Chet Faliszek, former Valve veteran and writer for iconic games including Half-Life 2, Left 4 Dead and Portal, has expressed some heavy criticism of the Early Access model this week. Faliszek left Valve a few years ago to start up a new studio, which released its first game, The Anacrusis, into early access last year. …
The Anacrusis lacks many of the things I usually point to when describing what makes a shooter fun. A recent patch made its plasma rifle less of a pew pew pew gun and more of a thump thump gun, and a bit of bass does go a long way toward making the weapon feel less toy-like, but its behaviors remain stiff and simple, as if it's a UI element rather than an object. And despite some recent animation improvements, the alien enemies can come across like holograms that don't truly inhabit the space or feel the impacts of sizzling plasma bolts. I do like that sometimes they're inexplicably launched vertically on death, but the frequency of spontaneous ragdoll lift-offs was sadly reduced by a recent patch.The Anacrusis is fun anyway, which speaks to the strength of its Left 4 Dead bones: When four players are desperately trying to mop up floods of sprinting aliens without being swallowed up, the sophistication of the weapons and enemies doesn't seem as impor