I genuinely can’t believe Half Life Alyx is five years old.
No other video game has felt the way Alyx felt. No one else has taken such a bold swing in what a video game can be. It’s burned into my mind as my Half Life game, the one that came out at just the right time for me.
It was also my “pandemic” game. While everyone else was playing Animal Crossing or Doom Eternal, I was playing and replaying Half Life Alyx.
It definitely feels like it’s somewhat doomed to be less remembered in the popular consciousness than most big games that come out, and indeed the rest of the games in the Half Life lineage. Cries of “Half Life 3 when?” still abound in spite of the very clear effort Alyx made to move the story forward. But to me it feels like a game that still hasn’t been topped in the five years since it came out, not by a long shot.
Half Life Alyx received a Game of the Year win from GameSpot, and nominations from a few other publications. When it came to events like The Game Awards with a dedicated “Best VR Game” category, it won handily.
It wasn’t “my” Half Life but it was a damn good one. It felt true to the series and that brought a tear to my eye. The writing, the environments, the soundtrack all felt very Half Life without compromise. I didn’t like that it was a VR title but I understood why they went that route. In 2D, it would probably lack in depth (in more ways than one).
I borrowed a VR set from a friend to play it and bought the game at 60% off, which it frequently drops to. I’d urge anyone who has a VR capable PC to try and play it some way but VR is always going to restrict access to this. I’ll probably play through it in 2d Mode (via mod) some day in the future to try and relive it. And if non-VR is the only way you get to experience it, at minimum, use headphones… and dont go online saying it sucks after because, remember, it was made for VR.
I was really hoping for a PSVR2 port of Alyx, and the timing with a lot of PS games coming to Steam had my theorizing that was a compromise they made with Valve to make it happen but I think that was just wishful thinking now.
PSVR2 works on PC now :)
“But… the future refused to change” – game over screen, Chrono Trigger
I played it last year. It was certainly interesting, though it showed me the challenges of VR games. Before, I always hated the idea of using the teleport feature because it seems cheesy. However, after several tries without it, I can say it’s necessary. You end up feeling very nauseous otherwise. But, as a player you’re just way less capable than non-VR games. You can’t move around as easily and so you can’t take on as many enemies or maneuver as easily around the map. In most encounters with enemies, you can only fight a max of maybe 3, before you start to feel overwhelmed. Even 1 is usually enough to feel stressed and when those saw drones fly at you, you’ll panic and possibly yank a cable or get disoriented and bump into something in the real world. Crouching behind cover and shooting is pretty cool though — possibly the most immersive part.
Hands down the best game I ever played. The immersion is unreal and the ending left me with goosebumps and a dropped jaw.
If you actually want a viable discussion on this game, you’re better off posting this into a virtual reality community as the comments there won’t devolve into salty sour grapes that they couldn’t / wouldn’t play it since “vR iS uh GImAuCk”
Yeah, that would be wise, but by the same token since Lemmy is a bit smaller the amount of people with things to say in those communities would be smaller overall too.
I would lo to be able to justify buying a 1500€ vr set. But using it for one or two games does not make the threshold for me.
I hope they make more really good games so it become justifiable.
I use the 300 dollar quest 2 and stream it?
Get a Quest 3 for like $400 CAD, incredible for its price.
And, lets review where we are: Valve is supposedly making a new Half-Life that will reportedly be both flat and VR.
And their still asking 70+ bucks for it…
It was literally just on sale for $19.99.
Which is nice IF YOU HAVE THE MONEY!!!
Never got to play this as it was never released for non vr players, can’t help but think this terrible decision cost valve a lot of money from potential customers
It was made as a tech demo to show off next gen VR hardware and tracking. Why would they port it?
Well, I got it with my Valve Index but have not played it yet. I feel bad. Just flying around in MSFS 2020 lol
