Half-Life: Alyx

[Jamie John]

I just had my first proper shootout. I automatically found myself hiding behind a pillar, with my back to it, turning on my heel to pop out and shoot before ducking back in, ejecting a magazine and reloading. My wife (watching Strictly again) said I looked a prized prat, but man, that felt good!

[Jamie John]

Just got through chapter 5.

 

Spoiler

The hotel area with the lightning dogs. That was great fun. I'm getting huge The Last of Us vibes from all the fungus and spores and so on, which is no bad thing, but the comparison is interesting - Valve definitely seem to have taken a leaf out of Naughty Dog's book when it comes to the design of some of the environments in the interim between this and the earlier HL games; having replayed HL2 earlier this year, from what I can recall, none of this organic alien stuff was really in there, but then I suppose it would have been too graphically taxing back then.

 

Anyway, what a game! I was starting to get a bit fed up with the shooting using the pistol, mainly with the fact that I'm apparently such a rubbish shot, but I've got the laser guide for it now so I'm laughing, especially with my recently-acquired Combine SMG, too. Those bastard headcrabs don't stand a chance 

 

 

Fantastic.

[Jamie John]

I did the bit with

Spoiler

Jeff

this evening, and I left off after two hours play midway through the

Spoiler

zoo area.

 

To quote myself:

 

On 09/12/2020 at 00:01, Jamie John said:

Fantastic

 

[cavalcade]

I think it's very good, for sure. But it's still incredibly VR game the VR game and achingly videogamey in bits. The best of its sort, but I don't think it's transformative tech that'll convince anyone who isn't already convinced by VR. I think the Quest itself is more that - hassle and wire free, slap it on your head, play Pistol Whip or Table Tennis.... I've generally cooled on VR quite a lot as ultimately it's like having a selection box where everything faintly tastes of marzipan. After a while the mechanical and visual tricks all begin to blur into one. But it is sometimes nice to get fully immersed in a gameworld, and the fidelity of Alyx is certainly impressive. 

[Jamie John]

4 hours ago, cavalcade said:

I think it's very good, for sure. But it's still incredibly VR game the VR game and achingly videogamey in bits. The best of its sort, but I don't think it's transformative tech that'll convince anyone who isn't already convinced by VR. I think the Quest itself is more that - hassle and wire free, slap it on your head, play Pistol Whip or Table Tennis.... I've generally cooled on VR quite a lot as ultimately it's like having a selection box where everything faintly tastes of marzipan. After a while the mechanical and visual tricks all begin to blur into one. But it is sometimes nice to get fully immersed in a gameworld, and the fidelity of Alyx is certainly impressive. 

 

Alyx is only the second VR game I've played, but I can see what you're saying. It's very fun but there's still something vaguely superficial about it as well; compared with the non-VR Half-Life games, you're limited in pretty much every respect, from where you can stand in the level, to the number of weapons there are to choose from, to the amount of enemies on screen at once. At times it feels like I'm playing an especially good lightgun game.

 

The pacing feels very different from a non-VR game, too. According to Steam, I've been playing the game for about 12 hours now and I don't feel as if I've really gone that far in terms of the in-game geography I've traversed, whereas when I replayed HL2 earlier this year I'd completed the game in 8 hours. This isn't a bad thing, by any means, but it's certainly different from what I was expecting.

[cavalcade]

I would treasure the experiences you have with VR now as those first few months with the tech are always incredible and transformative and will have you gushing about it to friends and family members. The downsides you're already noticing increasingly become noticeable and there will come a point where that, and the hassle of getting the headset out (because you're tired and can't be arsed wiggling around), will mean it gets relegated back to being more of a novelty in your gaming choices. A great novelty that'll you'll visit from time to time and be momentarily taken with how cool it all is (and ask internal questions of yourself of why you don't play it as much as you used to) but ultimately it'll feel a little bit like chasing a cocaine high. You'll never really recapture *that* moment, which is kind of sad. But it's a great ride getting to that point which I think every gamer should experience.  

[cavalcade]

And yes, I am also saying everyone should take cocaine. 

[fasteasyfree]

Bloody hell this is something special. Picked it up whilst on offer, after intending to get it since launch.

 

I spent ages just throwing bottles and chairs, giggling to myself. The sense of presence is the best I've yet experienced in vr, and if it wasn't for the wife huffing about me wandering in front of the telly for over an hour, I'd still be playing it now.

