the grenades just wouldn’t go where I expected them to go! Granted, this is coming from someone used to HL2 grenade physics, not HL1. HL1 grenades are a bit chunkier and more floaty.
