Well, since this is the Beta 4 first impressions thread, I'll share some with you.
First of all: thanks to the developers, they did a great job. Beta 4 is such a huge leap, incredible! So, here's my impressions, some of them might be "placebo", some of them might concern server owners or be very subjective, also I didnt read the changelog, whatever:
+ great graphics
+ movement & weapons seem to "just work", there's a certain "feels right"- feeling to it that I didnt fully get in 3.1
+ new maps are cool, I (& others) don't really understand aztec until now, but thats gonna work out
+ laser works fine, and although it's very powerful, I dont think its overpowered
+ rocket launcher feels exactly like i remember the N64 original - great work on that
+ playing with or against a high ping now seems to be more accurate; big plus if you still can play decently on eastern US (me being from EU)
- dunno if it's just me, but I can't skip the intro. The hl2.exe freezes as soon as I hit any button during the intro.
- glitches in new maps: "magic white door" on silo, on aztec you can sometimes quickly slip under opening gates/ doors
- having no weapon on "full" servers can be a real vicous circle: respawn->kill: repeat. Server admins gotta take care of their selection of weapon sets and number of players.
- also server admins: don't create weapon sets that include mines, rocket launchers and grenades; thats just VirtualBarbecue with nu fun involved.
In general:
. as much as I like the 16- player action of public servers, I hope that there's also a clan- 1v1/2v2/etc- scene evolving. Perhaps we can have a "get- together" thread somewhere?
. tbh this is the first release of GE:S that I would recommend to anybody who never played GE on N64... it's not just nostalgia anymore, it's a full grown game on it's own. Let's "lure" people into it, so we have full servers all around the world at any given time.
Yea well, my opinions on that (again) great release!