Lost Coast is out!

[mike-o]

ha, the bumpmapping on the tall rock to the right looks like teeth

i was really impressed. i wish there weren't factories in the background though.

[ishbog]

played thru the first time w/comments, and again w/o. messed w/noclip, looked at brushwork, took screens w/o hud or weap (my current background is a tite shot of the church), etc. ALL IN LESS THAN AN HOUR. so yes, quite short. about 20 minutes to play. but EXCELLENT IN EVERY FORM (*except length).

1. commentaries give excellent information on level design, technology, game design, etc.
2. graphics are BEAUTIFUL
3. HDR
4. graphics look AMAZING
5. really cool gameplay
6. some graphical parts are STUNNING

so yes, play it. buy a new computer to play it on full everything, like me!

my system:

Athlon 64 3500+ Venice, OC'd to 2.42GHz
1GB Corsair DDR400 dual-channel RAM
7800GT OC'd to 471/1190
MSI board w/Soundblaster Live!
etc etc, G5 laser gaming mouse

I ran everything full/high settings, 4xAA, 8xAF. Peaked at 120fps, when looking at a wall corner. averaged at 30fps. I have a KICKASS system, and lost coast sticks its big, hairy, greasy... wont go there. its a graphics whore, and i LOVE banging it! GEYA!

[ishbog]

screens







just of the church, i guess. didnt take any others! its so damn good!

if you guys want a screenshot of any part, with full everything at this resolution, just ask, id love to take more, lol!

[YokaI]

Its a nice bumpmapped texture that rock is Yup indeedy, Thats why more mods need to actualy BUMPMAP their games.

[strait-2-the-point]

wow, played it for abit, its really sexy! not allot of frame rates, but hell it had the wwwwwoooooowww factor! took some screenies too, but it seems as though im too late...

[RSX WHEEEEEE]

the church locked me in

[cur_sed]

--SPOILER ALERT - THERE ARE SOME MINOR 'SPOILERS' BELOW, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK-

Well, I just finished my 2nd 'run through' (In that I was mostly listening to commentary, noclipping around and messing things up the 2nd time). I'm very impressed.
It wasn't any shorter than I expected (they did warn us), and I'm so glad they didn't simply make it a tech-demo borefest, instead choosing to showcase the tech's practical, in-game uses.
The cliff climbing was very well done, and the combine solider rapelling seems to be different to the CP rapelling? it looked much cooler to me. Nice little hidden bits and pieces, and some very cool details.
Difficulty was -perfect-, challenging, but not -hard-, just the way I like it.
The final shoot out with the chopper was nice, especially having it careen into the platform when it dies. Funnily enough, the first time I did that, I must've been standing in the wrong place, because when the chopper hit the platform, it broke up and fell out from underneath me, sending me plunging to my death on the rock below. Which was cool.
The new effects themselves are about what I expected (haven't played DOD yet, but after seeing all the screenies and videos, we all pretty much knew what was coming.) Pretty nice tbh, you can really teel the difference if you turn HDR off then turn it back on.
The commentary ws good in parts (esp the stuff about gameplay from the Australian and the setting/architecture stuff from Viktor whateverhisnameis), but some of the time the people sounded pretty bored. A little enthusiasm would've been nice from some of the guys wouldn't have gone awry, but then again, I guess that's why they're making games and not doing TV voiceovers .

Just a couple of gameplay notes/things to try. First of all grab the Fishermans's spear with the grav gun and chuck it at some combine. It works brilliantly, and is a nice touch. Don't, on the other hand, try to kill a combine soldier with a rock. It takes about 5 shots to take 'em down, which is a little disappointing... I really thought that would work. In the church courtyard, try firing the Rifle's secondary grenade at the scaffolding with the ammo on it... be prepared for about 50 little wooden gibs at once. Very cool. Also, I really enjoyed knocking a bunch of stuff off the edge of the end platform, just to watch it fall the hundreds of metres to the ground below. Finally I haven't tried putting everything in the Headcrab gun yet, but it seems that it's quite easy to jam. first time, I jammed a bucket right in there and it caught on the way up. Second time I just dropped an ammo crate into the bottom of the shaft. Both worked equally well.

Anyway, that's my bit. Enjoy yourselves.

[ishbog]

i think it was just a trigger. it was really easy.

[cur_sed]

hm... just played through another couple of times and found another couple of interesting things.
First of all, the headcrab gun jamming puzzle isn't simply trigger based. I dropped a small shard of wood in there, and the gun just kept on firing. You have to physically jam it up to stop it, it seems.
Interestingly, if, when the metal platform is carrying you down to the ground, you jump off at the cliff path about half way down, you can walk around and see a bunch of frozen combine just standing there in the standard 'arms out' position.
I also found that if you destroy the helicopter before reaching the final platform, it comes back... I only saw it briefly, but after I destroyed the chopper just outside the church (immediately after you leave when the combine break down the door), I continued on and as I reached the platform, I saw a new chopper, and a combine troop transport ship fly off... I'll investigate that further later on.
Finally, I found that it is possible to reach the other side of the harbour without using noclip or any other cheats. If you go up the stairs right after the gate, you reach a spot with a ladder down. climb down the ladder, there's a health pack and a couple of grenades. Now all you've gotta do is go all the way to the far end of the ledge and jump off into the water below. For some reason, the water-leeches won't attack you, and you can swim all the way around the base of the cliff to the other side.... You can get a nice view of the church from there, but other than that, nothing special...
>_> <_< As you may have guessed, I'm a sucker for experimenting/screwing with the logic of a game.

[The-fox]

just finished it i really liked it to bad that my comp cant handle HDR :/ just to be sure that it would run i turned evrything down on low and still the fisherman looked pretty high detail i must say i may give it another spin with medium settings later i really really liked it tho even if it had some minor bugs but as it says its just a techdemo not a real game

[Shr3d]

I swam into the ocean and died hehe. No hdr though :\ I was hoping they would add waves, that would be f'in AWESOME

[Kelikan]

*HIGH PITCHED SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAM*

[Haxel]

Runs great on my system but i ran into a few bugs. The gameplay isnt up to the usual HL2 standard but the graphics were pretty nice.

HDR was conceptualised a long time ago, even as far back as Quake, but never implimented. Its not a bad first attempt, but i cant wait to see what future developements hold.

It might just have been that you need a supercomputer, but the light source of the sun would still be visible for a few seconds when moving behind rocks for me, which made it look like the sun streamed straight through solid rock for a moment. Appart from that, it does look impressive.

So who else wanted to stick around and try the leeches??

[Kremator]

Runs pretty good on my PC, shorter than expected tho...but I really like the launcher thingy.

[Bosco88]

*HIGH PITCHED SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
EEEEEEEEEEEAM*

Unnecessary and innoying, please dont do that. And for lost coast I could discribe as short but sweet. I wish it was longer. The part I liked the best was the helecoptor. I finaly shot it down and i looked away for a few seconds and when i looked back it was right in my face, That scared the crap out of me. I have a question though, does this take place in the middle of HL2 and Aftermath? Or is it just something fun they decided to make.