Was able to play the demo earlier this year, and it has been incredible to see how it's come~! ^^ Absolutely excited to see the final release! <3

tl;dr
Fantastic tech demo, sub-par game.
Great fun for a few hours if you get it very cheap, otherwise over-priced for the experience.

- Amazing VR physics and combat experience.
- Enjoyable tools to play around in physical VR space.
- Disconnected and completely un-interesting "story" & boring world.
- Frequent struggles with various physics and climbing puzzles.
- Collect-a-thon required to enjoy sandbox, with strong limitations on collecting ability.
- So much potential as a tool, sloppily presented as a game.

Additionally note; the game uses the Joysticks for locomotion and body movement. This is crucial to the game, and while I enjoy this mode of VR movement I know some people find this method dizzying.

(Game alternatives at the end.)

- - - - -
"What if this is just a tech demo?"


Firstly, the mechanics in this game are incredible, almost incomparable. It is still a janky mess, which can get frustrating at times particularly during certain physics or climbing puzzles, but even then the physics mechanics are still fantastic; generally objects behave amazingly realistically and it can be very satisfying at times. It was one of the most realistic "trash the room" games I've played where you can pick-up anything and it feels like it weighs as much as it should, and as you flail about or throw things around all the objects behave appropriately and impressively.

Additionally the AI body mechanics are deceptively impressive; shoot a leg and they will limp, damage their arm and they can't punch. You can skewer limbs together and the AI will still try to find a way to carry out their goal (usually to kill you). This depth of AI using rigid-body coding to behave feels like a notably more realistic combat variant of Gorn, and really shines during melee combat sections such as the Arena, but rarely was even noticeable during the story as I just found myself quickly shooting enemies and moving on.

With climbing mechanics and puzzles; I was frequently disappointed or just frustrated. As someone who loves committing too-much time to attempting to explore in most games, I was either always annoyed or just bored in this game. Too many times I would scale a pipe and swing across a beam, only to have my body thrown off the platform I was attempting to land on. I "solved" many climbing puzzles by getting up as high as possible and shaking around until I forced my body inside the pipe so when I let go I would clip on-top of it. It isn't fun, and relies on boring trial-and-error and even breaking the game a bit (the tutorial even encourages breaking the game). The extra problem with this? The collect-a-thon aspect of the game relies heavily on solving these puzzles.

I am a sucker for collect-a-thons, I want to get all the "things" a game can offer, and throughout the story of this game there are many things to collect. As I already explained, a lot of these are hidden behind climbing puzzles, while a few are tucked away in usually clever secret areas (some are genuinely well done and interesting!). Unlike other collect-a-thons however, if you want to "collect" that item, you need to carry it to the end of the level and put it in a bin. If you don't, that puzzle you solved was for nothing. Ideally, you would simply "collect" the item by discovering it, but instead you have to slot it into your limited inventory space, preventing you from carrying fun weapons, and haul it all the way to the end. The number of times I got to the end of a level with a single weapon with every other slot being occupied by a collectable was... well every level. And this is because I refused to replay the story just to go back and get these items. A quick personal note on this, the final "battle" (if you could call it that) you get the opportunity to spend ALL your in-game money on super expensive super weapons, which you can of-course unlock, but only if before the battle ends and forces you away, you stopped and disposed of your powerful items in the bin. There is no prompt you will get whisked away, and as such I spent my entire story's collected funds on an item I didn't even get a chance to unlock. :(

So the 'story'. The world itself started off feeling relatively well constructed, particularly in the tutorial, but as you continue it feels more and more like the designers bought a few asset packs and smashed together a repetitive and uninteresting series of levels and then crammed in a few enemies and weapons (they even self-parodied and had signs up in one of the final levels saying it was "Asset Plaza"). Occasionally there was a cool non-linearity to a level, but because of the aforementioned collect-a-thon, you still go back and explore everything anyway. The combat aspect of the story was painfully easy; even when I would forget I could slow time. Often I just blitzed through, killed everything, then back-tracked to look for collectables. While some puzzles were an interesting display of the capabilities of the engine, I never felt an "I did it!" moment the entire game, more of a "let's keep going." The story itself? God... I love complex and meta stories, but they introduced a handful of interesting story points, occasionally had a "real" character talk to us via video, and then never expanding or addressing anything. Empty plot-points just to pretend there was a story. I had zero engagement in the story what-so-ever, and when it ended I was just happy to be done.