 

Cracking.

[fasteasyfree]

The combat is something else isn't it? 

 

A far remove from usual FPS encounters, it's fucking nerve-wracking even with a couple of adversaries; the big bastards with machine guns are pretty bloody intimidating.

 

I had a moment earlier where I was hiding behind a ticket booth at a train station, alternating between peeking out and getting off a few triple-bursts, and fumbling for some grenades I'd thoughtfully thrown into the area from the previous one.

 

I had one especially panic inducing incident where I was in a firefight, and ended up smacking the controller on the living room radiator and getting caught in the curtains. My wife thought that was pretty hilarious when I started fighting the drapes and doing the soprano-scale "fuckfuckfuck" song.

 

Talking of which, she filmed me in my pyjamas whilst I was gingerly exploring the environment. I think I encountered a head crab, and after emptying the magazine I must admit I looked pretty cool (set up and garb aside) in how smooth I managed my reload.

 

About an hour and a half is my limit right now, after which it starts getting a bit fatiguing. Looking forward to another stint tomorrow though!

[simms]

Mind blown.  I never thought to do this.  I do wonder if it would work going from one level to another 

 

Spoiler

 

 

[jimmbob]

See, stuff like that is why Valve, when they give a shit are just top of the tree. 

Sigh, maybe one day Gabe will do a George Lucas and flog the lot to Disney or something. We’d have more Half Lives and Portals than you could shake a baby Yoda at then. 

[Jamie John]

51 minutes ago, simms said:

Mind blown.  I never thought to do this.  I do wonder if it would work going from one level to another 

 

  Hide contents

 

 

 

I did that for a while but it just became a pain in the arse, frankly. Maybe it would be more useful on the higher difficulties, but on the default there are more than enough stims and grenades to go around.

 

Still, it's very cool that you have the option!

[fragglerock]

one of the early patches was to correct physics issues caused by people lugging so many grenades etc around in crates!

[fasteasyfree]

I just got the bit where 

 

Spoiler

you have to face multiple lightning dogs and zombies at the same time after dropping down into a no-escape zone. Got absolutely caned the first attempt and decided to call it a day.

 

Looking forward to tonight's attempts at that bit again. 

 

Also: I just found out that you can upgrade all your flippin' weapons, not just the pistol! Bugger.

 

EDIT: Jesus fucking christ. There's also apparently an inventory slot on both hands, not just the bloody gun hand. Looking forward to my second playthrough without having unintentionally handicapped myself!

[sid]

Fucking hell this is good

 

playing on a pretty bang average setup, oculus quest on a link cable , 1080ti.

 

Easily best thing I’ve seen in vr, absolutely superb.

 

has anyone played this on a similar setup and then upgraded eg valve index ? How does it compare?

 

Still a pain in the ass setup wise but definitely worth it

[Parappa]

2 minutes ago, sid said:

Fucking hell this is good

 

playing on a pretty bang average setup, oculus quest on a link cable , 1080ti.

 

Easily best thing I’ve seen in vr, absolutely superb.

 

has anyone played this on a similar setup and then upgraded eg valve index ? How does it compare?

 

Still a pain in the ass setup wise but definitely worth it

Out of interest what processor and RAM have you got? I have heard you can play this on low to medium settings with a GTX 1650 which I have but not purchased it yet to try.

 

I have an i7 4790k so I would be interested to know if there is a chance of running it with my Quest 2. 

[MattyP]

I run it on medium settings on a Ryzen 5 1600, 16GB RAM and a 980Ti card. Think it's mainly the VRAM that you need as it has a lot of textures etc. 

[sid]

14 minutes ago, Parappa said:

Out of interest what processor and RAM have you got? I have heard you can play this on low to medium settings with a GTX 1650 which I have but not purchased it yet to try.

 

I have an i7 4790k so I would be interested to know if there is a chance of running it with my Quest 2. 

i5 7600k

16gb ram not sure speed etc

 

if you’ve got decent wireless router etc I think wireless is possible Via virtual desktop

 

[Parappa]

Thanks might give it a go and see what happens. I have a oculus cable so assume that is always going to be better than virtual desktop? 

[sid]

53 minutes ago, Parappa said:

Thanks might give it a go and see what happens. I have a oculus cable so assume that is always going to be better than virtual desktop? 

I think it’s very close, some reviews saying VD better !

 

no wires is a bonus also

 

but wired is fine, stable.

