Half Life: Alyx is Five Years Old Today
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Have you used any other VR headset? I ask just cuz I wanna know how the PSVR2 compares to other headsets.
I've used pretty much all of the headsets on the market. I still haven't tried a Big screen VR headset though
For popular headsets I'd rank them kinda like this
- Valve Index - it's just really old and really expensive now, don't buy one unless you get a hell of a deal on it used
- Quest 2 - Still very very good, screens are getting a little dated now
- PSVR2 - its a little janky on PC but it works fine and the OLEDs are sublime
- Pixmax Crystal - Money not a problem this is the best headset I've tried. The FOV is crazy, displays are beautiful, and tracking is damn near perfect. Its just like $2300 for the whole lot
- Quest 3 - Overall the best headset on the market. Its $570 (just get the pro strap, trust me) and gets you so close to the big boys in screen quality, plus it's wireless, plus it has crazy good passthrough (I use it a lot, most people don't), and streams PC games perfectly.
PSVR2 has really really really good looking displays, but it has some other downsides which really bring it down in the rankings. I'd stay away from it unless you get a deal on a used one, then it would absolutely be worth it.
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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
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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.
And their still asking 70+ bucks for it...
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And their still asking 70+ bucks for it...
It was literally just on sale for $19.99.
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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's not going to be playable wothout vr, because the game is built fully around the vr experience.
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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.
What? Quest 2 is like $250 and it connects to your PC and works just fine for Alyx.
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You could buy a quest 2, connect it to your 5 year old PC and play it just fine. I ran it off a gtx 1070ti with that headset just fine.
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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.
Hands down the best game I ever played. The immersion is unreal and the ending left me with goosebumps and a dropped jaw.
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You’re able to tolerate moving around without teleport? I have a pretty strong stomach and never get sick on boats or planes, but that just completely fucks me up. I can tolerate it for about 20 minutes, but after that I’m ready to hurl.
The trick is to stop as soon as you start to feel nausea. If you keep doing that your body starts to adapt to VR and eventually you won't get nausea except in really extreme experiences.
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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.
Get a Quest 3 for like $400 CAD, incredible for its price.
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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.
Oh, sod off with those posts allready.
I know perfectly well that I'm old, even without those "Hei, didyo know that yu are closer to WW3 than The first single of the Brian Eno"
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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.
Somewhat hot take... I'd argue Boneworks (not Bonelab) was "better", at least if you're used to VR and if you judge by freedom and replay value. Don't get me wrong, playing through Half Life Alyx was fun and engaging, but to me it had little to no replay value, since for all it did great in visuals, audio, accessibility, and especially story, it failed dramatically in physics. Since I played Alyx right after Boneworks, I kept trying to pick stuff up which I ended up not being able to for larger objects, and the first time I tried to knock a Combine over the head with a pipe I was so sorely disappointed. Alyx has absolutely everything Boneworks is missing, yet that physics core is what kept me coming back to the latter. It really clicked for me when I noticed how many things in Boneworks one can solve in alternate ways by "abusing" physics. Climbing is a learned skill and combat can be as much shooting as it can be using knives, fists, shoving someone off a ledge, or grabbing an enemy and throwing it at others. It's what truly made me realize how much potential VR had, being able to interact with a full physics simulation, where even your own body is a physics object, with your physical hands is amazing.
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I think there's a mod for that iirc
There is, yes, but it's pointless. I think some people are missing the point of Alyx being a VR game, the game would suck pretty bad in pancake mode. It's the intricate interactions with the world you simply can't get with a mouse and keyboard that make it special compared to other Half Life games. They didn't just make a regular Half Life game and said "well we're just gonna force this to be in VR now", they made a VR game and set it in the Half Life universe.
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For the same reason N64 games couldn't run on the SNES
Oh I didn't realize connecting a VR headset to my computer made it not a computer anymore
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I tried with that cardboard one but I'm waiting until more controllers become available
IIRC no cardboard 'headset' ever had 6dof tracking. It's about as far as you can get from an immersive VR experience. I say this as someone who bought one before learning about VR and getting a real vr headset.
It's like VR with all of the downsides, even less apps, and the only advantage over a flatscreen being (limited) depth perception.
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It was literally just on sale for $19.99.
Which is nice IF YOU HAVE THE MONEY!!!
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You’re able to tolerate moving around without teleport? I have a pretty strong stomach and never get sick on boats or planes, but that just completely fucks me up. I can tolerate it for about 20 minutes, but after that I’m ready to hurl.
I think I'm just use to the movement style and teleporting is a bit jarring and makes me stumble. It takes a good dozen hours to stop getting motion sick in general. Now I can do it drunk.
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Whoa. A bit off from your point but I was going to say if you could use the psvr2 on pc it would have sold a lot better. Turns out Sony seemingly shadow dropped a pc adapter and now you can!
Honestly if that was a launch feature I would have probably bought one since ps5 doesn’t really have a compelling library for it to be worth it alone. Now I’m too broke to justify it
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Somewhat hot take... I'd argue Boneworks (not Bonelab) was "better", at least if you're used to VR and if you judge by freedom and replay value. Don't get me wrong, playing through Half Life Alyx was fun and engaging, but to me it had little to no replay value, since for all it did great in visuals, audio, accessibility, and especially story, it failed dramatically in physics. Since I played Alyx right after Boneworks, I kept trying to pick stuff up which I ended up not being able to for larger objects, and the first time I tried to knock a Combine over the head with a pipe I was so sorely disappointed. Alyx has absolutely everything Boneworks is missing, yet that physics core is what kept me coming back to the latter. It really clicked for me when I noticed how many things in Boneworks one can solve in alternate ways by "abusing" physics. Climbing is a learned skill and combat can be as much shooting as it can be using knives, fists, shoving someone off a ledge, or grabbing an enemy and throwing it at others. It's what truly made me realize how much potential VR had, being able to interact with a full physics simulation, where even your own body is a physics object, with your physical hands is amazing.
I feel like most people who sing praises for Alyx only do so because it was their first VR game. (a lot of people bought a headset just for it.) It's decent game, but without VR it's nothing special.
Sucks that VR is still a niche product, despite it being an obtainable consumer product for almost a decade now. When the OG Rift and Vive first dropped, I imagined it being as popular as traditional gaming within 5 years. Yet here we are 9 years later and we still don't have epic, 50+ hour AAA experiences in VR because hardly anyone owns a headset. Every VR game feels like an indie title.
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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
There's a no VR mod in the workshop but don't bother because without VR this game is nothing special.