Beyond the story there are two other modes; Arena and Sandbox. Within Arena essentially there are two internal modes; Arena Combat and Zombie Survival. The Combat provides you with with both a handful of (pretty easy) challenges and trials as well as tools for a wave-based survival mode. You get to use weapons you unlocked in your story to fight, so added incentive to replay the story... The Zombie mode was also relatively fun and a solid showcase of some more of the combat as you either survived waves or completed mini-missions in an urban arena, but I still felt it was very easy and I quickly got bored.

The Sandbox mode was... eh? Firstly, it is a fantastic way to test and play with everything the engine has to offer, but at the end of the day this mode is just a tool, and one that relies on you having completed the story and gone out of your way to collect everything fun. There are a few sandboxes to play in but personally I was so done with the game by this stage I genuinely didn't find it much fun.

So, what do I think?
I genuinely believe the work that went into building the engine and mechanics for this game should be highly praised (fantastic work Stress Level Zero!), but the story mode is useless. I would have just had the Arcade and Sandbox modes (putting more effort into them), and collect items through challenges, or at least be able to instantly unlock collectables by just interacting with them. I am firm this game is absolutely just a tech-demo for Alyx, and while it has some additional features Alyx doesn't, Alyx does have an open Workshop which honestly means anything is possible at this point. I was disappointed, but possibly only because it was so hyped up.

Alternatives:
- Buy Half-Life: Alyx for a WAY better version of this game or just want this with a solid story.
- Buy Hotdogs, Horseshoes & Handgrenades for better gun mechanics and more weapon features.
- Buy Gorn for dedicated melee combat in an arcade mode with enjoyable unlocks and modifiers.
- Buy this tech-demo if it's super cheap, because it is definitely worth some money and the devs should still be applauded~

This game rekindled my faith in the game industry, in story-telling and world creation, and just in creativity as a whole. It is absolute beauty all the way through, pain-stakingly designed and redesigned to perfection, from the mechanics to the characters, good and bad, all the way across every single little corner of the world. It is difficult, and won't be for everyone, but for those who would enjoy this type of game, it is one of the greatest.

>load http://store.steampowered.com/app/698780/reviews/14470.rv
File 'http://store.steampowered.com/app/698780/reviews/14470.rv' not found.
>load http://store.steampowered.com/app/698780/DDLC.exe
Application 'http://store.steampowered.com/app/698780/DDLC.exe' not found.
>dir s/ >http://store.steampowered.com/app/698780/
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This series, in it's entirety, is a benchmark at every step.
While, on this date, there may be scrutiny about the future of this series, do not let that stop you from taking that first step, because no matter how this story ends, whether with a dramatic finale, or blog post on the net, the journey is a fantastic walk.
Put on your HEV suit, and pick up that crowbar.

http://www.marclaidlaw.com/epistle-3/
https://github.com/Jackathan/MarcLaidlaw-Epistle3/blob/master/Epistle3_Corrected.md

[No to Minimal Spoilers]
I've seen people a-like this to Portal, especially when it first came out. They both have puzzles, a big voice telling you to do things, a deeper meaning, and lasers. And while if you enjoyed Portal you'd probably enjoy this as well, go in with a fresh mind not a comparitive one because this game deserves to stand proud on it's own feet.

A puzzle game that promotes thinking not just about the puzzles but the story. Many questions not just about how to solve the puzzle, but why? Why should I get into the next area? Why should I search for those well-hidden objects? Why should I try to complete this difficult challenge? Because you want to know more. You might find yourself only wanting to learn about certain tidbits of knowledge, or maybe you'll want to know everything there is to know. But curiosity will drive you, hopefully to an ending you will be at peace with.

If you want to think about more than just the well-made puzzle before you, this is the game to do it in.

A beautiful combination of imagination and destruction, thrown together in the vaccum of space.