Now where do I begin? Let?s start with the quality. Well I felt the mapping was not bad. It was pretty decent at times and others...well I could guess who made them ^^
There were some issues in the first few maps where models would appear when I walked close. As if you set their view distance to 5 centre metres. Although not the best mapping in the World I thought it put the point across and it did seem different as you had mentioned you were aiming for.
I liked the Easter eggs. Reminded me of Banjo-Kazooie ^^ Although hard to tell if I found them all. I explored pretty much every crack except for those where I was forced to run because of mass Combine.
Right onto game play. I liked the puzzles actually. I thought it was like a typical HL2 map. Action and puzzles. I liked some of the jokes by the way. Like the locked rebel
and the decals etc...I will say this. The church and the Strider fight were the worst experience. In the church she kept saying RING THE BELL RING THE BELL RING THE BELL HABBOI! And it took me a bit to find the key. I almost went on without ringing it but I wanted to unlock this secret D: Anyway the Combine kept spawning and I could even walk up to where they spawned and see them pile up...I wonder if the church is linked to another game ^_-
As for the Strider fight I wish you indicated where the rocket launcher and ammo were. I died so many times because of the sniper who should have had missed shot set to 1 or 2. Oh and after killing everything the theatre doors wouldn't open and I assumed it was because you had to kill everyone so I went back and heard combine around the corner where the force field is. I threw a grenade and that fished them out but you may want to fix that.
Another bug I noticed and I don?t blame you really but the bit where that guy gets snipered. Well I left my airboat near him so he got stuck D:
Oh and I was not happy with the night time fight bit because after finding the key in the toilets and unlocking the locker with the 'fuse' or battery as it really was. I wondered where to use it so I looked and found nothing so I continued on. Then I saw a scanner outside the bar and thought OH I should have used it there so I loaded about 5 mins back and did that all again. Listening to the speech (and breaking the table the radio sat on which floated)...then I take the battery to the scanner and that didn't work so TELL ME what that fuse was for D: Also the table where the scanner was can be broken. Give it health using an entity. Also when you first enter the theatre I saw that flipped over poster so I thought you hid an Easter egg under it so I crowbared it all the way down the stairs and used a rocket to flip it?>_ >
Next on the bugs list is this:
I got to the TV room and well had to turn the volume down a little so I didn't hear some of the dialogue. After standing around and nothing happened I reloaded it. Only to hear the breathing sound playing again...May want to look into that. But oh yeah I liked the overlays ^^
Another bug was that on the last map where the TV was. The dude on TV suddenly zapped and there were two of them. A scripting error ^^ I got pics if you need them. Just ask.
Lastly and this is a spoiler for some. At the end I kinda looked out the back window of the train and I think that slowed the train down or something because the advisor flew right through me...Not sure if that was intentional...And it ended so fast I was like huh D: So why did we get on the train anyway?
And when I came to I woke up in some outdoor area with DOG looking at me...And credits came up...What was that about?
Ok enough errors...Sound quality
Well the voice acting although iffy was good for the situation. I mean you had a lot of custom voices and they were pretty good. So yeah I liked the voices except one...Can't remember which but he sounded like a retard ^^
I liked the singing in the shower D:
Erm apart from all these bugs I liked it. Was quite fun although sometimes I wished I was guided a tiny bit. I would often think "Oh so that is how I should have solved it!"
I think that is everything. Overall 7/10 or maybe 7.5 because it was really long and I liked that. It had a pretty good story and the scripting was good. Erm Oh yeah I forgot to mention the lighting disappointed me at times. I think it was the first 6-8 maps that let me down with lighting...Maybe look at that. Just seemed too white in some. But very well done lads.
You must DIE! Moocow.
The game as a whole was great. They had some kickass moments and some funny comments especially by Mr Vort who follows you. I suggest to those who are gonna play it explore a lot because you'll find some funny conversations between rebels and such. Now I ran at pretty decent graphics and that handled pretty well so I was happy. But my flashlight symbol was that huge square you get when you are missing a texture..Not too bad but then the sound was acting up as well. It was too quiet and Portal was fine so...In the end I used ear-plugs to listen as the sound was unpredictable at times. But again that ending...Almost like a play...I am really interested to see where Valve take us next...Quite hard to imagine and no preview of EP3 was made. In the end bravo Valve. I look forward to mods using the new effects and such. I loved the cinematic physics.