 

it is mind blowing though, unbelievable. 

[Jamie John]

I played it entirely via VD and it was fine, streaming it from my PC upstairs to my living room downstairs, where there was more space. Being able to play it wirelessly with lots of room trumps any momentary dips in quality you might get from streaming over a wired connection.

[partious]

 I`ve never played HL2 and only a bit of HL1 in my early teens, but I recently picked up a cheap Oculus Quest 1, so when I saw that Alyx was heavily reduced in the sale I couldn`t resist, despite the fact that my PC is definitely way below recommended specs, overclocked ancient i7 and gtx780ti.

Absolutely everything I read online would have given me the impression that it wasn`t going to run at all but I took a chance on it and... a couple of minor graphics settings tweaks later it runs totally acceptably. Smooth enough and massively more impressive graphically than anything I've played on my psvr.

I was getting randomly kicked to the Oculus Quest dashboard at first ,which I thought might be a CPU issue (but seemed odd because the game was otherwise running OK) but turns out I was just using the wrong USB port. After years of owning this PC I have discovered that the red USB ports are in fact faster than the blue ones... No issues since figuring that out.

I`m about 11 hours in now and I`m sure whatever I could say has already been said many times. Amazing game, manages to make me feel like it will be hard to go back to both flat FPS games and also the vast majority of half baked VR games out there. Also, this is the first VR FPS I can play for hours at a time without the slightest hint of nausea. I`m not sure how they`ve achieved that but it`s certainly promising for the future of VR.

[fragglerock]

Fingers crossed it is not just a one and done... but Valve

[Opinionated Ham Scarecrow]

When that white screen slowly fades and you are there, right in the middle of City 17 I had genuine goosebumps. An absolutely insane gaming moment.

[partious]

I just finished the Jeff stage. 

 

Spoiler

Hadn't played the game for a few days because of a mixture of being tired after work and because I'd read people mention "Jeff" so many times I just didn't feel in the mood for a horror stage. I don't enjoy the gameplay experience of stealth games in general and particularly "hide from invincible monster in the dark" games. Also, I've found my tolerance for VR horror quite low in the past (noped out of the RE7 demo on psvr before the game came out and never bought the full game despite all the praise it got, even find Doom 3 on psvr a bit intense, as a couple of examples). So I wasn't pleased to learn that this game had a "hide from overpowered monster that's stalking you" stage. 

 

That said, it was fine in the end. I didn't enjoy the gameplay, as I never enjoy stealth/hiding based gameplay, but at least they didn't overdo the "horror" atmosphere. Despite the impression I had before playing it, I didn't think it was particularly scary in the end. The earlier stage when the flashlight was first introduced felt more like a horror game (although I also respect that they didn't follow that up with any lame jump scares like I'm sure so many lesser VR games would have felt the need to do). 

 

Also, I think the Quest feels less claustrophobic/scary than PSVR for horror stuff because of the lower FOV and the light leakage/ability to see outside the headset around the nose area, which psvr doesn't have.  

 

I'm using the Oculus Quest 1 via USB and the Jeff stage was the first time I've had issues with the motion controls. Trying to throw bottles to specific places was a bit spotty at times, just dropping the bottle instead of throwing happened a few times, as well as giving what I thought was a decent swing and then seeing the bottle land about 3ft in front of me. 

 

[CheekyMonkey]

The Jeff bit was done pretty well I thought - it didn't outstay it's welcome. I thought by far the scariest bit was when you had to run through the ruined building that had headcrabs crawling EVERYWHERE. 

 

I still can't quite believe the impact this game had on me. I was already wowed by VR, I thought RE7 was a genuine revolution for gaming. But this just blew my socks off - and it was on a Quest 1 via virtual desktop with minimum graphical settings on PC.

 

If I had played it on max settings with a Valve Index... oh my... 😍

[Thor]

Jeff was one of the best things in gaming last year.

[MattyP]

This game more than anything has defined for me what the next generation of gaming could be or indeed a move on from what we have.

 

Think the only thing holding this back for VR is space and bulky headsets (although they are much better than they used to be!). The tech will keep getting better though. Going back to a driving game or regular shooter game after the using this feels old no matter how shiny the graphics or famerates are.

[simms]

Just tried the Half life Alyx mod.  Its pretty good. Inspired by John Wick

 

Gunman Contracts - Chapter 1 - The Extraction

 

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2600534901

[simms]

A mod coming for HL:A